Making a Dent in My Magazine Pile

The daunting “magazine pile” that has built up during this busy semester and that I posted about on 4/6/11 was getting taller and taller, but just recently, as my semester winds down, I have made a conscious effort to make a serious dent in this pile. I have had some success. A couple of evenings ago, I separated out all the Nation magazines, which I enjoy and learn so much from, but which come rather unrelentingly every week, making it hard to keep up with them. I decided to read the tables of content of these 8-9 back issues, and just read a few selected articles in each issue that I was particularly interested in. I did so, and was able to polish off the pile in one long evening. Another evening I did the same thing with the four San Francisco magazines that had accumulated, and with a couple of other magazines of which I had two or more issues waiting. Then another evening, I powered through five back issues of Vanity Fair (which normally don’t pile up like that, as they are so much fun to read!). And finally, I staged a sort of mop-up operation of all the strays, including magazines that are from organizations I belong to and that are often rather boring, but that I hate to recycle without paging through to make sure I am not missing anything. I do keep up with the New Yorkers and New Yorks, so they were up to date already. And voila: my magazine pile was down to just two magazines! And then today two more arrived in the mail.... I love my magazines, but I have to keep on top of them, or there will be another pile rising on the shelf before I know it. And there is still the pile of professional journals awaiting my attention .... That’s my next project....