Enjoying early retirement — at 28

After losing his demanding and time-consuming job, 28-year-old Rodney Rothman decided he'd had enough of working. He packed his bags and headed to South Florida on early retirement. Forty years before society mandates it, he played shuffle board, moved in with a woman in her 60s and went on gambling cruises. In his new book, "Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement," this former writer for comedian David Letterman tells the humorous story of his time with senior citizens. Read an excerpt.

I lost my job in January. The television show I was working on was canceled. I've been raised to believe that losing your job is a bad thing, but I am more relieved than disappointed. I've been working seventy hours a week for the better part of a decade. I've spent more time in my office chair than I have in my bed. My wrists twitch. My back throbs. My butt hurts. When I close my eyes, I see a blinking keyboard cursor. I'm twenty-eight years old, and far too many of my memories involve me sitting in my office after midnight, tasting every quarter-filled coffee cup on my desk until I find the one that is still a little warm.

Now I'm off work and I don't care. I may not be a coal miner, but work is work, and I need to stop doing it for a while. I don't know what I want to do next. Everyone says I should make lists of what my priorities are and see where that takes me. It's nice sometimes to be told what to do. I try making lists of "important things," and "life goals," and "meaningful values." I take long walks, praying for epiphany. Epiphany does not come, so I get pizza instead.

Being unemployed makes everyone around you nervous. Nobody knows what to say to you. At parties and dinners, making small talk, you're always supposed to be doing something, or at least up to something. "So what are you doing? What are you up to?" they start to ask, once a few weeks have passed.

I tell them I'm "off work" or "taking time off," terms I've come to resent because they remind me that I'm supposed to be "on." Years ago, people would call this "taking a vacation," which had a nice, assertive ring to it, but nobody I know calls it that anymore. The first place I vacationed was Florida, to visit my grandparents. It blew my eight-year-old mind. The snowstorms and school-yard fights of my typical New York February were far away. My family rented a convertible and drove around as an actual family for once, listening to bad radio like Lionel Richie. But down in Florida, I learned, Lionel Richie sounds good! I'd get sunburned, and my grandmother would call it "healthy color." I would sleep on the world's only comfortable cot, listening to the ocean through the window screen, and my head would sing: Yeah! Jambo Jumbo!

"I'm Jewish," I say to myself one day. "I'll end up retired in Florida anyway. Why not get a head start and check it out?"

My friends say the whole plan sounds neurotic. My family agrees, and also wants to know if I have a date yet for my sister's wedding.

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