Bedlam 2012

This is my final post for 2012, and I'm going to use it the same way I did last year: to review where I've lain my weary head this calendar year [see Bedlam 2011 for my prior entry in what now appears to be an annual event, and refer to Sleeping in the Bed I Made for my inaugural posting on this obscure topic].

I like referring to this as bedlam because: a) I'm on the road a lot and have a chaotic and confusing distribution of sleeping arrangements; b) some think that my travel schedule is prima facie evidence of mental illness; and c) I have a congenital weakness for word play.

So here's the summary of where I was when the lights went out each night:

o I slept in my own bed at Sandhill 85 times, down by nearly half from last year, largely due to my having spent the first three months of the year at Dancing Rabbit, experimenting in cohabitation with my wife. That represents 23% of my nights.

o  I spent 98 nights with Ma'ikwe at Moon Lodge, her house at Dancing Rabbit. That's an additional 27%. Plus there were 30 nights we spent together on the road, and five nights together at Sandhill. Taken all together, we were in the same bed—wherever it was—36% of the time, up 10% from the year before, so that's progress.

o  It's amusing to note that if you add up my nights at Sandhill and my nights at Moon Lodge, 85+98=183, which is exactly half of the 366 nights available this year. I've been telling people I'm on the road 60% of the time but I reckon I'm more of a home body than I thought.

o I slept at clients' homes (usually in guest rooms) 14 times for 47 nights in total—pretty close to the same as last year.

o I slept at the house of family members seven different times, for a total of 28 nights.

o I slept at 21 different friends' homes for a total of 45 nights.

o I slept 11 times at places associated with FIC meetings or events, totaling 36 nights.

o  Only once did I end up in a hotel (when the Empire Builder arrived too late into Chicago to make my connection home and I inadvertently woke up Thanksgiving morning in downtown Chicago).
 
o I was on overnight trains 24 times and once took a red eye from the West Coast to the East Coast.
 
o Most nights I was in an actual bed. Only two nights were spent in tents, four on couches, and 15 on air mattresses. (I'm noticing as I get older that my hosts are more solicitous of finding me a bed—and I'm not complaining.)

o All together, I slept in 52 different locations outside of Rutledge (up sharply from 39 last year), which placed me in 20 states and every continental time zone—and that's only counting the beds that weren't moving across state lines while I slept.

While I've always wanted a life that was full of moving experiences, it was not always clear to me that I'd be moving around so much to accumulate them. As an ardent fan of whimsy it amuses me to realize that my life has become an enactment of a Dr Seuss title: Oh, the Places You'll Go!