300 WORDS: Satisfying. Efficient. Sweet.

​I have always loved magazines. 

Teen and Young Miss were gateways, leading to Glamour and Cosmo.  I’ll pick up People or US for a flight; Vanity Fair for a beach vacation – nothing in there is a quick read.

It’s the variety of topics I love – especially in New York Magazine. Like the piece about the Website “What it’s like to…”, where people submit their stories – such as, “What it’s like to SEE ALL COLORS” (a rare condition), or “What it’s like to SLEEP ONLY 2 HOURS A DAY.”  There were also far more extreme excerpts, some I wish I could unread...

Recently there was a story about John Hinckley, would-be assassin of President Reagan, out of the psychiatric facility where he was incarcerated, currently living with his mother in Williamsburg, VA.  He still has Secret Service trailing him – though mostly to the Burger King. 

I’ve read some beautiful, personal stories in Real Simple – one by an adopted woman whose biological parents were a college girl and her boyfriend – a football player killed on the Marshall plane crash.  The adoptee found her father’s parents, still in West Virginia, who were overjoyed to meet the child of their only child. 

I get Pilates Style, Entertainment Weekly, Oprah, HGTV and Bookmarks – and sometimes I receive subscriptions I’ve never ordered, like a year of American Cowboy, which led to an onslaught of bizarre cowboy-themed catalogs.  My current freebie is Washingtonian.  I used to get Smithsonian, which had fascinating articles that made me feel incredibly smart upon reading – but the subject matter was so out of my normal sphere I’d forget it all in a few days.  Or hours. 
​
But that’s the beauty of it – an hour, maybe two to soak it in, wrap it up and toss it in the bin.  Satisfying.  Efficient. Sweet.