CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIA TWEENIE. I’m having one of those days, you know, one of those bloaty, crabby, Lay’s Big Grab and Hershey’s King Size leave me alone days, and I see a window of opportunity for some private time later in the day, say maybe three or four hours of non-whining bliss (mine or anyone else’s). Planning ahead for this mini-retreat, I think this time will be different. I won’t catch up on laundry, phone calls, locating the pee smell in the bathroom, or sorting toys by age, theme or corporate sponsor. No, this time I think, to borrow a phrase from M. Python, “And now for something completely different!” I decide to buy a magazine! And read it!

I head to my favorite local bookstore, giddy at the thought of entering the expansive periodicals section, the section I always pass by on the way to the children’s department to buy yet another birthday present for yet another school friend. I think about all the glossy covers I’ve rubber-necked longingly as I’ve pushed various sized strollers over the past few years, imagining that someday I’ll have the time again to thumb through, nee read (!) a magazine again. You see, not only is it enjoyable if picked properly, but it is a statement: My life is so together (and therefore, I am, by association) that I can piss away this bit of my day on this trifle. See me being so cavalier?! Ha ha! Seeing a mother of three buying a magazine inspires awe in the educated onlooker. However, it is vital, and I wholeheartedly vow, to not buy anything to do with my daily drudgery. No cooking, cleaning, organizing, mothering, parenting, checkbook-balancing or anything with the words mom-wife-recipe-woman-diet-calorie in the title.

I am going to read music magazines. I am going to read up on friends who are still in bands and look at pictures of Lyle Lovett. I will figure out the difference between drum-and-bass and house, and even look at rags covering artists I don’t listen to, because I still think Snoop Dogg is cute.

I am going to read Italian Vogue, not even American Vogue. Maybe W. I am going to read those beautiful goth magazines and somehow, someway incorporate makeup tips into my daily life, if only for ME (and, of course, the PTA).

I’m going to read media arts and culture magazines and decide for myself whether Japan is the new Japan. I’ll read about independent cinema and performance art. I’ll pick up Bitch to atone for all my previous media sins.

It’ll be great, just like before I was a mom, when I felt like I was part of not only American culture, but of American sub-culture!

What happens next is more than disconcerting, it is downright off-pissing (I believe that’s how it’s stated in upper echelon circles). I pick up a copy of Goth Beauty and am immediately struck, not by the goth beauty, but by the goth youth. This is no doubt a reflection of my not-goth-anymore-aging, and since I’m afraid to simply face my own mortality (a popular goth topic, I think) I place it back on the shelf. Next I pick up Venus, a new-ish magazine featuring women in arts, music and diy culture. I can’t read it. Not morally, but literally. I can’t read the fonts. They are too small and faint. I squint, don my glasses and squint some more, all to no avail. Forget that. Who needs a young, hip, culturally upbeat magazine to tell me (I think, it looked blurrishly like it was telling me) that I’m too old to be reading it. Adbusters features a spread by a couple of brilliant artists choosing to use the medium of bloodied corpses and the guilty weapons of immediate destruction, which I find I can’t handle now that I have kids (is this just me?).

These failed attempts continue through the alternative culture section (too alternative/not alternative enough), gay and lesbian corner (too gay/not gay enough) and on into the crafting chasm (too crafty/too crafty). I realize that while I refuse to buy Family Circle today, I am frequently interested in ten meals in ten minutes, making the most of my storage space and explaining the death of a pet and/or loved one to a toddler. (To the gentleman standing beside me at Bookshop Santa Cruz at the exact moment when I made this realization, I apologize for the expletive shouted in your direction. I’m sure you are not a mother f*cker.) Now, with my new, perhaps healthier perspective, Dave Grohl and Frank Black stare back at me from the newsstand and they suddenly look like Goofus and Gallant, taking their place, I suppose, with other figures in my magazine past.

WARNING: CLOWN REFERENCE. I am about to paint the final picture of this outing, a pitiful portrait, but one of acceptance. Somehow I see the sad clown face of Emmett Kelley (with nose ring) atop my old-school-Chuck-clad feet, rolled up jeans and worn out comfy t-shirt covering my formerly-dancing-belly: I stand with my final purchase, “390 Crock Pot Slow Cooker Recipes,” knowing that this is truly the best read I will take home today, but I stand in front of Rolling Stone, saying a last goodbye. The rock star on the cover is the husband of a friend of mine. He tours and sings songs about drugs, she stays home with the kids, reading magazines and planning dinners. Maybe I’ll send her some recipes. (Maybe I’ll grab People magazine on the way out. Angelina is hot.)

Kim