Nothing in particular

Yeah, I got nothing. No witticism, no narrative, no theme. Unless 'no theme' is itself a theme. Whatever. Tonight, I figured I'd just document some of the many random thoughts that go through my head each day.

There are two items I brought with me that I'm extremely thankful I did: My sandals and my Inova keychain LED flashlight. The sandals save me from wearing either my running shoes or my flip-flops to the shower. The flashlight hangs on my dogtag chain, which is why I like it so much. Useful for getting to the bus stop without tripping when I leave work after dusk.

Speaking of work, it turns out the long hours are easier to tolerate when there's no one to come home to at night.

I used to count my steps between my CHU and the latrine, but stopped doing it after a while. I guess I'm not so Monk-ish after all.

I usually enjoy group sports for PT, but the two times I've had PT since I've been here, I've dehydrated to the point of getting a headache which lasted most of the day. I drink a lot of water, but I don't really have anywhere to store it. Such is my lot.

I find that I'm pestered by a low-level anxiety over when the rainy season might start. The dust is bad enough, but I really don't want to deal with keeping my CHU free of mud. OK, maybe I am that Monk-ish.

Morale calls are limited to 15 minutes. There is no warning when your time is about to run out.

My desk at work is not very big, so I rearranged the computers and phones so I'd have more room to make a mess. It worked. The mess is bigger.

I mark time in several ways:
- Every 18 days is 10% of my time here.
- Each week I honcho a briefing for the Deputy Chief of Staff. Each week, I use a new folder to keep my slides. I number the folders sequentially starting with my first one two weeks ago, so when I get to 26, I'm going home.
- I'm on a daily regimen of Oracea, and I brought 180 pills. When the bottle's empty...
- My birthday will be my halfway point.

Ironically, despite the previous list, things really aren't so dreadful, once I get past the fact that I'm away from home. I'm constantly amazed that I'm here, making decisions and recommendations that directly affect warfighters. But not just that, I'm here at a time when we're heavily focused on drawing down so we can turn everything back over to the Iraqis and get our troops back home. So, I'm here during the formative period as Iraq tries democracy for a change. Kewl.

OK, enough brain vomit. Gonna go check in with CinC House. Abi out.