Given the book, I suspect he was sending it to Midge, not Rachel -- O'Hara is classic downtown, beat poet stuff, and while I can imagine a Rachel who might get that, I'm not sure Don would.

(edited to de-span-ify. thanks for the reminder, Jon.)

I think it would be Rachel, I imagine that don thinks about her a lot. She left him, not the other way around, so I suspect that bothered him.

Just catching up after flying SF on very little sleep and yummy dinner with juliana and jz.

I think yeah, Betty was testing herself in comparison with her old friend-- at least, that's completely how it read to me. And I thought that Don sent the book to Rachel, given the nature of the poetry that was the voiceover. Yeah, Midge would be the one who "gets" it from the beat/artistic perspective, but I think Rachel is the one who might appreciate it, if that makes any sense. And I think that in some ways, Rachel's the "one who got away," in Don's mind. Midge was a dalliance, but Rachel was something special where he was concerned.

"I just realized something. You think that you're helping", and it was SO telling.

I do like Joan, in the sense that she's in control of her sexuality, but she's not doing much to encourage a change in the office status quo. Of course, early times for women's lib, yet. Still, she seems pretty happy with being the top dog among the secretarial pool, because it is top dog and gives her an actual degree of power within the office. She can even, sometimes, tell the men what to do (they could have the creme de menthe and, was it vodka? from the storage cabinet, but nothing else.) She can't, or is unwilling to, go past that in her own mind and even, I think, wonders why anyone would want to. Hence, her "helping" Peggy. Until Peggy starts treating the other women like the men do and she gets the copier in her office.

I am curious to see how they handle Peggy's growth. Whether they're going to have her turn into a total ballbuster or if she's going to realize at some point you can gather more flies with honey and how she'll play that, if she does. From what I've seen last season and so far in this episode, she's so hung up on that if you follow the rules, life should treat you "fair." She wanted fairness for her three dollars and ended up getting two people fired. Plus, I don't think she realizes, yet, that Don promoted her to piss off Pete, not necessarily on merit, even if she is as capable as any of the men. Will Don, at some point, demote her because it suits his office politics and how will she react? Plus, I think I need to go back and rewatch, was it only speculation among the guys that she had been pregnant or did they actually know? The comment abut the fat farm led me to believe they didn't, plus her comment to Pete about wanting children "at some time," meaning not right now.

So, no one else thought it interesting that Don couldn't perform on Valentine's Day in the hotel? I figured one of the prescriptions the doctor gave Don was for high blood pressure and he didn't warn Don they'd make him impotent. Kinda curious to see how that falls out.

I think the book is for Midge. Seems much more the type of thing she'd go for. I didn't think, though, that Don was that invested in her. Rachel, yes, but not Midge to that degree.

Mad Men did quite well in the ratings.

Still, she seems pretty happy with being the top dog among the secretarial pool, because it is top dog and gives her an actual degree of power within the office.

I think that at this point in time, this is as high as the average woman would expect to go. I also wonder how much of Joan's power resulted from her sleeping with Roger and the deference that he gave her because of that.

Plus, I think I need to go back and rewatch, was it only speculation among the guys that she had been pregnant or did they actually know? The comment abut the fat farm led me to believe they didn't, plus her comment to Pete about wanting children "at some time," meaning not right now.

I think that they were just speculating. From what the guys think of her attractiveness, they don't really think that Don would be interested, they just are trying to find an explanation for her promotion other than she's a good writer.

I think that at some point, Peggy is going to tell Pete about the baby. He's going to get drunk and sob about how he and he wife don't have kids and what's wrong with him, and she will tell him.

eta: Apparently, I think at lot about Mad Men

Is Pete actually that dense that he could listen to the guys talk about the possibility that Peggy was pregnant and not question whether or not she had his baby? His conversation with Peggy later on didn't seem to indicate that he was even thinking about it.

Is Pete actually that dense that he could listen to the guys talk about the possibility that Peggy was pregnant and not question whether or not she had his baby?

Pete is so unbelievably arrogant and selfish, that I honestly think it wouldn't occur to him. At the point at which he was first sleeping with Peggy, remember, his wife and her family were pressuring him into starting a family and he was adamant that he couldn't support one and of course, that the underlying emotion is that he didn't want someone else around who could potentially supplant him and knock him down another rung in power and level of importance. He gets that at work, at home-- I think that's part of what Peggy's attraction was for him initially-- she was someone he was actually "better" than.

And personally, I think that while Don promoted Peggy to piss off Pete, there's no way he would've have done it if she didn't have the chops. Just prior to calling her in and telling her she'd been promoted, Ken was praising her abilities, not just as a writer, but in how she handled the situation with the actress.

Peggy's more instinctively savvy than she even realizes right now. I think her and Ken working together make for an interesting team.

Pete is so unbelievably arrogant and selfish, that I honestly think it wouldn't occur to him.

I agree.

there's no way he would've have done it if she didn't have the chops.

Oh, totally. But Don is a very political animal and has been known to do things for spite. Plus, even though she produces, if push comes to shove and it's she or a man who has to go, she will lose. If she doesn't, I'm going to question the writers of the show, because they've gone overboard with the misogyny, sexism and prejudice in this show. Why make an exception for Peggy, because it sure was a rarest of rare things back then for a woman to be successful in this or any other high powered position. My mother quit a secretarial job in 1965 in an investment firm because they wouldn't let her work with accounts. Mainly because (their words), women didn't have families to support, men did. Uhm, did working women not work to support families, too? But, yeah, it was the common POV of most men; women worked for fun, not for money.