First, choose a place to live.

It took me a week to find somewhere I thought I'd be happy to live in Denver. Finally I opted for an place in a u-shaped apartment house like the one pictured here (but not half as nice) built around a courtyard - a style which seems to have been very common in Denver in the early years of the last century. They can look so tranquil, especially if you view them in the middle of a rainy day when everyone has their windows firmly closed or is out at work. But in the middle of the night, and at the weekends... well, I keep thinking that those Edwardians (for want of a more American term) were lucky that there were no cell phones which could be taken onto the balcony; but then I begin to imagine the grating tinny noise of the neighbours' gramophones.