Everyone loves getting real, stamped, Canada-Post-delivered mail, and one way to guarantee such magic is by taking out a magazine subscription. I am subscribed to three magazines due to my dearest dad who believes that I should be a well-informed citizen of the world. And so I get The Walrus, The Literary Review of Canada, and Toronto Life. (Well. I asked for that last one. I love living in Montreal, but Trawna will always have a special place in my superior vena cava.) I would get a ton more, but I’m trying to master portion control. Secret confession: I’ve been reading magazines targeted at middle-age women since I was in middle school, and parenting magazines since I was seventeen. Sometimes it’s just easier to contemplate solutions for faraway problems than to tackle trigonometry.
Secret confession the second: in addition to Internet bills, olive oil, paper towels and our twice-monthly bags of chips, Baboushka and I have another household expense — a subscription to Cosmopolitan. It’s pretty wonderful, reading all about mind-blowing sex tips every single month. We like to take the quiz in the back of each issue — apparently I’m not so great at interpreting man-talk but have a healthy attitude towards competition — and make up for the lack of anthro classes in our schedules by perusing Cosmopolitan’s Manthropology section. It’s ridiculous and repetitive, and we have a wonderful time.
But, you know, it’s Cosmo. There’s a stigma. And then there’s us. The über-nerds who Reached For The Top in high school and always attempt eloquence with strangers. Clubbing is for other people, sure, but Cosmo is for us. However, it’s a little bit embarrassing to admit that, isn’t it?
“Hi, I’m Sarastotle, yeah, like the ancient Greek philosopher, and yes, that’s right, there is a half-naked Rachel Bilson on my coffee table. Yup, Taylor Swift is right beside her. And yes, that does say ‘orgasm guaranteed.’ So, what are your thoughts on the geo-political situation in sub-Saharan Africa?”
It doesn’t exactly flow, does it? So we came up with an ingenious plan to fool the outside world into believing that we are not all that cosmopolitan: the fake name. Yes, that’s right, our subscription is in the name of Emily Austin — borrowed from the authors of Wuthering Heights and Pride & Prejudice, with a slight tweak in the latter — and that way our landlords and postman will never know that the girls who read The Literary Review of Canada and get letters from their moms aren’t planning midnight trysts with Italian stallions, or whatever it is that Cosmo readers do.
I guess the actual question is why do we care what the mailman thinks? I mean, I’m sure he’s a great guy, but we’ve only had the briefest of interactions when I sign for parcels. He has no idea who I am and what I do, so why does it matter if he thinks I’m shallow as a bedpan? It doesn’t. I know that. At least I think I do?
Yours in navel-gazing,
Sarastotle
Players of Prince Arthur 