Magazines

There is little in life that gives you the same sense of identity as do your magazine subscriptions. Today as I was searching through boxes in the garage (boxes packed before moving to England and not unpacked sense), I unearthed some old Vogues and Cooks Illustrated. As I placed them with their fellow issues on their respective shelves (Cooks Illustrated goes in the kitchen and Vogue has a shelf all to itself in my bedroom), I realized how much I like my magazines.

Every time I get my Vogue in the mail I count the hours until I can put aside work for a while and delve into the dream world that it that publication (the latest issue I've had for two weeks in its original plastic wrap as the work has not yet subsided). How will I introduce my dear daughter to the designers without making her too snobby or spoiled before she is in high school? I do need to find a way to get my tailor to make perfect imitations of Ralph Lauren's (we just call him Ralph) latest jacket, but in a better fabric. I hate it when my plane gets waylayed in Milan when I expressly asked the pilot to only stop in Florence on my way to Sicily. Ahh, these issues are such a plague in my life...

Cooks is a similar fantasy land; one in which I can taste the differences between having four kinds of beef in a meatloaf instead of a mere, inadequate three, or have three hours in which to attempt the perfect pastry puff for a casual summer picnic. I've made four or five meals out of the magazine and everyone has been fantastically good and exorbitantly time consuming, requiring pots and spices I've never heard of much less own.

These magazines are representations of the finer things in life and as such are like mini vacations to me. When I eat Trader Joes frozen Thai bowls for breakfast and lunch in a single day or forget to wash my Gap t-shirt but wear it anyway I think back to these magazines and what I would like life to be like. Someday I hope to worry about the buttons on this season's best coat getting lost, or how much cumin should go into my stove-top concoction, but I have to worry about graduating and getting to work on time, so I guess for now I will merely read.