Monday Magazine Mania: The Beginning

Twenty years have gone by, yet I remember it perfectly.  I was with Mom at our local grocery store, Felpausch.  While she perused the greeting cards, I wandered over one aisle, to the magazine row, just out of boredom.  I didn't actually care about any of the publications.  But then I picked up Teen magazine.  I was 13, and -pow! - here was my holy grail.  

I didn't know how to dress, what to do with my hair, or how to talk to boys.  And here was a manual explaining how to do all those things!  I begged Mom to buy it for me, and she said yes!  Once at home, I studied every word, every page.  And then a subscription card fluttered out.  Soon, I was handing over $12 of my babysitting money to Dad, and in return, he gave me a check made out to Teen magazine.  Thus began one of my longest, and most wonderful relationships.  
I kept every issue in mint condition.  I saved them, and referred back to old issues regularly.  Nearly two decades later, I'm still mad at my then-best friend for borrowing my first-ever Teen -- and then CUTTING IT UP for a scrapbook.  You don't burn someone else's Koran... and you sure as heck don't cut up her "Bible!"  But I digress...
I subscribed to Teen for years, but I wasn't always monogamous.  After a couple years, I met Sassy*, and began a several-year-long lovefest.  There was also a fling with Seventeen.  And then, the mother lode.  A family friend known as Grandma Jan had a thick stack of fashion magazines she no longer needed.  Did I want them?  And that was how, in one day, I met the dear friends of my distant, grown-up future: Elle, Bazaar and Vogue.  I'm sure Grandma Jan never knew her pile of old magazines was one of the most cherished gifts I ever received.  
In college, I majored in journalism, expecting that Anna Wintour would someday move on from Vogue, leaving the Editor-in-Chief position to, of course, me.  But then I changed my focus to broadcast, rather than print, journalism.  (And, also, Anna Wintour never moved on from Vogue.)  So instead of editing Vogue, I grew up to be a Talk Show Hopeful and an admitted magazine junkie.
Signs that I'm an addict include problems like this:  When I first spotted In Style on the newsstand (featuring Demi Moore in curlers) in 1996, I fell in love.  But I've never been able to subscribe, because I fear I might miss an issue while I wait for the subscription to kick in.  So I just keep buying it at the bookstore... month after month after month, for fifteen years!  Also, I never, ever open up a perfume sample, because that, to my warped mind, would damage the integrity of the magazine.  And don't even get me started on my thoughts about using magazines for scrapbooking purposes!**

-----------

*The Bloggess shared a recent interaction she had with the editor of Sassy.  Her story is hilarious- read it immediately.  Compared to The Blogess, I'm completely useless at this internet thing.  Sigh.

**Although, I must admit, if I feel the need to send hate mail to my nemesis Bill Schulz, I will send a creepy letter composed of cut-up magazine letters.  But I DON'T cut up a gorgeous monthly magazine for the job -- I use a less-valuable-to-me weekly magazine (apologies, In Touch Weekly editors). 

Host Chat: What the Cluck?!!

Welcome to another edition of Host Chat.  Just as Regis shares exciting stories from his life each morning, I share my latest tales of hobnobbing, hijinks, and more often than not, humiliation! 

Another Big Metal Chicken.  Why's it staring at me
with that creepy eye?  Is it planning fowl play?

I fear I'm being followed... by a Big Metal Chicken.  Why, you ask?  Well, check out this play-by-play of my Thursday afternoon:
2:30pm - I randomly stumble upon a blog entry titled "Knock-knock Mother%&@, Giant Metal Chickens Revisited."  I find the entire site, The Bloggess, hilariously weird, and promptly bookmark it.
3:15pm- I check out Twitter and see that my friend Deanna (@Deannaee for those of you on Twitter) has -- coincidentally -- sent me the following note, about the exact same chicken:
@JillDobson I think you should interview @bigmetalchicken(before he gets too big for the coop).
[Cue scary-movie music now.... something like the Jaws theme, except with an occasional "cock-a-doodle-doo" thrown in.]
3:16pm- I check out the Twitter page of @BigMetalChicken... and see that he* follows a wide variety of people on Twitter... including ME!  And he started following me before Deanna "introduced" him to me with her Tweet. How did that happen?!
3:20pm- I notice this Tweet that @BigMetalChicken had posted earlier in the day:
@JillDobson You're now being followed by a Big Metal Chicken. Your day can only go downhill from here.
Seriously, what the cluck is going on here?  Coincidence?  Or does Big Metal Chicken have a tracking device that enables him to see -- and respond to -- my every move?  Good thing my planned Thursday afternoon trip to Saks Fifth Avenue was cancelled... because Big Metal Chicken was probably right inside the front door, ready to spritz me with perfume and sell me the latest Marc Jacobs fragrance, "Henhouse."  Or maybe, since he's quite tall, he would've been waiting for me when I got home, "peering angrily over the roof of our house from the backyard."  Or perhaps he just wanted to leave me some passive-aggressive chicken notes, scrawled out in barely legible chicken scratch, of course.
All I know is, I'm going to think twice before leaving home today.  I fear he's plotting fowl play.


* This so-called chicken claims to be "All Rooster," and is therefore male.

-----

To check out The Bloggess and Big Metal Chicken, click here.

To make like a Big Metal Chicken and follow me, go to:

www.twitter.com/jilldobson
www.facebook.com/jilldobson