One thing I love about Boston is it's plethora of free magazines, but my most favorite, is of course Lola. The one thing that saddens me most by this fact, is that I don't actually live in Boston. Instead, I live a good hour plus away, thankfully, my boyfriend lives in Boston and this means I get to visit an awful lot. My obsession with Boston's plethora of free magazines began with the Improper Bostonian. Living as far from Boston as I do the free newspapers and magazines I was used to were sent to you in the mail and either filled with ad's or short little news stories about your town. Sure, they served their purpose but neither one was airplane worthy. Lola, however, is so airplane worthy, I would like to plan a trip right now just so that I might read the next issue on the plane. But, getting back on track...

 What first got me about the Improper was an article of sorts named Impersonals. These short little notes are written by readers needing to get something off of their back. Sometimes it's reprimanding the guy that cut them off that day on Mass ave, other times it's thanking someone for going out of there way for them. It is always interesting. I guess you could say I love getting these little glimpses into people's lives. Perhaps the only reason I don't love the Improper as much as Lola is because it is very Boston-centric, not to say that that's a bad thing, but when you don't live or work in Boston, you don't much care about the cool hip places to eat, sleep or shop in Boston.

 I don't much like driving in Boston. Which is why I take the train 9 times out of 10 when going to visit my boyfriend. This involves at least an hour long train ride and I generally forget to bring a book along, thank goodness for free magazines! One that I just can't seem to understand though is the Boston Phoenix. I think it's to much like a real newspaper for me, to much news, not enough other stuff. Oh, and I really don't understand that little section in the middle. You must have seen my face the first time I was reading the Phoenix. One second I was reading about all the things Obama was going to do for us the next I was staring at very sexed out women, not exactly what I want to see. And so perhaps that is why I don't like the Phoenix, perhaps it is to geared towards men, oh well, let the men have it.

I LOVE LOLA! Shall I say it again? Nah, I think you get my point. To start off let me just state that Lola is small and compact. It is the perfect size for a large purse, I'm sure it would fit perfectly in a work purse. Now, I don't mean to diss Skirt, because I enjoy that magazine as well, but have you seen the thing? You would probably have to fold it in half twice to get it to the size of a Lola. Another thing that bothers/confuses me about Skirt is that it seems to be published and distributed in other cities around the country. How else can you explain people from Miami and Detroit loving a magazine I once thought Boston called their own? But I digress...enough about skirt let's get back to the reason we're all here Lola. It is set up similar to a glossy mag but yet I feel like they won't be repeating idea after idea like the glossies do. Plus they throw in a sudoku and a hashi, just like the newspapers. I think I enjoy it so much also because though it is centered around Boston it does not come off Boston-centric. There are ideas of things to do in and around Boston, but perhaps because of it's size the articles are small enough to not overwhelm me with Boston based things.