(FORTUNE Magazine) – You know what creeps me out? (Well, lots of stuff, but let's stick to retirement here.) It's when I get the statements from ye olde Social Security Administration that declare something like, "Here are your monthly benefits when you retire in the year 2038." Excuse me, but 2038!?! That's not a checkout date. That's a star date. And believe me, dear Street Life readers, this particular "captain's log" will be long packed up by then. The bureau-cats in D.C. can trot out all the actuarial mumbo jumbo they want, but no way does it have anything to do with my big plans for the future. Tiger Woods tearing up the seniors' tour? Trust me, that will have plenty more bearing on my lazy afternoons than figuring out what sort of punctuation to put in my columns! (Come to think of it, that's never really been one of my big concerns anyway...)

You bet I want to retire early. Real early. Like if you don't see a column next issue, you'll know it's already quittin' time. Actually, it's not going to end like that. My leaving the work force won't be so abrupt--unless the AOL guys get me! The truth is, I'm planning to peter out over the next several years. Maybe serve as some kind of not-so-elder statesman to the FORTUNE salt mine, filing the occasional piece about shuffleboard hideaways or "The Great Lighthouses of the Caribbean." (Obviously, I'd have to spend most of the year reporting that one.)

But I'm jumping ahead here. Let me give you Street Life 101 about retirement. Or I should say: my retirement. I've thought about this for some time now, and the single most important factor when it comes to quitting the daily grind is that it's on my own terms. I don't want to work 17 more years because I have to get over some mortgage hump, or finish funding the Street Life kids' grad school tuition (get a job, sweetie!), or even hit a 401(k) or option-vesting bogey. I want to work for as long as it feels good. And I sure can't see keeping this pace up forever! So at some point down the road, I'll ratchet this sucker down and take it from there.

The trick, I've always thought, is to gin up some kind of natural rebalancing of the work/play (or should I say play/work!) mix. Now the only way to get away with this kind of outrageous behavior, of course, is to make yourself so invaluable that the big dogs have no choice but to say: "Ahh, sure, A-man, whatever you want. Just don't leave." (Don't we all wish!) But more than that, I figure, it's really about understanding your wants and needs, and matching them with those of the org at which you work. Got to avoid fantasyland here. As in: "Oh, I've just got to run marketing for our optical networking division for the next 20 years, and I'm sure they'll let me do that." Trust me, honey, they won't. And even if they would, optical networking will be long gone by then.

As for the almighty dollar, well, sure, that's an issue. The issue. You never really know, of course, but I've always maxed out those company savings plans and put money aside, so I'm hoping I won't be flipping burgers with Dave Thomas down at Wendy's. (That's his retirement?) And by the way, it's never too late to start saving. I mean never. Best advice I ever got was, "Save till it hurts!"

So, try to make your mark now. Gather your chips. Buy those zero-coupon bonds (what ever happened to them?) and that Broadcom stock for the kids. Then ease back and set sail. Literally, even. That could be our retirement bon voyage: Mrs. Street Life (the beautiful woman shown here) and I might just slip off into the sunset by sail. Think about it. We'd go from New Year's in Rio to Mardi Gras to the Cannes Film Festival and back to NYC in time for July 4. The world's greatest parties--by boat! (I'm telling you, Mrs. Street Life has a wild streak!) And that's just the Atlantic side! Over on the left side of the map, I'll be doing due diligence on my Castle & Cooke stock. Then Fiji. A two-week restaurant binge in S.F. Potlatch with some buddies up in SeaTac. And then a nature thingie in Baja. (Be interesting to see if the kids decide to live far away from the coasts, won't it?) And again, you want to do this stuff before you get too old. Don't want to be like one of those geezers at someone's wedding, dancing to "Borderline."

By the way, one thing that really gets me excited about the future is that I think we'll be kicking back just as wireless broadband is going full bore. Hey, sorry to sound like such a geek, but superfast wireless e-mail and Internet will be really cool to have while cruising the Patagonian coast or exploring some Syrian ruins. We've always wanted to see some good ruins! The Web. A boat. And us. Sounds like a humdinger to me. Course, I'm just bourgeois enough to admit that a house or two in Maine and Bermuda would be pretty tasty too.

That's the glory of it, right? My idea of retirement is just to go out there, relax, enjoy, learn, e-mail, surf (Web and waves), eat, drink, and never worry about the future again. Because as George Allen said, the future is now. And by the time those Social Security checks come rolling--make that trickling--in (if they come trickling in), you'd best believe that I'll already have been around the world thrice.