Over the past week or so I’ve started envisioning what the book I’ve been wanting to write, about diners, greasy spoons, coffee shops, and truck stops, is going to look like. Previously I had no real idea. I figured maybe it would be a laundry list of various places I’d been, some anecdotes to tie them together–and it was about as shapeless as that sounds. But I thought up a title, and for me that’s the hardest part of anything I write. “Meetings With Remarkable Men.”

I have spent many hours of my life at cafes, usually drinking drip coffee, eating bad diner food, talking about the world. In a way it doesn’t matter who you’re with, so long as they’re just as committed to the adventure. I’ve had hours-long conversations with people I barely knew and people I’ve known forever, gone home with my voice cracked from talking so often, my hands shaking from the caffeine. It’s a neutral ground for stories. A haven from the real world.

I keep going back because it’s always a new experience. You come home with new stories. You feel like you’ve accomplished something. The experience tends to fade with time though. It’s time I started capturing the moments forever.