Bedlam 2014

Continuing a holiday tradition I started in 2011, I'm devoting my final post of the year to a summary of where I laid my weary head each night.

I refer 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 spent 226 nights in my own bed, a whopping 62% of the time, up sharply from 185 last year. Even taking into account that I missed a week of travel in December due to my strained lower back, it appears I'm trending toward being more of a home body in my dotage.

o  I slept with my wife 235 nights, or 64% of the time—which was nearly double the total from the prior year, and was one of the main motivations for our moving into the same house a year ago. It nice to know that strategy was successful. (Of course, I wasn't in exile pending divorce for any of 2014, so that helped, too.)

o  I was guested by clients 13 times for a total of 48 nights, which was down slightly from the year before.

o  I stayed with family a meager 17 nights—less than half of 2013. The main difference was seeing my kids markedly less. There was only a single visit to each in '14 (Ceilee and my grandkids are in Los Angeles; Jo is in Las Vegas) where there had been three each the year before. I'll be trying to manifest more work out West in the coming year.

o  I had 47 overnights with friends, which is about normal.

o  I traveled to attend FIC meetings and events enough to claim 20 nights.

o  I managed to stay in a motel overnight a mere four times, which pleases me (at this point in my career as a consultant and community networker I know folks almost everywhere, obviating the need to pay for a bed).

o  I slept on a train 17 times.

o  While mostly I was in a bed with a real mattress, 17 times I slept on couches, and 13 times on air mattresses (kinda like camping in someone's living room).

o  All together I spent the night in 38 different locations away from Rutledge, encompassing 18 states and one province, plus all four time zones—all of which is about average.

No sooner have Ma'ikwe and I gotten used to living together—all of 2014, no less—but we'll be branching out into new territory as road warriors in 2015. Ma'ikwe will not be doing as much facilitation teaching with me as she experiments with giving sustainability talks on university campuses. Last year I only spent 21 nights at home while Ma'ikwe was elsewhere; next year that may double. 

We like to tell people that there's nothing like simple country living—and believe me, the way Ma'ikwe and I do it is nothing like simple country living.