Damn. I really wanted to write a fat new entry because I'm going to be gone all damn week, but I just don't know what to write about that won't bore you to tears. All I've done this weekend is pack and bike. Pack and bike. Pack and bike.

I should be in bed right now, but I don't want to go to sleep because I don't want to get up. Where's the logic there?

Anyway, tomorrow I'm leaving for a week in fun-filled rural North Carolina. I know, I'm dying inside just thinking about it. It's a business trip and I'm freaking out, oh, so quietly.

Tomorrow I have to drive a rental car down to the hotel and meet my boss who is already there. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be spent in fun-filled meetings in various different counties. Thursday night I have to drive myself the billion hours back. Please, Baby Jesus, let the rental car have a CD player. Please.

I don't like business travel. At all. I still shudder in horror when I remember the last time I had to travel for work. See, a few years back I was working for a large, zombie-run, corporation which manufactured plastic film as a component in diapers and sanitary pads. Dude, I know. (Unbelievable but true: there was a conference room at this company which they called "The Pad Room" because they'd pin different types of pads up on the wall for discussion. It's the God's honest truth, y'all. It was also not uncommon to see a male co-worker strolling casually down the hall with a handful of maxis. I never got used to it.)

Anyway, I had to go on two different trips with my boss, who was a nice lady, but she had no interests of any kinds and was, to put it kindly, a social wallflower. We had to go for incredibly dull meetings in incredibly dull places like Lake Zurich, IL and Terra Haute, IN. We had to sit in on several six-hour-long meetings, in which plastic film was discussed, and pads were passed around and stroked for softness. One of the meetings was held in an airless, windowless, plastics factory conference room, which was where I was when food poisoning hit. Oh my GOD.

I had to drive myself back to the hotel, where I proceeded to be the most miserable girl on earth for 24 hours. I was alone, in a hotel room in rural Illinois, puking my guts out. I wanted to die. My boss? Did nothing. She didn't even offer to get me meds.

The next day, still weakly and nauseous, I had to take a tour of the plant. Let me tell you, there is no fun like a plastics plants. None at all. It smells good too. When I got home from that business trip, I walked in the door, dropped my bags and started weeping. I've never been so happy to be home in my whole life.

So yeah, maybe my experience with business travel has been worse than most, but you can see why I'm adverse to it, right? I'm a real whiner, aren't I? At any rate, I'll be back on Thursday night and maybe I'll have some good stories to tell. You never know.

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