When botox fails to give you those lips...

Let me tell you about this week(end):

A woman doesn't need a reason to shop, but (for me) excuses are doing a decent job in washing away the guilty conscience. Since I probably don't need 99% of the things that I buy, to refrain from being called a compulsive shopper - an epidemic in the true sense, at least in big cities like this one - I shop only on special occasions. Big sales included. Birthday parties. Weddings. Long weekends. Before going on some trip. While there. Definitely duty free shops. When quitting cigarettes...

Graduation, I told myself, is a good motive to shop like I am living in a penthouse with a view to Central Park, reason  overused successfully for the first day wasted  spent in the fitting rooms of various boutiques. I recycled it on the second day. On the third, I knew that graduation weakened as a justification. "What if I become a bag collector?" There are vintage photo-cameras collectors, hats collectors, cigar collectors, old coca-cola bottles collectors, and there is nothing compulsive about any of them. Or so we think. Collector is a positive therm associated with one that invests in timeless pieces in an area that s/he is passionate. A shopaholic is not a collector because s/he is not fond of the clothes she buys, but addicted to the act of shopping itself, and what makes it compulsive is the reason behind their drive (depression, boredom, loneliness) or because of bad habit of having to shop anything, everyday. Not my case. For example, 3-4 years ago, the situation became so bad that I almost started what is known as the shopping diet: you have to wear only 10 (T-E-N) pieces of your choosing (shoes, bags, included, while underwear is limitless) for one month. After that, you are allowed to trade one old piece for one new piece (from your closet) per week. This exercise was to demonstrate that you have more than enough clothes in your closet, and to teach you how to be creative. "That is such a good idea...(enthusiastically)...Now I just need to buy those 10 pieces!"... Clearly, I did not follow the treatment...

The new bags (three...I know...) were not necessities, true, but they are the start-up of a Collection. To reinforce the capital 'C' ,  like any other collector, I
(1) bought timeless pieces that
(2)will be properly kept (i.e. not on the floor),
(3) cherished,
(4) weekly cleaned,
(5) and taken out only on special occasions.

Anyhow, you understand now, in the view of the past tiring days, why this course is more than welcomed. I am wearing one of the bags, for what can be more special than the binging of a 6 weeks seminar that:

...explores the development of consumer capitalism in modern Europe from the eighteenth century through the late twentieth century, primarily in Britain and France. Topics to be covered include the rise of a market economy and culture, urbanization and the commercial metropolis, changing attitudes toward shopping and spending, the construction of modern gender and class identities through consumption, credit and social trust, and the relationship between consumption and democratic citizenship. Historical studies will be complemented with readings from social theory, cultural studies, and fiction.

This, and not shopping (unless is homework), I will do this summer. Hopefully.