I am off on location again tonight and tomorrow.  Thankfully, this is a “quickie”.  Volume has been low enough on this particular study that I can get done what I need to get done with a solid working day.  Which means I fly out to location this evening and fly home tomorrow evening at the same time.  When I can, I try to minimize the time I spend away from my family, grueling as it makes the ensuing 30 hours. 

Since this does entail spending six hours of travel time on the clock today, I took the morning off and spent it with my son.  We had a grand time.  We colored.  We painted.  We played with playdough.  We went a round with the swing.  And we watched a bit of “Dora” together on the couch.  And in between I also managed to get a little light housecleaning done (Note to self – call maid service upon return).

But these mornings of quality time are not the only side-benefits to travel.  As much as I adore my friends and family (and I absolutely LOVE having company), there is a level of isolation that my personality type absolutely requires to maintain any semblence of serenity.  I am, by nature, a solitary, self-contained person.  I need time alone in my own head.

Work travel is a near perfect vehicle for that need.  I generally travel alone, or with a single coworker of similar temperament (my job tends to attract a certain kind…).  Airports and airplanes are the perfect place to catch up on my reading.  In fact, I can usually complete 2 to 3 novels in an average business trip.  While I miss my son and husband horribly in the evenings on the road, there is an element to my travel that I look forward to with hungry anticipation -  mental silence.

Unfortunately, there are two varieties of business traveler.  One class are those like myself.  Hired professional contractors, of all stripes and varieties, who are in to do a job and out again.  While not as generally antisocial as I am, they are focused and businesslike, and self-contained.

The other are the sales and marketing types.  They are, almost without exception, outgoing and loquacious people who view each expedition as an opportunity to broaden their circle of acquaintances and their network of potential marks, uh, I mean clients.  These people are the bane of my traveling existence. 

They inevitably want to talk.  Worse, they are inevitably inquisitive.  This presents several problems.

1. My work is, by and large, confidential.  I can only discuss what I do in the general terms.  I cannot, under any circumstances, discuss my clients by name.
2. I am an intensely reserved person with people I do not know.  I don’t really feel the need to “share”.   Even though I am absolutely,  insanely crazy about my son, and think he is the most beautiful, intelligent and brilliant baby on the planet, I have no desire to discuss his merits with an over-scented, overdressed advertising executive.  Really, I don’t.  I have my blog and all you lovely people to suffer through those urges.
3. And, as my acquaintance with the person in the seat next to me is to last at most two hours (unless something really annoying or tragic happens), I have no desire to know about the exploits of their offspring, either.  The exception to this is older women with white hair and tote bags who want to show me pictures of their grandchildren.  I was taught to respect my elders.
4. In case you haven’t noticed from 2 and 3, I really don’t have a need to connect in any social way beyond giving my drink choice to the flight attendant.  In fact, I actively wish to AVOID such contact.  I want, for those few precious hours, to be blissfully, wonderfully alone.  With my book.  Or my iPOD.  Or my Nintendo.  Or whatever mindless escapist activity I am indulged in that particular moment.

I am certain I have given up invitations to stay at exotic locales in some executive’s summer-home, who I might have struck up a friendship with on a delayed flight to Cinncinnati.  Or the chance to negotiate a contract with a Big Pharma recruiter while sipping my Diet Coke and eating my airline peanuts.  Or being given free tickets to a major league ballgame or a traveling Broadway play as I coasted in for a landing in Atlanta. 

I am completely okay with that. 

I have two unfinished books in my briefcase.

So, if you happen to be traveling, and you see a slightly-taller-than-average woman on the younger side of forty, with waist-length red hair and blue eyes, wearing a pressed blouse with jeans, sipping a coffee and carrying a leather satchel, do me a favor.

Leave me alone.