You want frazzled? I'll give you frazzled.

I really do enjoy magazines. Really. But at certain times in life—for instance, when a close family member has cancer, or you're nauseated—the protracted cleverness is downright annoying.

Made-up words like "glowification" regarding facial treatments make me want to punch somebody. Interviews with washed-up Hollywood types, who are described as sitting next to their pool in a flowing silk mumu, I couldn't care less about. Alternatively, interviews with the latest Hollywood "it girl," whose lunch is inevitably described as a Big Salad and who claims she never diets, inspire me to rip the page to shreds.

As an editor, I roll my eyes when some 22-year-old mixed media artist in Manhattan is said to have a "well-edited wardrobe" of vintage blouses and $600 heels. I'm sure museum professionals are just as insulted when a frou frou boutique is deemed "well-curated."

Oh! Oh! And the parenting magazines! Yes, these can be fun and informative. But the sitcom-like frazzled tone of them seems so irrelevant when your kid stuffs a quarter inch of a candy cane up his right nostril—in March—and you have to coach him in the process of removing his finger from the nostril and blowing hard. The sight of an aging mint shard flying from your toddler's nose, that's the symbol of relief. Relief that 1) He isn't hurt, 2) You don't have to go to the emergency room, 3) You don't have to explain to a doctor why your kid had access to a candy cane long past the kosher window of time, which expired three months ago, and 4) Medical bills, relegated to the Stupid Tax file, for frantically handing your kid an old Christmas confection shoved in a kitchen drawer because he ate the entire roll of Mentos yesterday and won't get in the car until he gets a mint. A MINT, I TELL YOU.

The parenting magazines, they don't get specific like that.
Maybe I'm just a bitter old hag.

But Ethan asking sweetly for some fifis (fishies: Goldfish crackers), well. That's a made-up word I can get behind.