It's off to work I go.

Yep, after long months of unemployment I've finally suckered some hapless fool info offering me gainful employment for, as usual, more money than even my mother thinks I'm worth.

It's not that my mother isn't fond of me you understand. I guess it's just that after you've raised a child who spent the first twenty years or more of her life wandering around aimlessly, never quite connecting with what was happening around her, it comes as a shock to discover that employers are willing to offer fairly generous salaries for her to come and...do whatever it is that she does. My mother isn't quite certain what it is that I do. I think she was happier when I was a secretary. The money was lousy, but my mother understood what a secretary was.

In any case, this is not about my mother. It's all about me, me, me and the fact that I'm no longer swelling the ranks of the unemployed. (Any additional unemployment benefits originally earmarked for me can now be redirected to some hapless WorldCom victim. 17,000 employees, all headed for the unemployment line in a few days. It's sad.)

I don't usually have this much trouble staying on topic when the topic is me.

Anyhow, after four full days of gainful employment, I've already learned a few important facts.

#1 - Downtown Denver Is A Lot More Fun Than The Suburbs. In fifteen years of working in the suburbs, not one stoned-out homeless person ever hit me up for a quarter to take a bus ride. On my fourth day of downtown employment I finally had this first-in-a-lifetime experience. Bums, hobos, and potential criminals abound on our street corner. It's just so urban, you know? I was thrilled.

But I didn't give him a quarter. I'm not that dumb. (Not any more, anyhow. Remind me someday to tell you about the gypsy cab in Los Angeles.)

#2 - Downtown Denver Is A Lot More Fun Than The Suburbs. On my third day of employment I was treated (while at lunch) to the sight of not one, not two, but three charming young men attired in gray tee-shirts and tasteful red and gray plaid kilts. When I got my eyes up that far, the back of one shirt explained that I was seeing Karpenters In Kilts.

I've been racking my brain for two days and haven't come up with any karpentry projects that need done in my apartment but I'll keep thinking.

#3 - DD Is A LMF Than The Suburbs - There's a coffee shop across the street from my office. The charm lies in the fact that everyone in the office seems to take it for granted that I should want to wander out of the office once or twice a day in search of a fresh latte.

#4 - DDIALMFTTS - For years I've worked in outlying areas where the closest lunch spot was a choice of two or three overcrowded restaurants located three or four miles away down an overcrowded street. Now in a one-block radius, I have two fast-food Mexican restaurants, one fast-food Japanese, a Noodle Bowl, a Subway, A burger King, and no doubt several others I have yet to discover. There's a rumor of a bagel shop close by that I need to track down, too.

#5 - DDIALMFTTS - So far, I've found two decent ways to commute home. One forces me to drive past my favorite bookstore. The other forces me to drive past my favorite used-book store. Life is good.

#6 - DDIALMFTTS - Forget what you hear about the high cost of parking. My new position comes with free, covered parking. I'll be loving that next winter. My desk also sits next to a window that offers an amazing view of the Front Range.

What? The job? What job? With all of these benefits, what does the job actually matter?