sonofableep

apparently, sound designers’ health goes in the shitter during crunch time.  tell me about it.  no wait, i’ll tell *you* about it.  like any good story, this one comes in three acts: I) exposition, II) the fall, III) redemption.

I) exposition.

during the first half of the four-year dev cycle on my last game, i was taking pretty good care of myself.  the work week seldom exceeded 50 hours, and some of those hours included trips to the building’s gym.  in fact, it was during this period that 15 or so co-workers held a friendly weight loss competition – each ponying up $100 for the chance to win it all over the course of four months – and yours truly took home the gold, dropping 50 lbs. in the process.  things were looking good.  and by “things” i mean “me”.

II) the fall.

then came the 18-month-long super-slo-mo faceplant.  work started to pick up, and i got to the gym less and less…and eventually not at all.  healthy lunches from home turned into fast food lunches turned into vending machine lunches.  bottled water turned into sprite turned into endless rivers of mountain dew.  and not smoking turned into bumming the occasional smoke while chatting with a co-worker outside turned into buying packs for myself at the 7-eleven across from work at 3 am when no one was around to bum me one.

i worked later into the night.  i slept on the floor.  i worked straight through the night, forgoing sleep altogether.  i grew a beard.  i grew hair (i’m normally shaved to the skull).  and i ignored every warning sign – the wheezing when climbing stairs, the mildly terrifying fleeting pains in my chest, the sight of myself in the mirror…it was easy.  i *love* the crunch.  i love just fucking going for it.  you couldn’t drag me away from my office – not with so much left to do before launch, and so many readily available donuts / sodas / smokes.

turns out you also couldn’t drag me away because you’d put your back out trying.  when i finally snapped out of it – when the doctor said, “hm…your EKG shows irregularities usually seen in someone who’s had a heart attack” – i closed my eyes and hopped on a scale.  when i opened my eyes, i found i’d added 65 lbs. to my frame in that year-and-a-half.  hell, most of my muscle melted away during that time too, so those 65 lbs. probably represented 100 lbs. of additional lard and 35 lbs. of lost meat.  nice job, brad.

III) redemption.

so i quit inhaling soda.  i quit eating like a pig at a trough.  i quit smoking (i was never *really* a smoker, right?).  and i quit my job.  part III is yet to be completely written at this point – i’ve shed 20 or 30 lbs. of warhammer weight, and aim to lose the rest…but slowly and for good this time.  the only way that’s going to happen is if i take steps to prevent the last 18 months of *this* dev cycle from sending me into another super-slo-mo faceplant.  i’m working on it.  and keeping my slighty fat (but not as fat as before) fingers crossed.