What Time is It?

In some alternate world I’d be a corporate tycoon with an army of assistants and a private jet.  Or maybe an artist, throwing pots at my workshop in the woods and seldom finding a reason to go into town.

But in my current reality I’m neither, and so right now I’m happily hunkered down in the bar of the airport Sheraton in Amsterdam drinking coffee, delighted to have found a comfortable seat next to a power outlet.  Ah, simple pleasures of a postmodern world.  I’m here, in one of my favorite cities in the world, for five hours until my flight to Barcelona.

I’m in my fourth timezone in five days, not quite halfway through a business trip that’s so far had me, randomly, visiting the coolest art-filled house I could imagine in Atlanta and dodging ice falling from buildings in Chicago.  Getting from Atlanta, where there were tornado warnings, to Chicago, where there was a massive snowstorm, took ten hours on Wednesday--two hours longer than it took to go from Chicago to Amsterdam.  I marvel at the fact that I made it to Chicago at all given that over 1,000 flights were canceled.

Despite my resolution to travel less in ’08, by the time I get home I will have been on the road nearly half of this new year.  Thankfully, I love what I’m doing and am being diligent about scheduling downtime:  A weekend getaway with Dia has been calendared and we’ve started planning a trip to (we think) Brazil next winter.  I return to Seattle for a three-day weekend which will involve napping, exercising, and hopefully cavorting with friends.

Later, I’ll let my mind wander to thoughts of strolling the beach at Ipanema, but now I focused on preparing for one of the busiest weeks of the year that, to my delight, will periodically feature one of my absolute favorite foods. 

I am a simple animal.

Update: Posted from Barca.

Comments

[Mark F]

We appear to be chasing each other. I was in Atlanta two weeks ago and I just got back from Prague Saturday (with a long layover in Amsterdam). I too am vowing less travel in the coming weeks. I have only been home for 18/42 days in 2008. I'm ready to take a break.