I subscribe to too many magazines. For years, I’ve gotten “The New Yorker,” “The New York Review of Books,” and “The Nation.” A few years ago, I added “Poets & Writers” and “Milk Street” (food, if you don’t know it) to the mix. Then last year I used points I’d accumulated to also get “The Atlantic,” “Wired,” “Vanity Fair,” and “Consumer Reports.”
Yikes! Who has time to read all those magazines? For years, I’ve used the following system: as the magazines arrive, they go into a basket in the living room. After four or five months, I move them to a basket in the bathroom and discard whatever magazines are still in the bathroom basket. Then I read through whatever looks interesting while I’m in the bathroom, so I’m reading most issues months late. If there’s something particularly urgent, I may read it when it first arrives.
The other day the “Consumer Reports” that arrived was its annual auto issue. I’m not buying a car, so there was no need to even think about moving that issue into my recycling system. Instead, I sent an e-mail to my apartment building’s e-mail list asking if anyone wanted it. Within a few hours, I got a bite, and this evening I took the issue up to his apartment. Back home, there was e-mail interest from another resident, so I put the two of them together. Now I feel virtuous about not throwing away that magazine.
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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 15 of the 31-day challenge. It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about. Join in!
