Earlier this year I experienced a bit of a crisis. I was a wreck and only time--weeks, months, maybe a year or twenty, depending on the developing nature of my crisis--was going to help. The problem was that time insisted on moving along in a linear fashion and there was no wormhole in sight.
How to nudge the minutes along?
Well, in what I now realize was a stark contradiction of my personal commitment to always choose what I would choose if no one was looking, I ended my lifelong embargo of the gossip magazine. By embargo, I mean that I would read them in the doctor's office or at the nail salon. They were not, however, allowed in my home. No way was I buying one in public and, perhaps, leaving a credit card paper trail proving that I am a shallow, shallow, shallow, vapid, shallow person.
No way.
Even though I always have to be greeted twice by the grocery cashier because the first greeting always goes unnoticed. I'm not intentionally rude. It's just my entire concentrative capacity goes into reading each and every cover--we're talking US, People, Star, you get the idea--while not actually touching the magazines, lest the dirty leap into my veins or, worse, I leave behind fingerprints proving that I am a shallow, shallow, shallow, vapid, shallow person.
You know that I am convinced that I have my own personal serial killer, laying in wait for the perfect when-I-least-suspect-it moment with ether in hand. But I'm not sure you knew, people, that I also believe there is someone, most likely Kenneth Star, ready to subpoena records of all of my grocery, drugstore, video, and pay-per-view purchases, if it is ever so much as suspected that I had a weak moment and headed for the porn.
So for many years, I did not buy gossip magazines.
But then, I needed something to pass the time, just like at the dentist. Something that would demand nothing of my intellect and little of my attention, yet be completely transfixing in the moment and easily forgotten.
I literally wanted to kill time--as in murder, destroy, annihilate, and completely do away with time--and I could think of no better way to waste the hours quickly than gossip magazines. Lucky for me, I didn't need a better way, for these little modern-day broadsheets, were perfect for the job.
Time passed and now I feel better.
Only now I am reluctant to give up the gossip rags. Because I am the mother of a small child and tidbits of completely fascinating and equally trashable entertainment are exactly perfect for those occasions when a book is just not. You know, those times when even a short story can take weeks to read. Or when Secret Lulu is bound to demand play-doh, then paint, then chocolate milk, then heroine, and whatever else three-year-olds are up to these days. Of course, I'll need to break to give her all these things, and to pour myself a glass of gin, and to drive to McDonald's for what passes for a wholesome meal around here.
What I'm saying is that I expect plenty of interruptions. And don't worry, I don't really pour myself a glass of gin before driving to McDonald's.
It's wine and I wait until we get home.
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