Now that I am one of the working classes again, I value being able to waste an entire weekend to playing and replaying a favorite game. (Carth, did you miss me?) The downside is, Monday hurts, what with my gaming hangover.

Upside is, my co-workers understand. I walked in from the kitchen to overhear one of my colleagues raving about System Shock II, which he had played all weekend. The International News Editor, who sits right next to me, is a WoW addict. He's only four levels away from reaching the cap. There are games around me all the time. We talk about games constantly. What we like, what we hate, and why. I've got three monitors in my cube and they are lit up all the time. I feel like my brain is going to explode from all the stimulation. But of course I think it's great.

I could do - and have done - a lot of different jobs. But this is the first time that a straight office job meshed so well with my leisure pursuits: not only the gaming thing, but the writing thing, which has been my "thing" since the time I was in second grade and composed an epic poem about dolphins. Writing has been my constant companion in times dark and bright. Getting to - having to - do this day in, day out, is challenging, but exhilerating.

I worry sometimes about burnout. When your money-source is also your pleasure-source, you find yourself doing the same thing all the time. I wondered about this in regard to my music-making, also: if suddenly my passion became my job, would I take less pleasure in it? There's something to be said for having the kind of job you enjoy, but which you can leave at the office. Is it suffocating to want to take that work everywhere with you and have it infuse your life? Is that healthy?

But back to the job. There are offices, and then there are offices. I think in general offices with toys are better than ones without.