This is Just to Say...

I remember the day I got my first Seventeen magazine. I was ten or eleven, and it came to my house addressed to occupant. The good people at Seventeen magazine knew there was a girl between the age of 10-16 in there and goddamit, they were going to capitalize on it.

I remember I came home from school and it was gorgeous out, a day like today, in maine. My grandparents were visiting. But I could not extricate myself from that magazine. I was endlessly fascinated by it. I remember I spilled apple juice all over it and continued to read it, way past the month of the issue. My mom later bought me a subscription that I had until I was in middle school and I started stealing my mom’s Cosmos and realizing there was little difference between the two glossys. As I neared the “target” age—which I don’t think is actually seventeen—I found it more and more ridiculous. Until that point, however, I did ever quiz, read every article and every confession (“I burped while we were kissing!” OMG!) with joy. It seemed so grown up and mature to me at the time.

I don’t think there’s any magazine I enjoy quite that much today. I read my New Yorkers, sometimes cover to cover; I definitely read Cooking Light carefully (food porn), but never again with that much excitement.