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I am a sucker for titles. Book titles, sure. But also those catchy article titles on the front of magazines. You know the ones, they trick you into grabbing Iguana Lovers Weekly at the check out and tossing it atop your Twinkies and green tea. Even though you've never had a reptile, well except for your former spouse. Wow, where did that come from?

Anyway....

I am highly suggestible this way. I know this about myself. So, in an act of preventative self-defense, I learned to not look around during checkout. I try very hard and am almost always successful this way. My secret? Do not make eye contact. No matter who I think might be looking at me from the glossy front of that glossy GQ magazine. "Don't look!" Once I look, I'm done for. Although it's not the glossy boy with the glossy hairy chest that clinches the deal; it's the title teasers along the side:

• "Seven Things Women Should Never Apologize For!" I definitely need to know what those are.
• "Junk Food Diet To Melt The Pounds Away!" Hmmm, this information might come in handy.
• "Periwinkle! The New Black." Well, duh.
• "Two Hundred and Twelve Things Women Should Always Apologize For!" Pretty sure I already know these and am thinking "Just two hundred and twelve? That can't be right."
• "Secrets to a beautiful, sexy, happy, quick, new, cheap, rich, organic, organized, orgasmic blah, blah, blah . . . ." I'll take it. If you really want to get my magazine buying attention, you'll use the word 'Secret' on the cover.

This 'Do Not make eye contact' thing worked very well for a long time. Until a few years ago, when my youngest child, my daughter, hit mid-puberty and became frighteningly interesting in celebrity gossip. (Don't worry she's clean and sober since the intervention.)

One day when she was fifteen or sixteen, we were standing in the grocery store check out line when she broadsided me. "Oh look, Britney shaved her head." I impulsively dropped my Snickers bar and pomegranates, stuck my fingers in my ears and started to hum "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" as loud as I could to block any further assault. It worked. Whew! I didn't hear anything more but I did notice that my daughter edged toward the woman standing behind us in line and said to her "Mom, is that woman up there okay or should we stand in a different line?" And I think she might also have been pointing at me.

After I finally talked my daughter out of that other woman's car and into our own, we had a little talk and came to an agreement about magazines at the check out. Since then, it hasn't been a problem.

Even when I started working for the library. I'm quite proud of myself, for the last four or so years, I scan the library bar code on the back and never even look at the front. Except today I had a little stroke and accidentally looked at the front of a women's magazine. Vogue, Glamour, Allure, you know, something along those lines. And the top teaser said "Men's New Sexual Needs." Arrgh, there are new ones? What? Crap. Not that I was all wrapped up in their old ones but still.

In the grand scheme of things, I'd say men's sexual needs are not exactly unknown nor neglected last time I checked. (1991) So why there needs to be a magazine article about them, I'm not so sure. But whatever. That's a completely different blog for another day. (Now you've got that to look forward to.)

Once I'd made the magazine-Barbie eye contact, there was no going back. I had to look at the new needs. Okay, well I didn't have to, but still. I scanned the article and I have to say just one thing. I'm all good.

No, nothing to do with the sexual needs list but with another aspect all together.

You see, typically, when I read something of this nature, in any format: book, magazine, blog, cereal box, I tend to be all or nothing.

Somewhere along the line a long time ago, I decided that I was either all in or all out. That it was hypocritical otherwise. I had to agree wholeheartedly, or disagree vehemently. So for instance, just speaking hypothetically, you know for example sake, let's say that I read this list of sexual needs and the third one makes me very, VERY happy to read. That it solidly confirms a long held (yet strictly hypothetical) need of my own, thank you very much. (I KNEW it!)

Then, continuing that hypothetical, just-for-argument-sake path, let's just say I read 'need' number seven and this need flies straight in the face of everything I hold dear. Of all things holy. Previously, I'd have had a serious dilemma on my hands. Do I wholeheartedly agree, or vehemently disagree? All of this article or none of this article? What's it gonna be? Pick. Pick!

Something in my head says "You can't have it both ways." Although I did just read in this article that men think they need it both ways.

But then I decide, I will embrace the part that makes my heart nod knowingly and say, "Yeah BABY!"

And that I will very happily disregard the part that makes me growl and snarl, "Oh my goodness! Seriously? Give me a break!"

I love this new, 'not all in and not all out' option I'm allowing myself. Why on earth would I think I have to be so hard on myself? Where did that strict nature come from? (Well, I actually know the answer to this question, but that too, is another blog. Lucky!)

I can totally, TOTALLY, just take the part that I want and recycle bin the rest. With this new and revolutionary way of thinking, my mind is wandering down all kinds of potential avenues of future possibilities. This should be fun.

And by the way, I'm all over needs one through six. But need number seven? Yeah, good luck with that! Let me know how that goes.