Last night, I kept another New Year’s Resolution by unplugging. I started making Friday nights my unplugged night after reading about Ariel Meadow Stallings and her journey through the off-line world. Ariel is already one of my heros as the foundress of Off-Beat Bride, the first place I found inspiration to make our wedding someone other than a cookie-cutter affair. I already want to be her, so how better than following her unplugged footsteps?

I started unplugging on Friday nights back in September, with the intention of giving my often over-worked self one night where e-mail and the dissertation were off-limits, and where I would be forced to just do things that helped me relax. Because I always grade and write lectures in front of the TV or while listening to old mp3s of Loveline, that was out too. Suddenly I was left with an hour a week to decompress. I use my unplugged nights to write letters, to read just for fun, and to catch up on sleep. They’re incredibly important evenings to me.

Last night, I did some of that fun reading that can feel so foreign in grad school, and finally started reading This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn. p4p bought it for me ages ago, but I was intimidated about getting into it during comps and so on due to the length. For me, fun reading usually takes the form of either semi-trashy royal/historical fiction (Philippa Gregory is my favourite) or young adult fiction — this book is the latter. It’s wonderful, so far. Aiden Chambers is so good at examining teenage life and burgeoning sexuality in a really open-minded and never moralistic way, which can sometimes feel rare in teen literature (Twilight, the Abstinence Porn series, I’m looking at you).

I also had a crazy long bath (used maybe a fifth of a Humango) and read about half of the new Bitch, which was wonderful as ever. I actually just became a Bitch Sustainer today, which I’ve meant to do for a long time — it’s am important magazine to me and, I think, to feminism in North America.

Resolution-wise, I went to the gym today for my Group Power class (that’s twice for the week!). I have to make sure I write a real letter at some point today and I’ll have stayed on track for the week. Hurray!