The Emperor's New Column

Here comes the New Boss, just as bad as the Old Boss...

Or something like that.

Hello. I'm Matthew Craig. Welcome to my mind.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW COLUMN

(Or: Bed is Enemy. Bad Bed. Bed Bad.)

By Matthew Craig

Ten weeks without a column.

Let's be honest: nobody's really missed it, have they?

Well, okay. I have.

Ever since...and I feel like a total fraud saying this, but it's true...ever since the New York Disaster, I haven't really felt like writing much. Oh, I'll write emails to people, sure. And I can't wait to write about my new bag of comics on a Thursday evening (for a discussion forum I spend far too much time on). But I haven't really felt much like writing anything on this, the only thing that really Matters: my website.

I've been depressed, is the short explanation.

More accurately, I've been scared out of my tiny mind. And that's made me depressed.

Not only that, but I haven't been as angry...no. That's not right.

I haven't been as fired-up as I was when this column first started. For obvious reasons: I've been able to put some distance between myself and Last Year's Unpleasantness (well, and the last three months of 2000, but let's not open that can of meatballs). I've been able to look to the Future(TM). I've been busy trying to work out what I want to do with my life.

Quiet at the back.

But, really, I've just been too miserable.

I gave it a good go, though. Twenty-six columns in about twenty-six weeks. About as good as your average hack.

But it just wasn't working for me, you know? I felt lie I was going through the motions. And the minute something like this stops being fun, you should get off the stage. Keyboard. Whatever.

So, I hear you cry (Go on. Cry out. No-one will mind), why have I come back at all?

Because I can't sleep. And it felt right for me to start writing..

It's quarter to six in the morning. Saint Patrick's Day, bejaysis, is here. And I feel like spilling my guts.

In the ten weeks since my last column, I've been going through something of a mid-Spring crisis. I always feel a bit odder in the spring time. It's probably a function of this reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder that I pretend to suffer from. The days are getting longer and warmer, and I get all moody about it. Some such bollocks, anyway.

I've decided that I should be more Decisive. Probably. Maybe. I dunno. I definitely think I need to make a few changes. My gut has to go, for one.

I mentioned in my last column (published here for the first time) that I went to the doctor to put my mind at ease about the rather frightening-looking stretchmarks on my belly and arms. These are probably the result of me being fat.

They could also mean that I am going to die.

And that's the first time that I have written that. Anywhere.

Now. You see. If I had more things in my life, like a job, a missus, or even good cable TV, I could probably cope a bit better with the worry. Maybe. I'd certainly find it easier to distract myself with a St. Elsewhere marathon than with a video of Con Air that I've watched to death.

The doctor assured me that it was more than likely just being overweight. But, you see, I've seen the Full Monty. Mark Addy never had stretchmarks. And I've tried the Internet. Stretchmarks = Scary Disease on the Net.

Of course, it's just this second occurred to me that there's a certain amount of sampling bias going on. You wouldn't get Fat Blokes clubbing together to talk about stretchmarks on the Net. Well, maybe on some of the more obscure Naughtyflick sites. But you would get people with Scary Condition...Cushing's Syndrome it's called (first time I've written that, too), forming support groups and clubs and the like.

My first response to all this?

Fuck that.

I don't want to belong to some crazy scary disease group. I don't want to hug people with bigger tits than me...well, you know what I mean.

I don't want to be sick. I just want to be fat.

But not this fat.

Walking into the hospital to see my Mum every day was a lot easier than I thought it wouild be. After all, it was her in the bed. Not me. It only got hard when I realised that...

I'll warn you now. This may sound inordinately selfish, and more than a little morbid.

I realised that, from now on, I would spend more and more time in the hospital. Certainly a lot more than I ever want to.

Think about it: I've been lucky, up to now. I've only ever broken my ankle (playing Tig, but that's another story...). We've been pretty fortunate as a family to not have to go in to the hospital more often. But that could well change.

My parents are hardly decrepit, but they're not exactly factory-fresh. They're closer to seventy than to sixty, and old people do tend to need the doctor more. My siblings are entering middle age gradually, so they, too, might need more medical aid. My eldest brother has had major surgery in the last three years, for instance.

And I'm not getting any younger.

Here's the thing: I realised, as I was walking in to see my Mum that I don't want to drop dead because I was too fat. I don't ever want to die, of course. But that's beside the point. I certainly don't want to die of Being Fat.

Like all good ideas, it came from watching Television.

I watched the first three minutes of a program on obesity. And it scared me silly. This is, more or less, how it went:

TV:

1. Fat People are more likely to die of heart disease.

2. Fat People are more likely to develop diabetes.

3. Fat People are more likely to contract cancer.

ME:

What the fuck? Since when is fucking Cancer part of the whole Fat deal? Just how radioactive is cholesterol?

And so forth.

I don't want to spend a minute longer in the hospital than I have to. I certainly don't want to increase my chances of having to go to hospital...or worse.

So...I went to the doctor.

And she sent me to the gym.

The person who showed me round was a man called Sid. Looked like he'd never had to buy elasticated trousers in his life.

He took me through a basic exercise programme. A beginners exercise programme.

A knackering exercise programme.

He put me on the exercise bike, with a heart monitor (and probably a resuscitation kit) strapped to my sternum. He told me to do six minutes on the exercise bike.

I manged three. And everything started to go grey.

If Sid hadn't left to deal with another masochist, I'm convinced I would have collapsed.

In the back of my mind: Douglas Adams died on one of these, Craigy. Douglas Adams died in the gym.

Scant consolation, but he's one of the reasons I went to the doctor. I don't want to leave it any longer to try to get fit.

I remember thinking, as I went round the gym from machine to machine, that I first started going to the gym about this time ten years ago. I used to go to the YMCA every Friday night with my school chums. I don't think I did very much, and what little fat I burned I put straight back on, by going to the chippy afterwards. But the thing which got me thinking, whilst sat on the Pec Dec for the first time in three years, was, "What if I'd kept going? All through A-Levels and University and Unemployment and Work and Karate? What would I have looked like now?"

More importantly, it wouldn't have been such an arse to go to the gym last week.

Sid was encouraging enough. He helped me work out what I could and couldn't do, from my level of stamina to how high I should have the seat on the exercise bike. He handed me my fitness programme, and told me to come back for reassessment in twelve weeks.

That, and I should visit the gym twice a week. Three times would be even better.

Three bastard times a week? What am I, fucking Batman?

I haven't been back yet. I've contrived excuses, from having a gippy tummy (another reason to Change my Ways) to not having had any sleep(ahem). And it's not good enough.

But a simple look down (and Inside) should be incentive enough. I can't show this to anyone. It's repellent. So things have to change.

I have to change my diet, too. It's not easy: I'm cooking for the family, remember. And my Dad keeps buying fucking buns.

Yes, I know I don't have to eat them. I have the willpower of a moth in a fireplace.

So I have to change my diet. Again.

I wish I'd done all this ten years ago, when I was...Christ...when I was less set in my routine. I was less well-wired then, of course, but I could have at least given it a go.

But life is full of "If Onlys..."

With those two things on the docket, I have to now look a the rest of my so-called Life. I need a Job.

I don't have the excuse of not wanting to be tied to Telford, any more: I am tied to this misbegotten town, at least for the next twelve weeks. So there's nothing stopping me getting a Job.

Except, of course, that I'm settled in my routine, now.

I've been here for almost nine months. Longer than the last time I was unemployed. And, I'm at more or less the same stage, mentally, that I was then.

I'm miserable (did I say that already?). I'm stuck in a rut. And I'm getting pissed-off living with my parents.

The night before I left for Newmarket, just under three years ago today, I sat on the edge of my bed, not wanting to go to sleep. I remember telling myself, "This time, it's for good, Craigy. You're leaving home for good, now..." I remember being terrified and pleased, all at the same time. It was the right time for me to leave home. It was past time for me to leave home.

It was terribly hard for me, to leave home. I didn't cope particularly well. I missed the security blanket that this house provides. I can sit here, with my Mum and Dad, and not have to go out There at all, except for my comics. I don't have to go out and work. I don't have to go out and risk anything. I don't have to try and make a life for myself, because I'm in this benign Limbo.

It's killing me.

It's doing my head in. I'm sleeping twelve or thirteen hours of the day. I see another human being that isn't wearing a badge with their fucking name on it, unless I'm walking to the car.

I think I'm starting to resent being here. Which is stupid, when you think about it: I've been safe, I've not had to worry about finding rent money or anything. I've been able to coast for the last nine months.

There's a thought for you: there are people alive today who were conceived after I came home last June.

My Mum told me the other day that I was living like a twelve year old. I don't think she necessarily meant it in a pejorative or hurtful sense, but it stuck in my head. And it's true. I don't have to work, I spend all my time reading comics, and someone else does the washing. And I don't even have School to mitigate things.

I'm not just a case of arrested development: I'm a case study in regression.

And that isn't good enough.

So. I have to Get Out of Here.

The worst thing in all of this is that I've known that I would end up here from day (or Square) One. I knew, as I was getting the train home on the 25th of June that, if I didn't get a job on the Monday after I moved home, I'd still be at home in a years time. And I'm going to be right. I just know I am.

The thing is, I still don't know what I want to do with my life. I've been kidding around, saying that I want to write, but look at me: I haven't written anything since Mum went into the hospital. I've hardly written any fiction since I came home.

I've had loads of ideas, sure. As you'll see, in time (I hope). But nothing concrete. I've been...well. I've said this already.

This, then, is my problem:

I CAN'T BE ARSED.

I'm too lazy. I'm undisciplined. I'm scared that I don't have any good ideas.

But above all, it's been easier for me to hide under my covers than to actually get off my backside and do something to change my life. To make things better.

Well, that has to change.

Startiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing: now.

Matthew Craig, 17th March, 2002.

Coming Soon...

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