If you're like me, your screensaver is a deserted island with three palm trees surrounded by gorgeous blue water. You stare at it--longingly--and think: if only. Islands turns those watery fantasies into reality--at least the print variety. Until I chuck my beloved rat race, I'll keep Islands tucked under my pillow. Each night, I will peruse its lush photography and, like James Thurber's Walter Mitty, dream on.

It has taken me some time to work my way around to reviewing the June/July issue of Paste that I grabbed a few weeks back. Mostly I've had difficulty digesting the mag's assessment of Elvis Costello as the eighth greatest living songwriter. Eighth? Behind Brian Wilson, last seen wandering around the "Hollywood" sign in a muumuu and slippers? This is sacrilege.

I learned an awful lot during my cross-continental trek for a cousin's wedding last weekend. If my entirely anecdotal research conducted between slugs of seltzer is accurate, people very much enjoy reading magazines when they are confined in small spaces for extended periods of time. One of the titles I spotted upon many a lap during my travels was Women's Health. As I'm partial to Rodale publications, I poached a copy from a chirpy 19-year-old. Her comment upon handing over the mag ("there's sooooo much in there!") pretty much sums things up... .

Promoted as "the magazine about shopping," Lucky is not for browsers. It's too hard-core. Lucky--and never was a moniker so ill-chosen--is a paean to consumption. Not the robber-baron Gilded Age variety, but pointless consumption nonetheless.

Oversized magazines intimidate me. Not because they dwarf my 4'2", 195-pound frame, nor because they tend to traffic in the froufrou, the hoity and the toity, mind you. No, it's because any mag too large to be rolled up and shoved in my back pocket usually includes enough filler to render plowing through a single issue a weekend-long exercise. Hence I rarely read any of the oversize glossies unless they're presented to me as part of an ultimatum ("Gotham or beets--it's one or the other.").

Blueprint is designed to appeal to Gen-X and Y women, and, in that capacity, introduces its very own signature cocktail (a Blueprint martini, with vodka, cointreau, curacao and blueberries, for those who want to be in the bluetini know). But booze aside, and as its name might suggest, Blueprint is still very much a work in progress.

Before heading to a BBQ at a friend's house the other day, I consulted with my child-development expert (a.k.a. my sister Julie) about appropriate gifts for the couple's two young children. When she suggested that one can't go wrong with books, I vociferously objected. Let the kids learn how to read on their parents' dime, I argued. Me, I'll just load them up with a bunch of sporting gear. When I got home that night, however, I was spooked to find an education-first magazine, Edutopia, peeking out of my mailbox....

Whenever I used to rustle up some lunch for my little sister, I took pains to present the final product with as much Emeril-ish showmanship as I could muster. In my capable culinary hands, tuna fish on toast became "tuna surprise"; noodles with butter became "les nouilles avec le beurre du surprise." In retrospect, the only true surprise was that I delivered unto her a plate free of sheared fingertips and/or airborne viruses.

The closest my family ever got to Southern living was fried chicken--and my own knowledge is gleaned from history books and more viewings of "A Streetcar Named Desire" than I care to admit. The essence of the South--its music, its décor, its singularity--was closed to me. Until now. Reading Southern Living is like sitting on a porch swing, sipping a bourbon and branch, as a cool summer breeze wafts the scent of clover and the strains of soft jazz.

Owing to its dark wit, dramatic nuance and astonishingly creative use of profanity, "Deadwood" is the best show on television by a wide margin. That is a declarative statement of fact, not an opinion. So when I saw two of its protagonists beaming at me from the cover of the July American Heritage, I let fly a hearty "giddy-up" and gaily tossed my 499 pennies at the unwitting cashier.