Bear WIth Me, Here

     Okay, so, for this week's post I'm going to deviate from book recommendations and make a confession.
     Hi, my name is Amanda.  And I'm a tabloid-aholic.
     Yes, it's embarrassing.  Especially for someone who started reading J.D Salinger's short stories in the sixth grade  (not to brag but I have to restore my credibility somehow).  Especially for an English major, for someone who I'd like to think can differentiate between a novel that is a complete piece of trash and one that is inspiring, moving, or provocative.
     I don't read teary Nicholas Sparks books.  I don't cave on beach vacations and buy a Nora Roberts book, self-consciously explaining to everyone its my "beach read."  My family, in fact, will never forget the summer I attempted to struggle through War and Peace on our annual family vacation in Florida.  So why, I ask, why would I, who loves Nabokov and Hemingway and even can sink my teeth into a Dickens novel and enjoy it, why would I like tabloids?
     Tabloids are sick.  They indulge in humanity's voyeuristic tendencies- they are filled only with gossip and useless information about people who are way more culturally relevant than they should be, and pictures expanded or shrunken in order to fabricate commentary on how fat or skinny a certain star has become.
     There is no gratification found in a tabloid, or there shouldn't be.  One does not finish, put it down, sigh deeply, and suddenly feel much more pensive, as they would with a good novel.  Rather, you feel almost hungry for more- more gossip, more glossy pictures, more facts and tidbits about events that have absolutely no effect on my life.  At least- I feel that hunger.  And that is why I am a self-diagnosed tabloid-aholic.
     What can I say?  People are interesting to me.  Especially people who lead lives I couldn't even fathom leading.  I am genuinely interested in what these people think, how they feel, what they're saying and wearing.  I do not live in a fantasy world- I am perfectly aware that while Kim Kardashian is trotting around in her Christian Louboutins I am attempting to patch over the hole that has appeared in the toe of my knock-off UGG boots.  I just find these people so interesting!  It's infuriating, really- tabloids are wildly overpriced and not worth it at all.  You cannot keep them as you can a book- the information slips into irrelevance the next week, or even the next day.
    I don't really have an answer as to why I am so affected by these glossy gossip rags.  All I can say is that an escape is provided similar to the way it is in a book- for about 80 or so pages, I can indulge all I want in a Hollywood lifestyle.  And I don't have to deal with the paparazzi.