The way I reward myself for spending a whole weekend and a day on the rag (Lauren's phrase) with my dad doing SATs and flipping through college books without arguing once:

by spending two hours browsing lists of beat poets, modernist and postmodernist writers, eastern philosophers, early feminist writers, spoken word poets and people I've heard Harry's dad mention and then choosing a few to order from Amazon with my mom's account.

Now that's satisfaction.

I wrote a really sappy post before, which I promptly drafted, about what I might be like if I weren't dating Harry. Suffice it to say that I'd never, ever sleep with a teddy bear from anyone else. The fact that it came with a large ball of white plaster covered in sharpied aliens, monsters and heroes, and wore a Pratt shirt, makes it OK. Plus, the heat's off in my building tonight, so I'll need something to hold on to when I'm freezing to death.

I know I've been saying this a lot lately, but I really do feel very much in control right now.