Real Simple?

I'm a magazine deconstructionist.  I probably have no right to say that, as Literary Theory was my absolute least-favorite class in my entire college career. I barely know what deconstructionism is to this day, despite getting an A- or so in that class. (I could teach a college course on how to write great papers with little time and without having read the book.)  It seems like this is magazine deconstructionism though - I flip through magazines, ripping out all of the advertisements and the content that is either not pretty enough, not interesting enough, not well-written, or just plain distasteful to me on some level.  I'm left with a magazine that I WOULD read, if I ever had (or made) enough time to actually sit down and enjoy it.

I do occasionally get back to those improved magazines - and I enjoy them - but I also do have a stack that I am waiting to read.  I spend far more time deconstructing magazines than I actually do reading them.

Which brings me to the December 2010 issue of Real Simple.  The thing is in absolute tatters.  It was a HUGE issue - loaded with content initially...and now when I look at my copy, there is almost nothing left.  I think the premise of the magazine is something that would normally really, really appeal to me - simplification of our lives, reviewing loads of new products and styles and foods and bringing us down to a basic few that are destined to be perennial favorites - things we will use and not need to purge from our lives in a few days, weeks or months.  But WHOA was December's issue not like that.

100 Magical gifts under $50?  What a load of absolute crap!  I ran those pages out to the recycling almost as fast as I turned the page to them, they were so insulting to my minimalist tastes.  Even the profiles were obnoxious - "the Man about Town"?  Who has time for one of those?  That is so not living a real simple lifestyle - to have one of those in your house!  My Man about Town is lovingly watching my daughter negotiate her way around a rollerskating rink at a birthday party right now, and otherwise on the weekends, rushing off to our kids' sports games all weekend.  He barely makes enough time to get dressed in the morning, much less to collect useless and pretentious knickknacks.  I glanced at  "Stocking Stuffers"...soap on a string for $40?  Are you kidding me?  Recycle this whole page.  "Splurges" - a bedazzled bowl?  About a thousand teeny crevices for food or dust to crawl into for the fantastic price of $150?  Recycle this whole section.  "Life Lessons" - entitled "Good Read" - a few pages wasted/written by a woman who loved her parents for allowing her to bring books to dinner so they could all ignore her disordered relationship with food.  I'm sure they were fine parents, but if she is a gifted writer, do you think she could find a way to praise them without portraying them as people who were all too willing to ignore her (and her eating disorder) at meal time?  And what is that essay doing in this magazine?  Is it Real Simple to become accepting of our eating disorders?

But the worst, worst, WORST was the etiquette expert.  First she "weighs in" about holiday photo cards being obsolete - isn't everything already posted on social media?  I will be the first to admit that in my lonely moments (or bored moments - like all afternoon while I am waiting for people to get out of school and get to the car, or get out of practice, or waiting for a game to start) I like to read about my acquaintances' lives...and when I'm feeling lonely or proud I do like to post and hear from friends on facebook.  Hey, with many things on the schedule it is hard to find a good sized-block of time which corresponds with my friends' open good-sized blocks of time, and status updates let me keep up with their lives and allow them to keep up with mine.  However, I do not feel like living one's life on facebook is either appropriate or healthy...I'm hoping to reduce my bored and lonely time...not spend more time being that way!  Further more, just because social media is easy doesn't mean it is an appropriate way to send a good amount of holiday cheer.  I appreciate the time and effort it takes to include our family on the Christmas card lists...and I love receiving a little bit of that effort.  This "etiquette expert" may be so very pretentiously busy that she can't get her cards out until late January...but when I receive a card I am always appreciative of the effort that was put forth to send it (and to send it on time)!

That's not the part that made me want to toss the whole magazine, though.  Further on in this "etiquette expert's" column she chooses to answer a whiny question from someone who wants to try to find a way to make her mother stop filling her Christmas stocking with useless junk that the stocking recipient then summarily gives to goodwill or throws in the trash (sounds like this issue of Real Simple made that stocking...).  Out of all of the questions sent in, this unappreciative daughter's was the best?  If a woman can't figure out that 1) She is lucky to have a mother at all and 2) She is lucky to have a mother who loves her enough to put forth effort for her Christmas stocking then she is a lower creature than the chickens that live in my coop.

Real Simple?  Life made easier?  Here's my advice to both the writers and the readers of that magazine: recycle.  All of it.  Not just in general, but specifically.  Recycle this magazine, both in small ways (this issue) and larger.  Go back to what the magazine is supposed to be about, to the people you were originally trying to reach.  Life is not complicated.  People only complicate it when they aren't dealing with something more life-and-death.  I know I don't equate a " real simple" lifestyle as being one that involves glittery, fake trends, and shallow, self-involved individuals.