Day 2, In Which I Obsess About Magazines

11:45 and the babies just went down for their first nap.  They finished their lunch, which was a hodge podge of things, as usual, trying to get them to try all kinds of food.  I give them a couple spoonfuls of everything and then see what they go back for more of.  Weston's still on a finicky kick that he's been on a couple of weeks now, where he really only seems to like bananas.  Aila eats some of EVERYTHING, which today included:  Quinoa salad, ham, cheddar cheese, sweet potatoes, lettuce, cucumber, banana, blueberries, and pickled beets.  Just discovered last night that she likes pickled beets, which cracked me up cuz my mom craved em when pregnant with me, and I have always loooovvvved them. 

Anyway, I'm excited because today is Thursday.  And I got to thinking about why I always get excited about Thursdays, and how jacked up it is, and I thought maybe I would share it.  Just to humiliate myself. 
Thursdays are the day that the new issues of People magazine and Us magazine come out.  If you go in the mid-to-late afternoon to Walmart, you will usually find the workers there, with giant blue bins, putting the old magazines in an empty shopping cart, and filling up the racks with the new ones.  Sometimes, they are late and don't come till Friday.  And you can't get them on Thursdays at all retail outlets, mind you.  Walmart's usually the first to get them, and Food Lion is usually a good bet.  WalGreens and Rite Aid and CVS don't usually have them till at least Friday.  All fashion magazines come on Fridays to most stores.  New ones come out towards the end of the month, except for Allure magazine, which comes out at the begining of the month.  I have more than once been known to go to Walmart on a Thursday afternoon and walk around in circles for awhile because I can see that the people with the blue magazine bins are there, but they're putting the old magazines away first and haven't yet started putting the new ones out. " This," you may say to yourself, "is pathetic!  This is lunacy! "  Yep, you are correct!  "And besides,"  you may also ask, "didn't you say in your last post that you are broke?  What kind of stupidity is it to spend what little money you have on such wasteful items?"  And you, my friend, are exactly right. 

Here's the thing, I don't see movies, like, hardly ever.  Maybe once or twice a year I catch one at the 2$ theater.  If I'm gonna see a movie, it's usually on cable, long after it was originally released.  There are a few TV shows that I'm crazy about and watch regularly, but not tons.  And I love music, but as everyone knows, each year that passes, the new music that comes out seems to get filthier and more scary, so I mostly listen to CD's at this point.  (I know, CD's aren't cool.  I don't have an ipod, bite me.)  However, I know every little thing about even the most d-list celebrity!  I know who's dating who, who's married to who, who's not getting along, who can't work together, etc...  I know facts about people whom I've NEVER seen act or sing, or do anything.  I know stuff about people I've never seen in a single movie, or watched a tv show with them in it.  WHY?!  What could possibly be the purpose?  I have no idea.  All I know is, that on a good Thursday, when the mags come out early, or on a Friday when they're running late, there's nothing more fun to me than sitting down after all my kids go to sleep and the hubby's off in the bedroom watching a ballgame, and it's just me and the cat and total silence,  and I sit in the quiet and pour over the details of celebrity's lives.   I don't know why I care.  I don't know these people, I'm sure I probably wouldn't like most of them if I DID.  But I just find it so fascinating to read all their personal information! 

Then, there are the fashion magazines.  I am addicted to these as well.  I'm pretty sure I've read every issue of Glamour magazine since about 1984.  I can't remember if my mom got me a subscription or how exactly I started getting them, but as a teen, my room was always covered with magazines.  Kim Alexis, Carol Alt, or Beverly Johnson were usually on the cover.  Then by the time I was in high school, it was Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista. (I first got my hair cut super-short at 14 because I wanted to look like an ad I'd seen with Isabella Rosselini in a pixie cut, for Lancome, still remember!)  When I absolutely could not afford to buy them, I would go to the public library and read them.  As a teen I loved Glamour, Vogue, and Elle.  Now I love Glamour, Redbook, and Allure.  But these magazines also serve no useful purpose!  They very, very rarely have anything in them about women my size, and if they do advertise some clothing in there for plus sizes, they're from places I can't afford.  (They need to have a plus-size magazine where everything's from Ross and Cato Plus! Lol!)  I DO enjoy the make-up tips, but they're often things like "Apply Creme de la Mer head to toe after your bath." or "Chanel's new Gossamer Lip Gloss is the best lip gloss ever!"  and we all know I'm not gonna purchase either of those things.  (Hmmm, a plus-sized fashion magazine where all the clothes are from Ross and Cato plus and the make-up's all by Loreal or Revlon!  There's a thought!)  I'm an overweight, 41 year old, mom of four who lives in a small southern town.  I do not need to know that eggplant is the new color for fall, or that there's a new "it" bag that has replaced the Birkin, or that Katy Perry and John Mayer claimed to have broken up but now appear to be back together.  None of this stuff makes the teeny-tiniest bit of difference in my life!  But when I see those fresh new magazine covers on the rack, I long for the mindless-garbage-goodness that is inside...the quiet hour or so that I can stare at the pictures of pretty clothes I'll never wear and lipstick that I'll think will change my life but won't...the useless factoids about clothes, cosmetics and celebrities that will fill my mind while I'm reading it... Maybe that's the draw of it after all?  That for an hour or so I'm thinking about shallow, useless, unimportant things, thus drowning out the worries, fears, and monotony of everyday life.  For that hour, I can stop worrying about how to pay the bills and how to raise my kids and the horrible uncontrollable mess that is my house.  I can think about fall colors and expensive bags and the perfect lip gloss.  Ah, an hour of mind-numbing bliss!  Hey, it's four bucks and it's not a drug, stop judging me! 

So later this afternoon, if you catch me in Walmart, milling around suspiciously while the blue bin workers are doing their thing, now you know what I'm doing.  Waiting for my fix.  I said stop judging!