My body is past its 'use by' date

If this is Saturday, then I must be in Al-Kut. I’m starting to feel like I’ve been on a one-week, 10-city tour. Actually, I have been on a one-week, 10-city tour.

We went from Seattle to Chicago; to Amman, Jordan; to Baghdad; to As Samawah; to Nasiriyah; to Az Zubayr; to Basra; to Umm Qasr; back to Basra; to Al-Kut.

The almost nonstop, nonsleep travel is starting to take its toll. Today we discovered that our satellite phone batteries and our laptop batteries were dead, coincidentally enough, at the same time that I discovered my body was past its “use by” date.

Dan asked me to cc the photo desk this afternoon while I was reporting in to the national/foreign desk and it took me five minutes to type in the right email address.

It’s nothing that a good 8 hours of sleep can’t cure, and considering what a great thing it is just to be here, doing what we do, I shouldn’t complain. But still I do.