Saturday 22nd 2006f April 2006

A Tremendous Amount of Pain

Permanent Link
A , posted by Anthony around mid-afternoon.

One of the perks of my job is a free Gym membership. There’s a branch just across the road from the office. They even pay towards a personal trainer for a number of sessions. I have suddenly availed of this, and as a result I have put myself in terrible, terrible pain. I’ve been lifting things, and pushing things, and pulling things. I’ve arranged myself in arcane torture equpiment and been twisted and stretched.

I first bought myself some runners and showed up about three weeks ago, on a Thursday. I met my trainer and he took me through my paces – or rather, his paces. They were entirely unfamiliar to me. I had been afraid I’d get someone who’d just get all R. Lee Ermey on me – I wouldn’t have reacted well to that. Luckily the guy I got is pretty young, so it’s impossible to take him seriously as an authority figure. I think he recognizes this and so keeps the inspirational speeches to the minimum. In the first session he gave me the old “I know, it’s hard. You work at a desk all day, it’s hard. Believe me, I know.” I just looked at him. He doesn’t know! That first session was pretty exhausting. As I left, he told me he’d give me a call the next day and see how I was doing.

I woke up on Friday in a tremendous amount of pain. With difficulty, I made my way into work. He called me to see how I was, and I told him I was in a tremendous amount of pain. He told me that that was to be expected. He also tole me that it might be worse tomorrow.

He was right. I had to adjust my concept of what a tremendous amount of pain was. I literally couldn’t move my arms. It really put a crimp in my weekend. It seemed like everybody was telling me that the pain would lessen each time, until it eventually became pleasurable – even fun. They have been in right in that the pain following each session has been dimishing, but it’s still a long way from approaching anything resembling something I could possibly refer to as coming close to an activity I could in my wildest imaginings describe as remotely similar to any reasonable idea of “fun”. My next session is on Monday.

For the past two Fridays I’ve been heading after work with some colleagues to a bar called The Vasmay Lounge. It’s never that full, there’s free shots with every beer on a Friday and there’s a pool table, but the best thing about it is the Jukebox. It’s all old Rock and Punk music. I never knew I was such a big fan of AC/DC. It’s just thing for headbanging out the stresses of the week.

One of my old mentors and former bosses Doug Murray has been in New York recently (the information in that link isn’t entirely accurate – there are two Doug Murrays working in sound and their credits have been conflated. Just ignore the ADR and Foley ones). He’s been working on the new Milos Forman movie. He’s been pretty busy so I haven’t seen him much. The last time was Wednesday when he got myself and m’colleague Ian in to see the first preview. Like this guy I won’t say anything until it’s released. Except that Javier Bardem is freaking awesome. Doug is leaving around now. Thanks, Doug, and enjoy Paris!

Also in town were my Godmother Mary McHugh with her husband John and her daughter Isabella. They took me to dinner on Sunday. We went to a Japanese restaurant called Yakitori Taisho on St. Mark’s Place. It’s the only place I know that serves liver sashimi, which it always makes me feel very cosmopolitan to eat.

It’s always strange to see people I knew from Dublin in New York – it gives me a fresh perspective, as if I’m seeing the city anew. It’s great. It’s amazing what you can learn to take for granted.

Back to Top

Tuesday 11th 2006f April 2006

A Note From Eleanor

Permanent Link
A , posted by Anthony in the evening.

Eleanor has finally come through with her report of her visit. I will hand over to her after this picture.

Ultrasound

So as you can see from the picture it wasn’t just me that made the trip from Cheshire to New York, I was accompanied by my little baby-in-potenitia as well. ...

Show the other 530 words.

Ooh, 16 Comments »

Back to Top