Rec letter sent!

J. hid in our room after work yesterday while I had some friends over for craft night.  It's something I used to do years ago, and I've restarted it.  Weekly on Wednesdays, people come over with whatever they're working on and sit around and talk.  I've met some new friends this way, and it gives me an excuse to sit down and wheedle on something (because it's written down! That makes it more important).  There was one odd bird who came with one of my friends, who was very smart and funny, but kept making negative blanket statements about Southerners and the South in general.  Yeah, we've got some fucked-up stuff going on down here, but we're not all shitty politicians.  She also made mean-spirited comments about Southerner's pride in their hospitality*, and that people are just as hospitable in the North (she's from a New England state).  I don't think I've ever heard anyone say Northerner's aren't hospitable, we just put a focus on hospitality (I do) and that helps us keep our mind on it.  I mean, I had just told her I'm from a very southern state, and she says, "I just hate the South".  Well, um, ok.  Do you want another drink?

It was so blatant that I didn't get mad about it, just really confused at why someone I didn't know would come into my home and say mean things about our colleges and entire citizenry.  Maybe I was rubbed the wrong way when she dissed a college I would have gone to had I been able to afford it (arguably the best liberal arts school in this part of the country).  I caught myself thinking, "So, this is the exact person people are referring to when they say Northerners are rude!  Maybe they meant, 'There's one particular Northerner that's gonna rub you the wrong way, watch out!'"  Yeah, just that one person. Other than her inexplicable outbursts about how awful we all were for living in this part of the country, she was a fun person.  And yet, I'm not looking forward to being insulted again while serving wine and opening my home to someone. The Southern Hospitality stops right there, darlin'.

RIP Rue

Really, a pride in hospitality is about the only thing that ties me to my Southern heritage.  I don't go for "southern pride" or whatever, or feel an urge to go back to where I came from, but I guess it's like when someone says something bad about your sister, and maybe it's true, but only you get to diss your sister. She's yours!  Yeah, there are lots of bigots in the South, and they're less shy about being loud about it.  But when you're sitting in a room with a bunch of nice people in Arkansas, don't say everyone from Arkansas is bad.  Really, manners, people.

Anyway, REC LETTERS!!  Once I got everyone out of the house, J. crept out from his hidey-hole and said his advisor sent him and email, and the letters were sent.  The explanation for the "emergencies" that may have messed up my husband's job prospects did not seem to equal a month of flakiness.  Hopefully he's back in the running for a few things and this doesn't count against him.  That was a good end to the day.

I've been sleeping very badly for the past four days.  It's probably the crazy sleeping schedule I've had during the winter holiday, but that still doesn't make sense. When I get into bed and decide to sleep, I always go to sleep-- so that's not the problem.  I've just been waking up in the middle of the night for no good reason, then not fully sleeping til I have to wake up.  J. even went to sleep the same time as me (it's been hard for him lately to turn his mind off for a decent bedtime).  However, when I did my middle-of-the-night sudden wake-up, he wasn't in bed and I found him fallen asleep in front of his computer on the couch.  The look on his face when I found him was so sad-- he just couldn't sleep at normal times anymore.

I'm going to try taking melatonin for a few days until I start sleeping normally** and suggest he try it too.  He's resistant, and that's fine, but the stress of writing and jobs and flaky advisors is having a bad effect on his body.  I only wish taking a hippie sleeping pill for a few days would actually fix the problem.

Speaking of my body being crazy, I finally figured out why I got so sick after New Year's: alcohol isn't a raw food, thus it doesn't react well with raw foods. In other words, there was nothing to soak up the little alcohol I had to drink.  Healthy + Unhealthy did not cancel each other out.  Beware!

*Just because we're proud of our hospitality doesn't mean we've got a monopoly on it. Geez, people.
**I've been eating well, exercising, not eating chocolate after dinner.