It gets harder and harder to leave each time I have to go. I pack early, so that I have time to wander the house and pass all the things I forgot to stuff into my suitcase, like my phone charger, or extra socks. But then once I'm packed and everything is loaded into the car, and all the directions are printed out from MapQuest and I've double-checked that the house is ready to be left, I get antsy. I want to be on the road right away. It's as if somehow there's something in my brain that insists that the sooner I get there, the sooner it will be over and I can come home.

Or in other words, I'm getting awfully tired of business travel. I've been doing this for far too long. I spent five years doing business travel for the Big Fish, and before that the Little Fish. And then I had that lovely year off from any travel except travel that *I* wanted to take, back when I was working for the Company to be Nicknamed Never. That year off makes it awfully hard to go back into it when I had finally started to believe that I would never have to do it again.

At first I tried to console myself with the fact that it's mostly within driving distance, so at least I'm not dealing with airport hassles, and car rentals, and all the time and trouble that entails. And when we took this job, Richard and I both rationalized our dislike of business travel with the fact that we were told that we would be partnered together as often as they could. Company policies, however, have squashed that promise completely so I don't even have that hope to fall back on. And as the counties slowly roll out this new system, we will be required to travel further and further from home. Already there is talk of having to stay over the weekend at some sites, and I know that as the counties get further north and further south, these trips are going to last longer and longer. It's going to get worse the longer I have to deal with this, and no matter how much I or anyone else tries to convince me otherwise, business travel sucks. Maybe some hotel rooms are nicer than others, and some hotels are located near a better selection of restaurants. But the plain truth of the matter is that it sucks, and the rest only ends up making the best of a bad thing.

I am sending out resumes, here and there when I get the chance and see something promising. I even sent out a resume to the Big Fish since they're looking for a Technical Writer, although the position would require an incredible amount of commuting to make it work. I am simply ignoring the issue that will inevitably arise should I actually get an interview out of any of these queries when I'm on the road for weeks at a time. I will deal with that when the time comes. I don't know how. All I know is that I will find a way.