Academic Blues for Romantic Reds

We are still in the honeymoon phase of exams. I have gotten cozy with my textbooks, mostly (entirely) because they have comfortably occupied the other half of my bed, despite my pushes and shoves in the middle of the night for them to get away from me. Nonetheless, come morning time they lay there with the hopes of being chosen to be my arm candy for a Stauffer date as I rush out the door; my academic company for the day, my dedicated literary companion.

But lately I have come to question my relationship with my printed intimates: “It’s not you, it’s me.” I say. Something has gotten between our previously harmonious relationship and it is the realization that somewhere out there, I have a suitor.While dwelling upon the moody blue miasma of exam days, I thought to myself that what I really needed was some new nail polish – something red with ironic blue undertones.But pulling back the covers on this potential purchase, I was shocked to find that lying there underneath my textbooks was the realization that I sought to remedy my exam malaise with material goods! Realistically; however, this is no surprise – money can’t buy you happiness but it can buy a temporary respite.They say that every man has an ideal woman. I’ve discovered that I am the ideal woman for probably every corporation out there that hawks ephemeral pleasures to escape a dreary day (though others probably call it a target audience). Like an advertisement toting the byline ‘Has your man got you down? Come on into        and do we ever have the solution for you!’ I fell for it. I bought the nail polish, momentarily buying into the idea of a material paramour despite a marriage to textbooks; “This is my first time doing this, I swear.” I stammer to the confused check out clerk.Do I fall for the seduction of a new purchase until it happens over and over again and I am left with nothing and in a situation where monogamy runs one way and costs me a fortune? Or do I go home to my textbooks patiently waiting on their half of the bed and pretend that nothing ever happened, wake up early the next morning and start the routine all over again.Yours creatively,Veronica Saroli, Fashion Editor Image: Tumblr