Week 6: Owner Of A Pounding Heart

Anu is out of town, so I'm on my own with the physical training thing. Very tricksy, that Anu.

On Wednesday I was about 99.9% certain I was going to die of a heart attack by about 3/4 of the way through the routine (which consisted of a circuit of beatings, waterboarding, truncheoning, fingernail pulling, simulated hangings, and having my genitals electrocuted -- or as the CIA euphemistically calls them in their dossiers: oblique twists, squats, lunges, sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups).

This morning I was only about 99.5% certain I was going to die of a heart attack. Improvement! At this rate I should consider myself "unlikely to die of a heart attack" in about 50 weeks. I think I shall celebrate with a bacon double cheeseburger at Dick's in San Diego when I go down for Comic-Con this weekend. That ought to round it out to a full 52 week year.

The weird thing is that it's only been about an hour since I left the gym, and yet I am already anticipating going back. This is bad. It means that Jessica, our so-called "trainer" (Grand Inquisitor might be a more appropriate term) is doing something to wear-down my natural instincts for self preservation. I'm beginning to crack. This is the onset of some sort of workout Stockholm Syndrome. Soon this empathy will turn into outright sympathy for my captors, then before too long I'll even be willing to tell them the launch codes (for what, I'm not sure -- but I bet these codes launch something). Next thing you know, I might become one of them. It happened to my friend Max, so I know that there's a real danger the terrorists may win.