(21 may 2009)

i can no longer afford tabloids. yes, at long last, the economic downturn has hit home.

mind you, this does not imply that my financial fortunes, meager though they may be, have changed. just that magazine wholesalers have gone the way of the dinosaurs and the us weekly subscription that was once two years for $12 is now a preposterous $79.99 for one.

thus, an experiment upon which i embarked years ago comes to an end. you see, back in my naive youth, i had the noble idea of subscribing to various gossip magazines for the specific purpose of charting the development of characters, plots, archetypes, etc. over the course of several years and across different publications. i did this in the name of Research, knowing full well that i would enjoy it very much.

because tabloids, they are of the devil.

i knew this. i’d read irving schulman. i’d interviewed readers. i knew what i was getting myself into and i did it nonetheless.

i sensed there was trouble brewing sometime in early December 2006, when the InTouch screaming “NICK & JESS BUST UP!” landed at my door two days after i was dumped and the article on how jessica simpson was drowning her sorrows in six-packs of zima hit entirely too close to home.

it is never good when the advice of a “medical expert who has never treated her but is familiar with her case” resonates.

so as a rational person, i know it’s not an entirely bad thing that the tabloids are leaving my life. it’s probably even for the best. i should not relate to jessica simpson. i should not know jennifer aniston’s hair-dresser’s name. nor should i know the precise age of everyone in the public eye. but how to prepare for this life-change?

because it is a life-change. 6 years of tabloids. 312 weeks. sure, there were a couple dry spells here and there. lapsed subscriptions. issues that got stuck at the post office and were delivered five weeks late. but still. tabloids are what thursday is for.

so i steeled myself for that first thursday when us weekly would not come.

that thursday came this past thursday, when i opened my mailbox and was greeted by emptiness. it was sad, but i totally took it like a man. i even boasted to friends that i’d survived my first week without us weekly, like this was a triumph on par with brokering world peace.

stupid girl, i flattered myself that, in a mere week, i had totally kicked tabloid addiction’s ass.

the next day, my mailbox yielded what proclaimed itself to be the LAST ISSUE. the official final us weekly, with the “we’ll miss you” and everything.

and my first thought, my only thought was– much like when rose jumped out of the lifeboat and ran into jack’s arms– oh, thank God. i wasn’t ready to let you go.