Newspaper girl goes without

Maggie says:
During my long spell of job-searching, I found myself absolutely broke about a month ago when it came time to renew my Journal subscription. So I let it go.

I'm a newspaper girl through and through. I've held one in my hands probably 95% of all my mornings since I was 14 or so. The thought of going without seemed oddly paralyzing. What do you do while drinking that first cup of coffee if not read a newspaper? How else do you get a sense of the day's weather besides fetching the front-stoop headlines in your pajamas? How do you get that absentmindedly-cute look without the possibility of newsprint smeared on your face?

I even have a coffee mug from the Newseum that says "I love the smell of newsprint in the morning." And I do. I'm that nerdy.

Checking the news online is just not the same for me. It never will be.

So there was some getting used to the lack of a newspaper, for sure. And I still miss its physical presence, what it represents to me. But I also have to admit how oddly... free I feel. And how much less annoyed I am.

See, the Journal never was a real newspaper to me. It could never even be the physical symbol of something I've grown to love, because what I could never love about it is so damn pronounced. It would sit there on my doorstep and just mock me. It could never in a million years be The Boston Globe. It could never even be The Raleigh News & Observer. It was everything I couldn't have in this town. It had ads on the front page!!!!

I'm the girl who always carries around the paper. And probably yesterday's, too. And now I'm paperless.

This says a lot about the Journal. Not reading the Globe when I lived in Boston would've been unacceptable (hell, I still read it!). Back home, I genuinely look forward to the N&O's perspective every morning. But the Journal makes me want to scream. Or cry. And for this media hound, maybe enough is enough. Until I can get my newsprint fix with some dignity (or the Trib decides to print a special morning edition just for me each day), I'm going to try and stay away. It's just not worth it to me anymore.

My gung-ho newshound teenage self is somewhere cowering in shame.