History of Present Illness
Chief Complaint:
The New Yorker and I have had a long love hate relationship.
Family History:
My mother, may she rest in piece, was a New Yorker devotee. When she died we found boxes of old issues in her basement. For whatever reason I was the only one of her four children interested in them; I ended up with issues from 1945, 6, 7 and 8.
History of Present Illness:
My mother died when I was fifty and coveting these vestiges of cultural history put me in mind of my own future legacy. What would I pass on to my children and grandchildren? From that moment I regretted not saving
issues of my earliest subscriptions: Boy's Life, Popular Mechanics, and most significantly Mad Magazine.
But how much do magazines subscriptions really tell about a person?
It is not the magazines themselves that matter so much but how they are dealt with.
I have subscribed to the New Yorker for over thirty years with a persistent feeling of fear and loathing. They arrive with inexorable insistence every week and demand attention. My approach to dealing with them has changed over the years and hopefully is a reflection of my maturational process.
Initially I would absorb the cover and then head straight to the index to see what was a must read. The anticipation of a juicy article was part of the pleasure. I would carry an issue around with me for comfort
knowing that, should I have a moment of down time, I would have a trusted digression available to me.
What happened more often than not is that I would not finish an old issue before the new one came. The issue (pun intended) then became in what order would I read them. If I had gone on vacation the dilemma
compounded: arriving home to a pile of New Yorkers was intimidating and added to the general chaos of trying to resettle one's life after a couple of week's respite in France.
Having more than one issue of the magazine to read was laden with guilt; on some level it became a metaphor for the disorganization of my life. It made me feel like an overachiever with perpetually unattainable goal.
A few years back I took a major step. I had collected issues of The New Yorker as old as five years in boxes. Each issue had been folded to the article I intended to read so that I would not have to peruse the who
magazine to find it. Every time I looked at the neat boxes I was filled both with an ineffable sense of hope (that I actually would read it) and an inexorable sense of disgust (that I likely would not). Year after year the boxes remained untouched and finally last year I tossed them in the recycling bin never to return to my possession.
Despite this seeming breakthrough some things have not changed. I do not know how to deal with the New Yorker. I still have anxiety and cannot cope with more than the current issue.
That is why I made this appointment with you Doctor.
My end notes:
The doctor had no concrete suggestions. He had six issues of the New Yorker on his Park Avenue waiting room coffee table, evidence of his similar affliction.
Unsatisfied, I took matters into my own hands: I spent $100 for the six CD set containing every issue of The New Yorker from 1925-2005. Half a million pages including ads, cartoons and articles. The reality is that much information is overwhelming but at least I can rest easy that I will not have missed anything, even if I never read it. There is comfort in that knowledge. Annual updates are promised.
My disquietude will pass. No issues of the magazine will linger around the house to cause me distress. Everything will be obscurely sequestered in a set of CDs which can remain out of sight and perhaps out of mind.
