But I still find any opposition at all heartening. The Congress has failed us and failed us badly-- but I'm glad they're at least putting up some fight.

And probably some community, too. In academia, you have a ready-made audience/collaboration group of people with similar interests; then you get out into the real world, and they're gone. So your dissertation is over, and you're afraid all you are is a wife and a mom. And that's...fine, but it's not all you are, or all you want to be.

So you're reading fanfiction, and reading boards, and probably talking with authors and giving feedback and wow, this is such a great community, and you're part of something. And maybe it's not part of something big, but it's fun, dammit!

And you should have fun. You should have time for yourself, and a community that you belong to, that's not about being a wife or a mom.

But-- here are the buts-- you can't let it stop you having that other, real life you're a part of, and you shouldn't let it stop you from getting a job.

What worked for me for a long time was to have Sunday mornings for fandom. Sure I checked email at other times (still do), but I didn't have as much of a need to check that forum, that website, that journal. I like the egg timer suggestion too.

And let your husband know. You can start gently, like, "hey, I read this fan story about Harry Potter the other day and it was pretty awesome." Fandom is, like the Earth, Mostly Harmless.

(Oh, and my handle here on Salon: from an anime character.)

...you don't have a similar handle on LiveJournal, do you?

But I wonder how much business New York was losing in that department to Craigslist. They might have decided this was a graceful way to get out of a fading revenue source.

Kids cannot seem to stop touching each other.

They haven't had their natural need for physical affection drummed out of them yet. Soon enough they'll realize that sort of thing is only for Teh Sex, and they'll be grown-up, soulless drones like the rest of us.

Hand sanitizers are not all antibacterial-- you can get plenty that are simply 'antimicrobial', anti-germ. They just use alcohol in place of soap, and are in general gentler on your hands than soap and water.

And someone in her car club was in a fairly nasty accident-- the Smart got a little pounded but he was perfectly fine.

When we were in Montreal I saw tons of Smarts-- I heard a rumor they have snow and ice up there sometimes. I suspect the smart will be popular in cities and expand from there.

RDR wouldn't even give WB/JK Rowling a copy of the book so they could review it, so how do you know there's no infringement? The UK cover of the book used for promotion on Amazon was incredibly-- infringingly-- similar to the Harry Potter 'adult' covers used in the UK, without any notation indicating the book was unofficial. The publisher and Steve Van Der Ark have both behaved-- in my opinion-- quite horribly. J.K. Rowling has been more than generous to fans-- compare her behavior to Prince's!-- and for her generosity, she's getting some pretty terrible behavior.

Copyright law doesn't disappear the day you make a million dollars. If someone disagrees, they should write their congressman, not claim that Jo Rowling has no right to her own work.

My signature links to a blog that's been covering some of these legal issues very well.

Wait until the email's about something that would impact corporate behavior at the office. Then look up the debunking on snopes and email the office. Everyone. "I just wanted everyone to be aware that this is a hoax! Didn't want people to panic." Be friendly. Be polite. Point out what a great resource Snopes is. Pretend you just heard about it if you don't want to be too much of a smartass.

Depending on your boss, one email might be enough to cut it out altogether.

Rowling and Warner Brothers have negotiated with other publishers before-- the legal filings seem to indicate that that's exactly what's happening with the UK edition of the book. The US publishers, on the other hand, have been very uncooperative. (The 'highlight' was when, on their official page, they compared Warners' cease & desist order to the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)