What I mean when I say I make long-term plans
I love, love, love magazines. I love the smell. The feel of glossy paper. The way it's laid out, the fluffy, quick stories and blurbs. I love getting them in the mail, the diamond in the rough that is my usual daily student loan consolidation junk mail-slash-bills stack. I love reading them, borrowing them, keeping them in a musty stack in the closet, flipping through old ones at antique stores and searching the bookstore shelves to find one I've never heard of before. I hoarde them, I love them, I tear pages out, I dogear them, I abuse them, and then I wait impatiently for the next month's round.
It's love.
And I've got it down to a science.
I'm the content manager at work, which means I plan long term. It carries over into my home life as well; always has. I made the switch from Highlights to Weekly Reader to Teen magazine when I was 14; then Seventeen around my 15th birthday. I got Teen People for a minute, and renewed it until I knew YM and Cosmo would better suit my shallow needs.
That lead to me realizing I had shallow needs and subscribing to Psychology Today and Time for a while ... Both of which I set to expire or canceled to coincide with my leaving college, because hello, I don't need coffee table material to impress potential dates. I've already got a fiance. (You guys, I'm joking.)
So I found Jane, my latest love. It's music, newsy, fashion, life, etc., etc. Youngish woman, post-college-esque. But when my one-year subscription came due, I was faced with a mild sense of emotional pain.
I can't buy issue by issue on sales racks because, well, I'm cheap. I like receiving it ... But will I care who the newest Shins wannabes are when I'm two years older? I'm just not ready to make that kind of commitment.
So I did some soul searching, which kind of freaked out Dave.
I sat and thought long and hard, calling on my bank account and magazines.com as well as fate, and we all decided it was time to phase Jane out.
Jane. Move over for Domino. Domino will be joining us for the next two years. Jane, you'll be gone by fall.
And, asked Dave, what's up for 2008-ish, 2009-ish?
I smiled.
"Oh," he said when he heard. "Ooooh. Oh, wait. Wait, wait a minute," he said. "Wait, wait." I think there were 57 or 58 other "oooh, waaaait"s in there.
I don't know why he's all shocked; I told him he could keep his Esquire subscription.
See also:
So married
2 comments:
Hi Erin. I've been reading your blog for a while (I'm here by way of Play in the City). I'm a fellow Capricorn writer, and I've been meaning to write for a while because I thought maybe we were separated at birth when I first read about your attachment to mac & cheese. (I loved that you had mac & cheese on the morning of your wedding. Have you discovered the mac cups? Way better than easy mac). Anyway, now that I read about your magazine obsession, I'm convinced we were!
I have 10 boxes of magazines (conservative estimate) in my parents' basement. I've started to go through them, but it's been a fairly time-consuming process because first I have to reread them, and then pull out anything I "need". The three things I pull out the most are exercises (which sit idle in a folder -- I don't exercise), recipes (which also sit idle in a folder -- I don't cook), and Absolut Vodka ads (which I put in plastic sleeves and put in a binder -- I'm a former ad major).
I will read any magazine (except the Economist, ex-boyfriend thing) and I get so mad at people when they throw them in the garbage (recycle people!). I prefer buying magazines on the newsstand (I don't like getting them in the mail after I've already seen them in a store), and I have been guilty of buying quite a few at a time. My thought process usually goes something like this: "I'll just get Glamour, and Cosmo. Ooh, but Marie Claire looks so pretty this month. Maybe Allure, oh wait, I think my mom gives me that one. Ooh, TomKat, I better get In Touch, and People, but I can take those to work when I'm done with them."
Some of it may be fluff, but I could think of worse things to spend my money on than reading materials! The initial flip-through is the best, and nobody is allowed to touch my magazines until I've done that.
I'm proud to carry on the fondness for magazines tradition passed down to me from my mom, which was passed down to her from her mom. I hope to pass the torch to my own daughter someday (quick -- I need a magazine that will tell me how to meet someone so I can make that dream a reality).
I had to comment on this one, too. Magazines are my vice. They are my addiction. A new, papery-smelling, unopened glossy magazine just waiting to be read is pure bliss to me! I enjoy getting them in the mail, too, because I'm too cheap to pay $4 a pop at the store! I get Jane and Glamour and my US Weekly subscription just ran out. I will always be a magazine junkie! I don't think I'll EVER graduate from Glamour (the way I did from TEEN or Cosmo) - but I'll probably have to start getting Gourmet or Parents eventually ... :)
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