June 4: #7 Buy or read a newspaper or magazine you don’t normally read or see

Phil: Within minutes of waking up most mornings, I’m out the door to buy a coffee and buy that day’s New York Times print edition to read somewhere. It’s my favorite way to start a day because it gets me away from my phone and lets me ease into the day peacefully. I didn’t want to miss out on that, so I just added to my haul this morning. I also realized I walk right past the amNY newspaper box every day on my way to buy a Times, so I snagged one of those. I also stopped at a dank Rite Aid on my way to the coffee shop to buy an issue of Time Magazine as well. It’s one of those magazines you always know about, but only flip through when you’re waiting at the dentist or something. So I was glad to be able to flip through it this morning in a situation that wasn’t anxiety-inducing. I liked their layouts and presentation of stories, but being that it was a May 29th edition, it was a lot of news I had already heard about. Still fruitful nevertheless, as it reminded me that there’s always more you can read. I especially liked checking in with amNY, which delivered more local news than the NYT might, kind of like a middle ground between the tabloid world of the Post and the regular NYT style. I’ll likely keep peppering in amNY into my daily routines, and snag up other mags in between when I’m in a lull with the two I already subscribe to: The Nation and The Atlantic.

Bruce: Today was fun because I never really read the paper despite feeling compelled to do so both from a social responsibility standpoint and just for the joy of reading. Oh and I should mention the incredible smell of a newspaper. I woke up and drove down the road to the nearby old deli and picked up the last copy they had of the New York Times which was sort of a fun antiquated experience in itself. A few things occurred to me in this endeavor as I ended up spending a collective four or so hours reading the paper today (no wonder why cartoonish dad’s wake up with the sun)! The paper is such an overwhelming and distracting amount of information laid out everywhere, I quickly realized I couldn’t just read everything as it was laid out and I couldn’t possibly read every single article, even though that’s normally how my brain works with projects and books and magazines. I started jumping around and that felt better as things caught my eye. I found so many stories and facts of interest that inspired, informed and enraged me. I feel like I learned so much, I was definitely out of my depth being largely ignorant of a lot of political situations but it felt good too, sort of having the elevating benefit of being the dumbest person in the room. I enjoyed feeling like I was more connected to the world while simultaneously enjoying the solitude of being engrossed in reading material. I even found a fascinating stolen-art story that I sent in to my favorite crime podcast to potentially do an episode about. I’ll probably subscribe to the printed paper now, thanks Challenging Days.

Tomorrow's challenge: #17: Buy/obtain a book