“We had no idea the soup was going to hit the fan”

So says eccentric crazypants Bertram Cooper as he and Roger look at a picture of the founders of Sterling Cooper taken forty years previously.  If only he knew that 1963, like 1923, was a year on the cusp of enormous, groundbreaking change!

He doesn’t, of course, and therein lies one of the show’s central themes: some characters profit from the status quo (oh, hi, Paul Kinsey!), and others suffer because of it (Betty, Sal, Joan, etc.) , but no one knows how different everything is going to be in ten years, or even in a few months, after the Kennedy assassination.  Normally this is a good thing, because it adds tension and enhances the drama of each character’s story line.  But lately I’ve felt that the show is nothing but simmering, mounting build-up, and the suspense was beginning to kill me.  Don is more repulsive than he’s ever been; Betty is completely broken; Joan and Sal are getting fucked over, and Peggy hasn’t gotten much screen time at all.  It’s too much to take on a Sunday night, I tell you.

So I was relieved when last night’s episode broke some of all that festering tension.  A few thoughts:

1. BETTY OPENED DON’S SECRET DRAWER OH SHIT!SHIT!

Such was my reaction.  Actually, it was more like, “why do they keep showing Betty doing laundry? did I miss something about laundry? oooh is that a key to the teacher’s place? oh, WAIT. OH, SHIT.”  I’ve been wanting this to happen for so, so, long, and my stomach was in sympathetic knots as I watched Betty sit up with the box, waiting for Don to get home.  I don’t think she suspects his secret identity yet, but she knows about his divorce from Anna Draper, and really, that’s enough to bring the whole carefully constructed facade crashing down on his oiled head.

2. Paul Kinsey is still a douche, but he may have realized that Peggy is a better copywriter than he is.

I wasn’t sure if his incredulous, “oh my God” was supposed to indicate that he was awed by Peggy’s quick thinking or merely furious that she had upstaged him in front of Don again.  At any rate, I think we can all agree that his literally masturbating to his own copy was exceedingly gross.  Also, it was interesting that his lost idea and the telegram theme both highlight the permanence of the written word: Betty wouldn’t have discovered Don’s secrets if he hadn’t left a paper trail.

3.  Don is still screwing that awful teacher

Not only is Miss Farrell less mature and far less interesting than his earlier paramours, she has more than a whiff of craziness about her.  She doesn’t care about his marriage as long as she knows he’s really and truly with her?  Seriously?  I predict that it will end in tears, and they’d better not be Sally’s.

4. Sterling Cooper is for sale.

Does this mean all the brouhaha over Don’s contract is moot?

UPDATE:

Did you know that if you Google, “Betty Draper smiling” Google asks, “did you mean Betty Draper smoking?” Hilarious.

Strange Bedfellows, indeed

From a pretty interesting New York Times article on the instability of American relationships:

Paradoxically, those who call for family values also tout the wonders of an unregulated market without observing the subtle cultural links between the family they seek to regulate and the market they hold free.

The author presents this as a strange fact, but is it?  Isn’t the modern Republican party the offspring of an unholy alliance between free-market Randians and social conservatives who left the Democratic party because of its stance on Civil Rights?

Sure, the religious right now follows the free market party line, and vice versa.  And both sides seem to believe that unregulated market/regulated bedrooms is a naturally winning combination.  But I think the current situation has more to do with political happenstance than any inherent affinity between Christian doctrine and free market ideology.*

*unless, of course, you believe in the whole Calvinism/free market connection, which I do.  But Calvinism =/= the 20th century brand of American bible-thumping.

You know your life sucks when

you find yourself googling, “what should I do with my life?” By yourself.  On a Friday night.

Threads

Today–the day before I begin my very serious job search in a new city–I went shopping with my mom for interview and work clothes.  It was more fun than I expected, partly because I had more money to work with than usual (thanks to generous relatives) and partly because seeing myself in grown-up, expensive professional clothing was a new experience for me.  Also, if you go to Nordstrom and look helpless, someone will swoop over to you and start bringing you things so you don’t have to sort through dozens of pairs of dress slacks and pencil skirts on your own.

Anyhow, the clothes were not cheap, and I started thinking of how it’s always necessary to have some money in order to get more.  My interview prospects would be seriously limited if I didn’t look like a member of the prosperous middle class.  After this shopping trip, I do.   Lucky for me.

I almost got this dress, which looked way more Joan Holloway on me than it does on this model.  But I did get this dress, which is AWESOME.

Incidentally

One of the most common search terms used to find this site is: “wife’s that don’t put out.”

Uh huh.  That’s me, right here.

Betty Draper: a character study

how could you possibly be unhappy? you have so many material possessions!

Last night’s episode of Mad Men has me thinking of how satisfying it would be to see Betty pull a Nora from A Doll’s House.   She is so incredibly miserable, far more so than she was in the first season.

Betty has undergone two dramatic changes so far, the first being her transformation from the pampered, pretty doll she plays in season 1 to the woman in season 2 who decides to stop maintaining the illusion that Don is faithful to her.  Kicking Don out of the house is the first adult action she performs, and she continues to gain strength and autonomy (albeit in strange ways) until her father’s stroke, which catapults her back into her child princess state.

And then, of course, her father’s illness leads to contact with Don, which leads to hate sex, which gets her pregnant, and then everything is shot to hell.  She had a chance to realize just how empty and suffocating her life was, but with this baby, she’s back to square one.

I think she could get angry enough to do something drastic, though.  She already knows that Don treats her and their children like appendages.  That’s why she made him furious when she asked if he wouldn’t sign the contract because “he didn’t know where he was going to be in three years.”  She’s no longer content to be treated like an accessory to Don’s important, mysterious life, and if Don doesn’t start taking her seriously, something’s going to snap. I hope.

I do not want a baby

I used to think I would, after I’d done the requisite stuff one does in order to be a good parent*.  But the closer I get to baby making age (which is what? late 20s/early 30s for middle class people?), the less appealing it becomes.

And now, over the past year, my feelings on the subject have turned from disinterest to antipathy.  The idea of getting pregnant accidentally now, or even getting pregnant ten years into the future, seems like the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to me.  I think part of this feeling must stem from how much my present life sucks.  I’m very poor; I’m far from being in a secure, loving relationship, and I have no idea where I will be next year, or in five years.  So, obviously, it would be nutty for me to want a kid.  Maybe years from now, when my life is better, I’ll want one and have one and it’ll be great.  Or maybe I’ll continue down my present path** and die childless, and that’ll be great, too.

*Having money and being married, I guess.  Although at this point marriage seems kind of awful, too.  I watch too much Mad Men.

**Minus the poverty, of course.

Reasons not to move to D.C.

1. The rents are pretty expensive.  2. I just might run into this guy.  I hesitate even to link his vile blog, but it really has to be seen to be believed.

(By now, everyone has heard about the PA man who went on a misogynist killing spree at a gym.  By his own admission ((via a personal blog which has now been taken offline)), he was so angry with women for sexually rejecting him that he hated all women, everywhere, and the only way to alleviate his rage was to kill them.  The women he killed were not his ex-girlfriends and had no connection to him whatsoever.)

The blog I linked to above is written by some sort of doyenne of pick up artistry who lives in D.C.   He makes the case that for men, celibacy is literally a fate worse than death:

As I’ve written before, to men on the losing side of the desireability bell curve celibacy is walking death and anything is justified in avoiding that miserable fate.

In other words: men deserve sex, and if women don’t give it to them, well, they have it coming.  This is, like, rape apology 101.  I really sympathize with the target audience of pick up artistry–sexual rejection does suck tremendously for anyone–but I’ve come to think that it breeds misogyny in the men it purports to help.  This blog totally confirmed that suspicion.  It is the biggest, seethingest, snake pit of misogyny I have ever seen on the internet, which is saying something.  Here are some choice quotes from the comments:

Sexism & Commodification

The infamous Faith Hill cover; the unretouched image is on the right.

Some British politicians are calling for a ban on photoshopping images in advertising aimed at children.  They also want mandatory disclaimers to accompany images marketed toward adults which detail the extent to which the images have been retouched.

Bird Dress

I am not ordinarily in the habit of celebrity fashion-watching, but: this is the most inventive and beautiful dress I’ve seen in a long, long time, and I want it.