Mom-101 said her “husband-ish” is addicted to football, it’s like his crack, and do I have any addictions? Oh yeah, baby. There’s this one thing that I HAVE to have. When I see it, my heart rate increases, my breathing gets faster, and I feel this overwhelming urge to grab as many of it as I can.

Magazines. I’m talking about magazines. They are my crack.

I almost said books, but the more blogs I read the more I realize that I am not the only one with a major addiction to books. If you’re one of those people who only reads books from the library, I applaud you. If you have a towering stack of books next to the bed, a bookshelf in literally every room of the house, plus more books in your basement/attic/storage space, you’re my kind of person.

But magazines, they are my comfort, my escape, my trashy source of gossip, information, and news. Here’s a list of what I subscribe to:

Entertainment Weekly–13 years as a subscriber.
Time Magazine
Reader’s Digest
Kraft Food & Family
TV Guide-Have you seen the new TV Guide? It’s like Entertainment Weekly except just about TV. They really did a great job improving it.
Weight Watchers Magazine-Just started getting this one, it has excellent reviews, tips, recipes and menu suggestions. And it’s pretty to look at.
Consumers Reports
(Added after I read Dawn’s comment) National Geographic, a Christmas gift from Dad.

Then for the boys (mostly Ryan, he’s a Junior Magazine Crack Addict):
Lego Magazine Brickmaster Edition
Zoobooks
National Geographic Kids
Disney Adventures

That makes twelve that I subscribe to or come from a gift subscription, here’s what I buy at the grocery store checkout because I’m too lazy to send in a subscription:
US Weekly
In Touch
People (only if the cover looks really interesting)
Vanity Fair-EXCELLENT to take on trips because it takes so long to read every single article.

That means that at any given time there are as many as fifteen new magazines in my house, plus at least a few weeks’ worth in the wicker basket I keep under the coffee table, plus the ones Ryan reads over and over and leaves laying around. Lest you think I am cluttering up my city’s landfill with my discards, I do recycle. Although we’ve only been once since the baby was born, so the stacks of bundled and tied magazines in the garage is getting somewhat precarious. I also sometimes take magazines that I haven’t torn pages out of to the library. Our little township library runs a Book Cellar during the week where you can buy old books for cheap, and they also sell magazines for like 10 cents. I scoop up old Vanity Fairs when I can find them.

Question #2 comes from Sweatpants Mom, who asks Katherine or Taylor? Is this the last week? I vowed not to watch it and I won’t, but I’ll give my opinion. If the competition was being judged strictly on vocal talent, it would be Katherine. Of the two, she has the better voice control. Unfortunately, the competition is decided by “America”, and who the heck that is, I have no idea. I would love to see some kind of statistics on who actually votes.

What I think it all needs to come down to is who will actually sell CDs and Concert tickets. Kelly Clarkson, for example, hit it big because she went on tour and worked her ass off, and she gets everyone from preteen girls to working Moms to buy her CDs. Are preteen girls going to flock to music stores to buy Taylor’s CDs?

The other factor is marketability. Sure, Taylor is quirky and some ladies love that “silver haired fox” look, although I have to seriously question the “fox” part. As my husband reminded me, the man Taylor tries to emulate, Joe Cocker, sold tons of records and he’s not exactly pretty to look at. But what I think a record company wants is someone who will attract sponsors. Carrie Underwood sells shoes (Skechers? Candies?), for example. They want someone who they can splash on the covers of magazines and get to promote energy drinks and jeans.

For that, they’re gonna need Katherine. She seems so perfectly plastic and moldable to me. I think Simon’s record company can make her over into pretty much whatever they want. So even if “America” votes for Taylor, I would bet Katherine would be the one to have the bigger singing career. After all, heard anything about Ruben Studdard lately?