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Dearest piglets, some of you have seen me in person, either via actual person-to-person communication in meatspace or via long-range surveillance, either in the service of a lawsuit or simply because you see me when you close your eyes. In either case, you know that I am not an intimidating physical presence. I am pudgy, wear glasses, slouch, and get easily Legal Counsel [CENSORED BY ORDER OF WIFE] runs six or seven miles a day, lifts weights, and kickboxes occasionally. She's run marathons. He resting heartrate is something below 60. My resting heart rate is about 85, which means I'm thisclose to a heart attack when I'm lying on the couch. Lord knows how high the probability shoots when I stand up - I'm safer lying down, I tell you. So you can draw the obvious conclusion: I am terrified of my fiancee. Not necessarily terrified of her beating the crap out of me, though that's a distinct possibility, since as we all know Men speak English and enunciate clearly while women speak something akin to Mandarin Chinese with a heavy French accent, so there are frequent misunderstandings. So far no beatings, but I think she's just waiting for me to age a little more. Once my resting heart rate hits 90 or so she'll start pounding on me, don't doubt it. No, what I really fear about The Duchess is the distinct possibility that she expects me to keep up with her. Put as simply as possible, I don't have time for exercise. Oh, sure, I've never been athletic. I've tried, and failed, my whole life. As a kid I played Little League and had dreams of playing baseball like any other kid, but Little League was one long embarrassing and humiliating journey through missed fly balls, strikeouts, and incidents of benching - not to mention being insulted and screamed at by the Parents of other kids, which is probably where I lost my respect for the Whole of Humanity, revealed in those ballgames as morons, idiots, and shitheads. Don't get me wrong: I was an active kid. I spent most of my childhood running around playing games and working up a sweat. The thing is, I always sucked at the games. You can only endure sucking at something for so long before you just sort of phase it out of your life, because no one enjoys the taste of defeat. I can hear you bastards cackling out there, snickering about how I should give up on other things I suck at, like writing, so fuck off. People never believe me when I complain about the lack of time. This has something to do with the amount of my time spent playing video games, watching TV, and staring spastically at the screen, so it's understandable, but the fact is I long ago accepted the fact that I waste time genetically–it's wired into me. I can't accomplish anything unless I have first wasted a huge swatch of time. It's the one reason I have for being grateful for my job, because I manage to waste such huge amounts of time at my job every day I'm usually okay to work by the time I get home. Otherwise I'd just sit around drinking. But I digress: I don't have time to work out, because I've got too much other shit to do. Aside from producing the world's best Jersey-based zine on a regular basis, 240 pages worth a year, I've got this web site to run, these columns to write, my book projects, occasional readings, short story writing and submissions, not to mention a heavy load of Keeping The Duchess Moderately Happy, in order to avoid the aforementioned butt-kickings, against which I would defenseless. Even a moderate exercise regimen is a goddamn time-suck. Think about it: if I worked out for an hour six days a week for the next thirty years, including twenty-minutes of travel time to and from said workout, I'm looking at nearly two years worth of time spent sweating and groaning. Some of you might be thinking, hmmmn, two years over thirty years, not too bad, especially if it buys you another decade of life, you rotund little bastard. But you're not seeing the two most important facts: One, two years is a long freaking time, and two, there's never a guarantee that exercise will have any impact on my lifespan. Aside from the oft-mentioned hit-by-a-bus scenario (or the office-building-gets-hit-by-a-plane-flown-by-terrorists scenario) I could have some deadly genetic defect that makes my heart explode, or my brain go pop, or whatever. So I could waste two fucking years and get nothing back for it. Fuck that noise, bubba: I'll take the short odds and use that time to better effect, you dig? I could write three books in that two years. That's eight issues of The Inner Swine. That's probably about 20-30 short stories. That another 1000-2000 beers. Some people get a lot of mental peace from exercise. It's meditative for them, as well as good for them physically. That's great, and I encourage them all to keep doing it. There's a lot of stuff these days that's presented to us as assumed, though, you know? Everyone has a cell phone, everyone wants the same things (family, house in the suburbs, SUVs), everyone goes to the gym and works out. Assumed things annoy me. It's not like I'm refusing to go jogging in order to make a statement of rebellion against The Man, but it doesn't help, feeling pushed into something. The most important thing is, I'd rather get some work done in that time. Besides, if I did allow myself to be more physically fit, you'd all start getting a lot of articles about my body fat percentage and how many situps I did that morning, and I doubt any of you want that. Wanna call me a portly little nerd? You know the drill. Until next time, have an extra Twinkie for me. Jeff |
January 11, 2003