Magazines

I once heard a joke that said when women watch TV they have to be doing something, and when men watch TV they are doing something. Sometimes I look over at R sitting in his chair slightly glazed over, remote in hand and wonder if he is even aware of anything beyond that football game or Stargate rerun on his big screen. While I have a few shows I can sit and focus completely on, for the most part I have to doing at least a little something while I am watching TV. I never sit through the commercials either, that's always a few minutes to get up and go do something in another room.

Since I have been trying to take it easy the past couple days I have had to sit around a lot. I still had to do something besides watch TV though. I am really bad about throwing out interesting magazines. I have a basket full in one room, a shelf in another, a large sail cloth basket in another, and they find their way into my bookshelves if they contain something truly special.

My earliest recollection of magazines are when my Grandmother used to get McCall's. I couldn't wait for it to come out because that meant I would get a new Betsy McCall paper doll. I loved paper dolls.

When I was in third grade I remember very clearly a Better Homes & Garden one December that had a stuffed panda on the cover wearing a red plaid tam and vest. There was a pattern inside for the outfit to make for a teddy bear. I asked Santa for a panda that year. Surprisingly I got one too, his name was Waldo and I loved him dearly. Good ole Waldo and I had many adventures before he fell completely apart. I don't think he was well made because I was a very careful child. I miss him and I wish he was still around since he was the only bear of my own I had as a kid.

I have learned a great deal about life from magazines. No one ever really taught me how to apply makeup, pluck my eyebrows or how to develop my own fashion style. I learned those things from Glamour and Mademoiselle.

My favorite magazines have always been decorating and craft magazines. I love the teddy bear publications too. I remember the first time I saw a copy of Barbara Wolters "Teddy Times." Not too long after that Teddy Bear & Friends and Teddy Bear Review came into being. I was utterly delighted.

As an artist I take inspiration from magazines. Not always the ones you would imagine either. I just got a new Romantic Homes and am quite inspired by the colors and fabrics used in some of the featured rooms. I may try to incorporate that into a bear.

My most recent favorite is Somerset's "Where Women Create." I guess peeking into the rooms and studios of other artists somehow brings a voyeuristic tendency that I never knew I had to the surface.

Tonight I had gone through a stack of old magazines, sorting them and keeping the ones I still wanted and discarding ones that no longer held as much appeal. I learned a few things by doing that. It's interesting to see how my tastes have changed in the last couple years, and I learned that every single picture of me in a magazine is terrible. I mean really dreadful. Of course whenever I go to a show I always look awful for having driven across the country, and come down off of my mountain closer to sea level, and experienced a change in humidity. It makes me puff up with retained water like a blow fish. I am by no means a thin girl, but I swear I look twice as wide in every picture.

After sorting through all these magazines and watching things I can't even remember on TV, I decided it was time to go soak my feet. I really love baths, but there is something quite delightful about just soaking your feet, using the foot massager and then slipping on some gel socks after having slathered on a nice thick shea butter cream.

Now if you have ever had a cat, chances are that cat liked to come into the powder room with you when you were going to have a bath. All but one of the cats I have ever owned has loved bath time. I have no idea why.

Gypsy is no exception. She thinks my powder room is her room. She also thinks that everything in it should be shared with her. When I ran the water for the tub I heard her hit the floor upstairs and meow all the way down the stairs as if to say; "Don't close the door til I get there!!!" She came in and took her usual spot on the toilet seat, then looks puzzled as to why I was sitting on the edge of the tub fully clothed. I had brought in a new issue of "Country Living" that I hadn't had a chance to read yet. I sat there soaking my feet and perusing the pages, so she decided she should join me on the edge of the tub. She kept leaning over to see what I was looking at. I finally showed her the page and asked her if she thought it was pretty. She leaned over, studied it intently and then looked up and meowed quietly as if to say; "That's very nice, now turn the page please." Gypsy is a very funny and weird cat who tends to be conversational and interested in all that I do.

After I was done, I went back to the sofa and picked up another magazine from the sorting stack. I guess Gypsy felt I had looked at enough and crawled on top of it and laid down. She was right. As much as I love looking at magazines, it's much more pleasant to share a little quality time with my devoted friend.