I’m having “Mad Men” withdrawal.  I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. 

            I miss the gimlets, deviled eggs, Buicks, and Baked Alaskas. 

            I miss Joan’s bustle, Betty’s updo, how Don squints when he smokes. 

            I’m a mother and wife, with plenty of work I should be doing (and that should be interesting me), but I honestly feel a hole in my life and I know what it is:  “Mad Men” is over for the season.

It’s the show’s languid atmosphere I miss, an elegance and restraint I lack in my own life.  Despite the sexism, racism, and emotional constipation of the era, I miss its landscape of goose neck lamps and girdles.  “Mad Men”’s New York pace is more controlled, everyone’s movements more deliberate: it represents exactly the opposite of the velocity and chaos of my days.  At Sterling Cooper’s advertising agency, there’s no frenzy, no clutter.  In the Draper home, there’s no visible disarray.  Sure, we witness plenty of tension and dysfunction, but there’s a stillness I covet.  Betty Draper doesn’t do anything hurriedly, she even loads the washing machine gracefully; you never see her manically juggling playdates, errands, or exercise classes; she’s not tapping at, or shouting into, an iPhone.  She simply drags on a cigarette at the kitchen table while her children eat a “balanced” meal, sips a glass of wine, glides into a party in pearls, naps off her jet lag without a wrinkle in her skirt after a flight to Rome.