Posts Tagged ‘Gym’

I know I said I was going to get to a couple posts yesterday, maybe do a little catch up on the week; but yesterday was a pretty heavy duty (but excellent) work day. So I went with the full post on the meeting with the lawyer last night, instead of just the Randoms post. This is actually one of my favorite posts, weekly, thus I still try to get it in – even on Saturday. This edition comes to you from the front patio at the Coffee Bean on Wilshire in Santa Monica, just blocks from the Third Street Promenade and the Pacific Ocean. It’s a partly sunny, breezy 66 degrees – a little cooler her in Santa Monica thanks to the ocean breezes. Just another day in paradise.

Here we go:

- Got our 434 assignments for the quarter yesterday in what I believe was the fastest time in the three years that I’ve been here. I’m in a Thursday section with John Sweet, who wrote the Hilary Swank vehicle, The Affair of the Necklace. He seems quite invested in teaching at the moment, has worked and gotten something made, is on the younger side, and is laid back. So, I’m quite happy. John is relatively new, so he was a bit of an x-factor, but I only pitched him (which is not a good strategy and was unplanned) and after I knew he was my number one – so it all worked out.

- Everyone’s talking jobs. Because it’s looming. Strange to say this, but I haven’t really worked – worked (for a steady paycheck) in about three years. So, I have a little trepidation about what I’m going to need to do to bridge the gap between the end of school and the actual start of this career, which I am feeling fairly confident should happen sooner, rather than later (within a year, as opposed to another five years.) And therein lies the rub, especially since Jason and I partnered up, the train has truly left the station. We are all systems go towards life as working writers. But that’s not something – the when of achieving that – which you can set hard dates for. So planning around the unknown, leaving room for the work that needs to keep happening to keep the train moving towards the right destination, is tricky and always seems to be a work in progress or demands unforseen sacrifices. It’s not like I haven’t been, to some degree, here before. I think that’s where that trepidation comes from, the deja vu of it – those there’s a much more positive light at the end of this tunnel.

- That being said, Jason and I turned in the outline for Dead Man’s Hand at Nala/Right Brain Films, yesterday at about 4 p.m. – basically with barely an hour to spare. The outline came in at an extrmely muscular 31 pages – but puts us in a great place to right the draft from. Hear from Alan first thing this morning, that seven pages in, he was deeply impressed with it – the detail, the care in putting it together, how we had really brought the story to life. That was good to hear after a long, hard, but quite satisfying week of work putting it together. We did a lot of work in those story-breaking meetings in their office with Alan and Seth, so it really bore fruit in the outline.

- I must also say that this writing partnership with Jason, while a bit unexpected and not really something that was planned, but just came to be, is proving to be the wisest decision I’ve made in a while. We are fast developing an excellent working language, the results have all been beyond our expectations, not to mention the expectations of those who we’re usually working with. When we stopped, recently to discuss our thoughts on John Doe or Dead Man’s Hand, we have been in the same place as to what needs to happen, or what needs to be fixed. That kind of synch/trust is worth its weight in gold.

Anybody watch HGTV? I have been a lot lately, when I’m not watching a show or movie for work. Usually I catch an episode  of House Hunters or Holmes on Homes (which is always uplifting), but there’s another show, a Canadian one, that you should check out if so inclined – Sara’s House. Sara, the host/star, buys a house and then in each episode with her team redoes a room or portion of the house. She sets a renovation  budget and sticks to it. Something about it, more so in how the show is constructed, just hooks me in.

Cardinals just played the Minnesota Twins in Minnesota at the Twins brand new stadium, Target Field. They split the brief series to inaugurate the new digs. Which means one thing: Opening Day on Monday!

Saw the Sleep Psychologist about a week ago, have another appointment with him coming up. He feels I’m just a short sleeper, not stuck with Insomnia. I’ll defer to him, he’s the expert, but I wish I were at least a medium sleeper. Lately, I’ve been waking up after five hours for about a half-hour to an hour and then falling back asleep for about an hour and a half. That hasn’t been fun for me.

My dear, dear friend Tiffany has officially decamped for Prescott. I have one thing to say about that: Boooo! I know it was a wise choice for her, but as soon as she cleared the city limits, L.A. got a whole lot quieter.

Need to get back to the gym/or on a better routine. I’ve done okay with the eating, so that’s been good, but I need to work some movement or exercise back in to the day to day.

I think that’s it for now. More soon!

(Well, early Saturday morning actually)

Don’t quite have a full post in me. Just bits and pieces.

- Got a new trainer today at the gym. Not quite sure how I feel about it yet. He wants me to come twice a week and while I am committed to my health right now, that’s a tall order. Don’t know what happened to my old trainer. I’m getting the odd feeling he was fired, though everyone says he’s on vacation. I wanted to wait for him to get back and the head trainer wouldn’t let me. I was enjoying the gym before, achieving some nice consistent results. My old Trainer never felt the need to overwhelm me and he would keep track of when I was coming in on my own which kept me honest and on track. This new guy and the head trainer believe in making you hurt for days after. Not my style.

- Found out this week that I’m supposed to meet with Michael Nozik again at HWY 61. He’s Paul Haggis’ partner in the company. I had hoped that I would get a chance to meet with Paul, too; but he’s still in New York for the time being, probably working on the cut of his next film, The Next Three Days. It’s still a great development, though. Michael’s a great guy, and an big time producer. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to talk about – I thought that we were on hold for the next big TV pitch window in July.

- Read this blog by Mr. Latshaw. Go down to Number Four in particular. Two words – UNDERWATER ROLLERCOASTER. I’m not even a fan of rollercoasters and I want to see this happen. Why hasn’t it? They put a rollercoaster on a rooftop in Vegas and one in the Mall of America. This should happen, right?

-My dear friend, and a truly gifted playwright, Tiffany Antone is departing L.A. for Arizona for what we’re all hoping is an extended sabbatical. I’m personally quite sad. Though I know Tiff is feeling the change, so that’s good. Still sad!

- Saw An Education. It should win best picture, but it won’t. You should see it as soon as possible.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Take care of yourself. Do something sweet for someone else.

Spring Training starts MONDAY!

No, not school tests. Medical tests.

I lived without health insurance for almost all of my twenties and fortunately never had a major scare. Sure, there were a few minor dust ups here and there, but no hospital stays or, even, broken bones. Let me tell you, that’s pretty miraculous, all things considered. I won’t get into the Health Care debate. I was also, as most of you know, a bartender for fifteen years. So, I ABHOR the public discussion of politics. Too many long, snowy sunday nights listening to idiots five single malts in pontificating on the topic du jor even though they wouldn’t know a newspaper if it bought them a drink.

I will say this – it’d be nice if we could figure out a way to make an affordable option available for everybody. I digress (notice how often I do that? It’s a thing with me. I live a life of tangents.) What I’m getting to is that after all those years of no insurance, or emergency care only; graduate school has afforded one enormous global perk in my life for the past two and a half years. That perk is world class, comprehensive health insurance. It is a beautiful thing.

So, I assembled a team of doctors over my time here. Literally. I think I have 8-9 different ones under the hood checking me out right now. It’s awesome. If there’s a medical test, I will take it. Got a referral? Let’s do it! I am determined to make up for all those lost years, plus I’m not getting any younger and there are some questions to answer while we have the time and ability.

All that being said – I recently went over to the UCLA Medical Center for some cardiovascular tests. It was all pretty standard. Basically, I was just getting double checked out before proceeding with some rather basic meds. All in all, I ended up having an EKG and an EchoCardiogram. Today I received the official results – the doctor’s notes.  Everything is just fine:

“…The patient does not seem to have any symptomatic angina, dyspnea,
or any symptoms concerning for any frank structural heart disease or active CAD.”

Reading through the notes though and seeing a bunch of numbers I could either pretend I understood, or could admit that I had no clue what those numbers represent, one thing came back to me. That was the experience of the Echocardiogram and something a friend said in relation to it that, well, is bound to at least make you...think.

If you haven’t had one done (hopefully, you haven’t had to) you lie there on the exam table while they take a sonogram of your heart and measure how it’s doing in there. Mine took about a half-hour. The strange part is that as you lie there, the only sound is your heart beating up on the screen and then a picture of your heart pumping away comes into view. You think: “That’s what drives the whole package..” as you watch it do it’s thing.

Anyways, this is what my friend noted: ” Then you realize that this “battery” (your heart) has been running for however long you’ve been alive – steady, reliable, but running without fail – for me that’s thirty some odd years – with (hopefully) many more to go. It doesn’t turn off. You, technically, can’t shut it down or rest it. It just goes until it doesn’t.

While that thought sent a cold shiver down my spine for a minute (Wouldn’t it be nice to power down for a bit?), ultimately I found inspiration in it. This is why I’m going on all these doctor visits, returning to the gym, trying to get better work habits and sleep habits going – all to keep that battery running (Obviously.)  In the end, though, the idea behind this is really a touch deeper – it’s really  to enjoy the coming days ahead, and all that will come with them, whatever that may be.

I got back to the Gym today.

I got off track in the past week and a half or so. Before that, because of the Holidays and my retreat to Corona Del Mar (Thanks, Polly and Joe!), my regimen was a little spotty.

But I went back. I actually enjoy it now. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, yet. I tend to overdo things I like, so gotta keep an eye on that. Yet, I know I really need the workout, too. The whole writing life makes it all to0 easy to live a sedentary, keyboard tapping, In N’ Out burger eating, dinner at 1 in the morning, Oreo’s and Ice Cream for breakfast lifestyle. At least it does for me.

So, I’m there working on the “guns” when I see this guy. He’s a regular at the West L.A. Bally’s Total Fitness. I’ve seen him there before. You really can’t miss him, because for all the toughness he tries to exude, he’s largely there for you to see him. That’s painfully obvious.

He’s Mr. Outfit – completely coordinated, right? I’m not joking, color scheme, the works, all the way down to the key lanyard artfully dangling out of his pocket. Today it was blue. He must have every lanyard color of the rainbow. It’s a stunning level of detail. The kicks are always super expensive. Sometimes there’s a do-rag, sometimes not (today it was two toned – blue and white, which went with the aforementioned lanyard.)

There are two kicker’s here. The first of which are the shades. He sports Gucci wraparounds with diamonds on the temple (albeit small ones, but you can’t miss the sparkle.) And, he paces. Back and forth on one end of the first floor, in this slow, puffed up, kind of way, Alternately, he’ll sit at a machine – not use it, just sit. He looks like a peacock actually, or a rooster when he struts. It’s almost bordering on some strange performance art mandate.

Now, I had never seen him lift a weight or jump on a machine, until today. He sat down at the bench press and started doing a rep. Not reps, mind you. A rep. At about ten pounds (I would not lie to you about this.) It’s why I’m writing about this at two in the morning, when I should be asleep or, possibly, writing something more meaningful – like what I had for lunch (fruit shake with protein powder!) I have not seen something so utterly anti-climatic in awhile. At least not in person.

As soon as he was “done” he took to the barnyard for a stroll again – for the next forty minutes or so. That’s a heckuva a rest in between reps!

He was the Anti-Gym Rat.

Only in L.A.