Well-read and Well-dressed

Sunday mornings find me at my most laid-back state. A cup of ginseng or red yeast coffee and a book or a magazine are my best pals at this time of day, this day of the week.
This particular Sunday in question, things were just as they should be: I, emerging from the house in an old, yellow shirt, cup of coffee in hand, walking toward the glass-topped table, where lay a copy of the April issue of Preview and A.S. Byatt's Imagining Characters, a bookmark sandwiched between two of its pages.
I sat down, musing, eyeing the magazine and the book, lying casually beside each other like old friends enjoying the early morning sunlight. It occurred to me how this partnership might strike some as unlikely--the fashion magazine with its emphasis on the superficial and the Booker Prize Winning author's book on literary criticism of Women's Fiction (which could just as well be a dissertation on Feminism, by the way).
I sat down and stared at them and tried to weigh which one was more important to me--a silly thought, really, but one which crossed my mind, nevertheless, like an epiphany of sorts. I knew very well which one I'd rather lose over the other and which one I'd cry over if I ever had to lose it. Still, the fleeting question breezed by and I realized as I shook my head and grinned wryly, that I wasn't the nerd that some people (from High School, in particular) thought me to be. For me, intelligence dressed in mismatched clothes (a striped top and checked pants, for example) is less interesting, in the same way that a smartly-dressed woman without brains is ugly.
If you can quote Oscar Wilde but know no better than to wear those hideous white flats with purple pants, then it's time to look in the mirror and ask yourself why you never paid attention to what you wore. Or, better yet, grab a magazine from the bookshop and take a crash course on the difference between a pump and a mule, what a tulip skirt is and what season it was from, who Stella McCartney is aside from being a Beatle brat, is Yohji Yamamoto a he or a she, what does tweed look like and will it look good on you, etc, etc.
But make sure you don't forget who it was that said that to think is to be, or where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is, or if Pompeii is a person or a place and who Coleridge is. And brush up on those fractions--you just might need them on your shopping spree next sale season!