Magazine subscriptions are what separate us from the monkeys – well, that and our opposable… Magazine subscriptions are what separate us from the monkeys – well, that and our opposable thumbs, I guess. And maybe airplanes. Oh! And definitely our ability to speak, and have a civilization and do stuff that destroys the earth way more efficiently than those tree-swinging distant ancestors could, even with our opposable thumbs tied behind our backs.

But if we did tie our opposable thumbs behind our backs, it’d be difficult to read our glorious magazine subscriptions, and who wants that? Because there is no better feeling than the day you walk to your mailbox, a little bored, hoping for something to ease the discomfort of another day without the bottle or the pills or whatever it is you’re trying to wean yourself off of – maybe an addiction to staging bearbaiting contests? Cockfights? What are you kids into nowadays? – and there, folded obsessively into a small, mercilessly bent tube that sort of appears to be a telescope, is your magazine.

And that’s totally sweet. I used to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, and I loved the rush of getting a weekly magazine; the white-hot zeitgeist of it all made me unbelievably happy. The weekly, however, is a cruel mistress, and I burned out on EW’s marathon pace.

Luckily, my mom’s house still subscribed to EW, so every time I would visit, I would be able to obsessively flip through them, giddy with the thrill of a suburban afternoon filled with coffee, couches and magazines I didn’t have to pay for. Abruptly, it all changed.

It was probably three years ago when I found a different magazine at my mom’s, something that wasn’t about entertainment as much as it was about entertainers. It was US Weekly, the celebrity gossip mag.

My initial discomfort towards celebrity high jinks and gossipy innuendo was demolished within minutes of idly flipping through one of the issues. What killed me? The feature of “Stars – Just Like Us!”

Stuff like Jessica Biel walking a dog. Eva Longoria getting a parking ticket or Keanu Reeves drinking an espresso at an outdoor cafe – I ate it up with whatever utensil I could find. It was almost as if the celebrities were animals and Los Angeles was their giant, invisible-fenced zoo habitat.

You could see them in the wild, interacting with each other. Look! It’s Ben Stiller talking to Owen Wilson! That’s their ritualistic greeting! A handshake! Ohhh, Joan Rivers in natural light. And look at Lindsay Lohan pumping gas! She can do it!

It was all just so