For those of you who might be newish to this neighborhood, DDIAMFTTS means, "Downtown Denver Is A Lot More Fun Than The Suburbs." It's an acronym I created when I started in this office, four or however many years ago. I'd worked in the suburbs since I moved to Denver and I had no idea how much more entertaining it would be to be downtown.

Karpenters in Kilts! Weird bus advertisements! The Powerball billboard, rising and falling each week, making people who are not me rich! Eight or ten restaurants within walking distance, if I want to have lunch out! Drunks, druggies, and homeless waifs on every street corner! Yes, that's the flavor of Downtown In the Big City.

But. Bernie's made his decision and he's going to move the office to Boulder. It's just not gonna happen for me, okay?

I'm okay with him assuring me earnestly that his public transit commute "to Market Street" is just under an hour every day, but that's from the time he hits the bus stop in Boulder to a place three miles from this office. He's never said how long his whole commute is, so mine would be that, plus the hour or so it would take me to ride MOPT to Market Street, so we're talking two hours minimum, plus however much time I'm going to need to find and ride a bus between the drop-off point and the actual office in Boulder.

I'm not spending four+ hours a day commuting, not even if I'm working from home a couple of days a week. I mean, it's okay for him - he can show up here at 9:30 and leave for home at 4:00. He expects me to be in the office for a minimum of 8 hours a day.

I haven't told him definitely that I'm not planning to follow him on this expedition but I'm going to need to do so on Monday. Which means that a chunk o'time this weekend will have to be devoted to reading the Help Wanted ads. Shudder.

Except that Buehler swears he has "something cooking" and he's threatening to hire me himself again some day soon.

These people love me ever so much more than I love them. (Well, Bernie doesn't love me. I think it's been bothering him recently--he keeps coming into my office and telling me in tones of wonder that this or that client has been saying glowing things about me. He doesn't get it.) It's very flattering, but Buehler's wife Has Money and he can afford to dink around casually and almost part-time at running a business. I do not Have Money and I need a real job that's going to last more than 10 or 11 months.

Had the stock market not tanked.... Were I only dishonest enough to have invested in defense stocks when I knew we were going to invade Iraq....

Your 50s are supposed to be your "peak" earning years. If I could only convince someone to "peak" my salary back to what it was a year ago, I promise I'd save and save and save.

Sigh. Like many of us, I had a dollar figure in mind for my total retirement savings. Before the Big Crash, I was well on my way to making it. Now I'm thinking I might have to take half that and like it. (As long as Bush doesn't actually manage to bankrupt Social Security, I won't be living under a bridge, but that's not saying much.)

I laugh when I remember that I used to plan on retiring at 59 or 60.

Life is hard.