Death by Magazine

It hit me. I'm getting old. There's no denying it now, and there's no stopping it. The tell-tale clue? The breakdown and inevitable purchase of O magazine.

I love magazines. Anybody who knows me knows this. In fact, I have been known to preface many of my conversations with, "I read in a magazine..." It's almost like, well, my THING. It's what I DO. Not all magazines, but most. Not all girly magazines, but mostly. I can't tell you the names and titles of some of the top politicos in our country, but by God, I can tell you dazzling facts like: (1) celebrities having the same birthday as me include Meryl Streep, Kris Kristofferson, Carson Daly, and Cyndi Lauper, to name a few; (2) Karl Lagerfeld became head designer for Chanel in 1983; (3) Jada Pinkett Smith's mom is 17 years older than her; (4) you can add extra fullness to your hair by spritzing it with a saltwater spray (what the hizzell? I have no idea); and (5) Uma Thurman wears a size 11 shoe. Tom Cruise's middle name is Mapother, and no, I don't believe his love affair with Katie Holmes is on the up and up, either.

All. Totally. Useless. Facts. Oh, believe me, I'm full of them. I realize I have just run the risk of making myself look completely vacuous and ignorant, and there could be a lot of truth to that. I really hope not. If it makes me look any better, I do occasionally succumb to the temptations of Time or Newsweek, too. Hey, man, I know who the President is! That Bush guy, right?

So, getting back to the seriousness of the matter at hand. My slow descent into old ladydom. The timetable and reference chart: magazines.

Age 13: Teen Works. This was more binder-ish than magazine-ish, but represented my first foray into the wide, wide world of what women, and at that time, boy-crazy teenage girls, need to do to get by in life. It was divided out into sections, including make-up tips, clothing ideas, fun recipes to try at slumber parties, so on and so forth, and it sent me little three-hole punched cards to update the binders with. It even had a sports section which gave brief descriptions and rules for basketball, baseball, and especially football so that girls could impress their secret crushes with their uncanny ability to know what was going on rather than just sitting by cutely on the sidelines. I can't tell you how cute I did or didn't look on the sidelines, but I can tell you that the rudimentary knowledge about football that I gleaned from Teen Works is such that I refrain from pestering my husband with things like, "Now, explain to me what a down is again" or, "Do offensive linemen become defensive linemen when they're on defense, or are they still on offense?" I know, it hurts my brain, too, and so I wisely know to distract myself with other things from other rooms of the house when football season rolls around. Thanks, Teen Works. I'm a sports jackass.

Ages 14 - 17: Teen Beat, Seventeen, and various hairstyle magazines for my dream prom look. Good for plastering my room with pictures of Kirk Cameron, Vanilla Ice, and Gerardo (you know, the Rico Suavé guy). Nikki Taylor was my favorite model and I tried to do everything I could to look like her. Nevermind that I wasn't tall, thin, and blonde. And, unfortunately, this was also during the time that I thought I'd try to dress like the Misses section of the JC Penney catalog, so there's that. Hey, I never said I was cool. You just assumed that. I never had to worry about my hairstyle for my dream prom, because I never ended up going to prom. Yeah, that's right. And maybe a teeny, tiny part of me is still sad about it. I blame it on the JC Penney catalog days. Mark my words, my future daughter WILL go to prom, and she WILL have a great hairstyle. I have no other dreams I need to live out vicariously through my children except that one. I'm no Patsy Ramsey.

Now there are magazines out like Teen People, Teen Vogue, and whatnot. Who knows what cool tips I missed out on seeing as how these were after my time? I shudder to think of it.

Ages 18 - 24: Cosmopolitan, Jane, Elle, People. Once I hit 18, I dropped Seventeen like a hot rock. Had to. It was the age thing. Besides, I was out of high school and far too mature for silly teen magazines now. People started me out on the celebrity gossip that I now so desperately and shamefully crave. I'm not proud of this. Jane and Elle, ehh. They kind of rotated in and out of my reading circle along with many others, but were never a truly consistent read. These were my formative dating years, after all, and I needed all of those raunchy, uh, tips that Cosmo seemed too eager to offer. Okay, let's not go there, shall we? Onward.

Ages 25 - 27: Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Instyle, People, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Allure, Mode, Marie Claire. This is when the proverbial excrement hit the fan. Magazines were showing up on the shelves left and right, and there was no possible way I could resist the glossy pages. Vogue and Harper's were desperate reads for desperate times because most often, I just couldn't get into all the crazy and INSANELY high-priced couture, not to mention some of the just totally snobby people featured in the pages. Those were magazines that came in handy when the one freak in the whole entire gym would inevitably come up and get on the treadmill next to mine. Even if the mags were hideously out-of-date, they served a great purpose. Mode was a great plus-size mag to read if I ever needed reassurance that I was not a hideous landbeast, and I was bummed when it went out of publication. It was during this time that I stopped reading Cosmo. I felt sad, like it was a bad, ugly break-up in a once-promising long term relationship, but I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't relate to it, especially the section in front from the women who told stories about things like getting caught boffing their boss's hot but barely legal son on the boss's desk. True, it makes for a great story, but sadly, these just weren't stories I wanted to read anymore. This was right around the time I got married and did the stereotypical short haircut and weight-gain thing that all new husbands are afraid of, and maybe I thought, "Hey, I got me a man; I don't need you anymore, Cos-MO!" Now that my hair is just above shoulder-length (longest it's EVER been) and I really, truly am trying to lose weight, maybe I need Cosmo again more than ever, but it ain't happenin'. I just no longer feel that my attractiveness level depends on whether or not I can bend myself into the shape of a pretzel while wearing unflatteringly small amounts of lingerie.

Age 27 through present: Aside from Cosmo getting the boot, still pretty much the same. People, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone - all staples of a healthy magazine diet. If you need to know what CD someone is cutting, who's making a cameo in their video, when their movie/clothing/perfume is coming out, and where they buy designer clothing for their miniature chihuahuas, these all do quite nicely. InStyle - enough said. Quite possibly the world's greatest magazine, even if I am a touch bitter that I can't afford a lot of the stuff in there. It's just the perfect blend of fashion, celebrity, health and beauty, interior design, and food; it's the print version of curling up with a big cuddly blanket. My only beef is that it's usually twice the size of a regular magazine, which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to keep out of the bubbles when I'm in the tub. Ah, well. The pages dry quite nicely, too. I can easily see myself subscribing to this well into my future. My other constant these days is Marie Claire. I LOVE this magazine because the pages are filled with more real people than models, and it is so easy to relate to. It has amazing articles, too. I read this one because it is very in tune with what's going on in the world, and gives me a look at things I might not otherwise know about, like for instance that in Afghanistan, a woman runs the risk of being killed by the Taliban if she does something like LAUGH TOO LOUDLY OR ATTEND SCHOOL. Totally eye-opening things that make me want to write strongly-worded letters to people that supposedly are in positions to make things better, all across the world. If you want a good magazine that's got the regular chick stuff, but that also makes you THINK, subscribe to Marie Claire now.

Now I'm starting to pepper my magazine rotation with Real Simple. I don't own a house, but Good Lord - the decorating tips I'll have when I do! I love anything to do with interior decorating, and this translates it all into affordable, chic style that anyone can achieve. Plus they touch on a little bit of everything else, too. If you need to know how to create a couch cover out of tablecloths or make the perfect Sangria, this is what you've been looking for. Napkin rings are NOT just for napkins anymore, peeps. For a while there, I'd say a good two years, I was subscribing to Fit Pregnancy. No, I don't have kids. No, I've never even been pregnant. But I kinda thought we were going to be trying at some point, so I figured, hey, I might as well get educated, right? I thought it was brilliant, but The Noodle said it creeped him out too much, so there went that. Now that I'm back on a "health kick" (oh, if only you knew what those words really mean in Boonzie Land), I'm reading Shape again, off and on. I've been reading this tired old dog for YEARS. When I was 14, I wrote a letter to Joe Weider asking him to give me a trip to California and free personal training sessions. I don't know why. There was no contest in the magazine, no reason for it. What can I say? I was a truly weird kid. Ol' Joe never did write back.

So, here I am, ending up with Oprah's magazine. It's been staring at me for MONTHS, taunting me with its catchy headlines and promises of great diet tips, hair tricks, and fabulous new books to read. I've been resisting, I really have. I can get those same things from my myriad other magazines. But there's just something about flipping open the cover of a new magazine to see what mysteries and secrets it reveals about people, places, and things I'll never know, and maybe even about myself. And my gosh, Oprah used to be a porker and look at her now! Beautiful! If I read her magazine, maybe I'll transform myself, too! Lord help me, am I really this delusional? Yes, I'm afraid so.

I don't know why, but there are just certain magazines I haven't been able to bring myself to read, and O has been one of them. Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Woman's World, Better Homes and Gardens, Town and Country, ETC!! - those are all for, like, WOMEN IN THEIR THIRTIES, AREN'T THEY???

Then again, I'm gonna be 30 this month. And, I STILL haven't found the perfect product to keep my hair from getting frizzy. And I AM curious about how to get through to a man and achieving obsession-free weight loss...

Maybe I'll just take a teeny, teeny tiny peek. Couldn't hurt, right?

At least it's not Reader's Digest. Not yet. I'm saving that for my fifties...