Lots of things changed when I moved in with my girlfriend. Dishes get done, I wear pants more often, and I no longer listen to Refused at full volume at 2am on a Wednesday. I'm sure the bulk of people reading this would consider these to be positive changes and I don't disagree. There is one very negative change in my life that has occurred since moving in. I engage in a horrific activity that I am morally disgusted by at least 2 to 3 times a day and I have been unable to stop myself.
I read Entertainment Weekly while on the shitter.
It's not that Entertainment Weekly is a bad magazine, because it's not. It's not a good magazine either. It's just sort of there. What bothers me is that I used to have such high standards when it came to toilet reading. Smithsonian, Playboy, and the newspaper used to be my rags of choice. I still read the Smithsonian but I don't seem to read it cover to cover any more. Instead I read about what is happening in this weeks must see 2 Broke Girls or about the totally scandalous thing that Rhianna said on Twitter. I find myself reading two pages about an upcoming rom com that I have no desire to see and I hate myself just a little bit more.
If Entertainment Weekly succeeds at one thing it is that it makes me waste my time because, let's be honest, any time spent thinking about why Pan Am was a commercial flop is a complete and utter waste. Yet I find myself powerless to resist it's pull. It shows up in our bathroom every week and without fail I read it cover to cover. I read the Bull's Eye section in the back and can't help but think of a better (and usually far more crude) joke for each entry. I look at the week's TV ratings and giggle about how if it weren't for football NBC wouldn't even make the list. I go through every inane article that fawns over people and things that I neither care for nor care about, and when I'm finished I have read so little of substance that I still can't form an opinion. I read every little nugget of nonsense EW has to offer.
Actually that's not true. I skip the book reviews. I figure if I'm going to be slumming it I have to commit 100%. The thing I hate the most about Entertainment Weekly is that when it comes right down to it I don't hate it at all. I'm going soft. I find myself standing at a fork in the road. I either need to start reading Harper's, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly in a hurry before I kill every last brain cell. Or I could choose the other pass and live my life docile and content with a big, stupid smile on my face. I could spend my days idling away reading US Weekly, People, Soap Opera Digest and The American Spectator, wouldn't that be glorious? I'm sure after a month a could feel my brains oozing out my ears. I gotta head to the newsstand, if they even exist any more, and follow the lead of Brother Mouzone to pick up a Harper's. Although, for all you know I'll have my precious and vapid EW hidden inside.
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