If I can make this interesting enough to read, I must be doing something right.

They say being an outside salesman is the loneliest Job in the world. Tomorrow I have to head on one of the very few trips I take for work that require me to stay overnight somewhere that isn't my home. I'm not a fan of these trips, so it is good they aren't frequent.

There are many people that spend most of their working lives living out of suitcases, in motels and hotels. Sleeping in freshly cleaned sheets every night, in a bed made by a stranger, surviving on restaurant food and take away coffee made by people they'll never meet. Never being able to smell the pillow next to them before they drift off into dreams Publish of the times that scent takes them too. I don't think I could live like that, but I admire those that can do it and keep their sanity.

There are good things too, like those moments that can only happen when you aren't with anyone else. When you have nothing to do but really focus on your surroundings, and the people within them. I cherish those more then I dread the hours surrounding them.

The old couple, having breakfast in the early am, who never say a word to each other all meal, but somehow know exactly when the other needs a new section of the paper, and pass it, like a perfectly choreographed dance across the table as the other passes one back.

Couples out for lunch, new and long established, sometimes forming right before your eyes. The business people, tight collared, trying to say just enough, but not too much, trying to please everyone, but not be overzealous. Then there are the other "business" lunches, where the tension is always quite obviously of a different breed.

There are the dinners with many friends, but I especially watch those old and loyal, and imagine being a part of 40 years from now. I picture us all replacing those weathered faces creased with deep smile lines seated around those tables, and think about how lucky I am, and will be even many years down the road.

I also watch those other business men, eating quietly, quickly and usually far too much, staring only at their plates. I wonder if time and routine has robbed them of the gift of observation, or if they ever had it at all. I wonder if they listen like I look, and hope they do, otherwise, it would be the loneliest job in the world.