I like reading. It's something I do every day. My only issue with reading is that there's only so much that you can read in your lifetime. You've got to be selective, because each crappy bit of boring fluff you read detracts from your overall verbiage haul. If you're reading this right now and thinking, “for the love of butter, what a self-absorbed cow,” please stop. I don't want to be responsible for a joyless reading experience.

I'm even choosy about the kind of quick commuting fodder that I strap onto my eyeballs. I won't read just any magazine. If I'm waiting at the dentist's office, I naturally gravitate toward the Sports Illustrated or Newsweek. I don't dwell too much on hard-core fiscal theory, which is why I subscribe to a magazine called The Economist. And I have historically steered clear of the trendy mags that purport to be aimed at women of my age and educational background. Why? Because they're so very girlish.

This month, I set my pride and my preconceptions aside and picked up copies of Glamour and Cosmopolitan. I read each cover to cover, took note of the advertisements in them both, analyzed their tables of contents and tried to be as open and receptive as possible. Once I had gotten over the cacophony of perfume smells, I discovered two magazines with strikingly similar structures and oddly divergent views of what modern women find useful and interesting. There were a few of articles that intrigued me, and a great many that made me want to jealously guard the remainder of my lifetime word horde.

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