I'm not sure if I've ever confessed this before, but I am a magazine addict. Not just your everyday flip-through-a-few-pages kind of gal, but a full on junkie. I come by it honestly. Just like so many people who live with addiction, mine too is a generational curse. It started with my grandmother, who always had what seemed like hundreds of magazines sitting on the floor, table and stuffed in the side of her favorite powder blue rocking chair. I used to sit and read her mags right along side her, in spite of the fact we were over 50 years apart and had basically nothing in common. Now, my grandmother cursed my mother with her magazine addiction, who in turn cursed me. My mom was a single mother raising two kids on a very fixed income, but she always managed to find extra $$$$ to satisfy her need to flip through the glossy pages of nonsense that she liked to read. My mom's tastes always fell along the really shady areas. She read and believed (I think she still might) the National Enquirer, Star and basically any of those cheap publications that claim to hold the secret to losing 50lbs in a week  or take 30 years off your face and ass in just three easy steps.

Now it's my turn to battle this horrid disease. My husband no longer comments when I walk into the Hudson News at the airport and drop $40 bucks, as he knows that no man will come between me and the word. Just think how many schools the money I spend on ridiculous, pointless magazines would help build in Africa, or how many women and children whose lives I could help improve if I donated that money to charity instead. Yet, I'm helpless. I buy so many magazines on a regular basis I know that weeklies come out every Thursday, the Australian edition is the best of all the Vogues, and the British version of Home and Garden is far superior to ours. I know you only need to buy People and two more of the 4-6 celeb rag mags because they all are guaranteed to have the same stupid stories, so why WASTE your money buying them all?

Another side effect of my disease is that it's very difficult to throw my magazines away. In LA, I have an amazing cleaning lady who helps me by throwing out most of my magazines while I'm away on travel. I love my cleaning lady, but I'm a little scared of her, so I don't bitch about it. It's her way of showing tough love. I use to be embarrassed of my need to read magazines... embarrassed to admit the rush I get when I purchase them and how giddy I am to dive into the stacks I purchase each time, how I love the stain of ink on my fingers and that no online magazine quite does it for me. Well, my secret is out. My hiding in the aisle days are over. I'm naming it, claiming it and moving forward...and I'm taking my damn magazines with me.