There’s a Stephen King book (and movie) called “Thinner” – and I’m going to ruin them both for you right now. Basically, a fat, shitty – and by shitty I mean “he was a bad person” – lawyer runs over a gypsy woman and her family curses him by saying “Thinner.” And then he begins to lose weight in a fast and scary manner to the point where he is literally skin and bones and desperate to find a way to reverse things.

And in a way, I feel like that’s what’s happening to me. Only it’s my fault, and not some gypsy’s – even though I’d really like to blame it on the Architect (who has been treating me like his BFF, lately – even going so far to say that he’d want me as his “best man” if he ever gets married).

When things spiral beyond my control, I seek to get that control back. When I was in high school and college, I was riding horses all the time, so I could control some big 1200 pound animal with my hands, legs and voice, and that took care of things. It allowed me to exert control over something much bigger than myself and kept me sane.

And now? I don’t have the money to go riding anymore – so I don’t have my outlet and feel like everything in life (job, money, boys, family, friends) is so far out of reach that there is nothing I can do to influence it.

So I control me. More specifically, I control what I eat, or rather, what I don’t eat. I eat enough during the day to keep me energized. I eat enough that I’m not keeling over from hunger pangs. But I rarely eat actual lunch anymore, and my breakfast is usually coffee.

For a while I thought it wasn’t on purpose. That stress had effectively killed my appetite, but it isn’t true. It’s not the stress, it’s me. And I’ve been doing it on purpose. If I’m distracted, and out with friends – I’ll eat like a horse (a few of you bloggers can attest to this). But by myself? Fuck that.

Is this healthy? No.
Is it fixable? Yes.
Is it scary? Absolutely yes. Means my mind is a lot more fucked than previously imagined.
Am I at an extreme point? No. I’ve dropped some pounds but am not at an unhealthy weight.
Does writing it down here make it that much more real? Yes.
Does the realness force me to examine and do something about it? Yes.

And by the way…
I wrote this for me. Not to freak anyone out. This is not a cry for help, this is a statement of accountability to myself and to my friends. It means that I’m not keeping my little food secret anymore, and it means that I have to do something about it.

And hello, I HAVE to do something about it. I love food. I’ve just been avoiding it, and it’s something I need to fix.

Fuck.

Know how when you get coffee nowadays, they come with the little “solo traveler” lid that kind of reminds you of a sippy cup?

Know how when you take a drink and then pull the coffee cup away from your mouth too quickly, it’ll sometimes splash up on you a little?

Well thanks to to the sippy cup lid and the splash effect, I now look like I’m lactating.

THANKS STARBUX.

On Sunday, one of my coworkers at The Office got married in a Big Fat Greek Wedding.

It was just as long and complicated as every other Greek wedding I’ve ever been to – which wasn’t really a shock. And if any of my coworkers asked me about one thing or another in terms of what was going on – I filled them in, and told them when to stand up and sit down and so on.

Anyway, after the ceremony – my coworkers and I are in the receiving line, shaking hands and hugging people and offering our congrats and so on. And then we get to the Bride.

1. She looks BEAUTIFUL.
2. I am really really surprised that she is not hanging out in her receiving line talking about poop and sex and boners and so on, as it’s pretty much her daily M.O.
3. She and I switch off in the in-office ranking of “Most Vulgar Greek Girl Who Works At The Office” – we have potty mouths and dirty minds and were instantly friends because of it.

Anyway. I hug the Bride and the following exchange takes place:

Me: Bride you look BEAUTIFUL!
Bride: Thanks! You look HOT! You should hook up with the groomsmen!
Me: All of them?
Bride: Definitely.
Me: What, are they just gonna run a train on me at the reception?
Bride:Yeah! I’ll videotape!

And this whole conversation happened while still in the church. She and I are going to hell. On a train.

I try my damndest to be anonymous about this blog.Or as anonymous as people will let me be, anyway.

I do this to protect myself and my jobs and my personal relationships with the people I write about because – hell, they don’t necessarily know that I’m writing about them.

Some of you are completely out there, in terms of your face and your name and your families and your everything and still manage to write about dating and your personal lives and what goes on in your heads and I canNOT wrap my head around that.

How do you do it, kids?

And that, I guess, is why I didn’t really go out and participate at the 20SB Meetup – much as I wanted to. I don’t want there to be a face with my name. I don’t want to end up in 237634875 tagged pictures on fifteen different sites.

And I’m having a helluva time walking the line between “anon blogger” and “wtf, I want to go out and drink with everyone!”

What about the rest of you? Is there such a thing as a “partially anonymous blogger”?

I haven’t made a good “Stuff I Want That I Can’t Afford Right Now But Won’t Be Jealous If You Go Out And Buy It And Look Cute In It” list in a long time. So uh, here goes…

And what are youuuuuuuu coveting?

AND. If you’re in down for the 20SB Chicago meetup and you plan on being at the bar tonight, I’ll be there toooooooo.

I actually tried this one on in orange/gray. Super cute. And comfy.

SO cute. And on sale. Come to Butthead.

What do you MEAN you don't like huge chunk-ass cocktail rings? Of COURSE you like them. Stop lying to yourself.

I don't even LIKE "booties" but these are hot shit.

Adorable summer cocktail dress.

The bandage dress thing annoys me. But not here. Hello perfect cut & color!

Personally, I think this is about as far from FAIL as one can get. Steak can be my hero any day.

(Also, I’m an asshole: Everyone on Twitter is mourning Farrah Fawcett and I’m posting about shoes. Good Person Fail.)

I have a new roommate. Again.
At some point, one of them will stay and I won’t have to deal with this bullshit anymore.

Anyway. The old roommate (the one with the BF, two dogs, and a serious skill for making sushi) moved back to Colorado, which was sad, as we totally bonded and did all sorts of dumb stuff together and I really liked living with her. So that sucked, and I was seriously sad to see her go. And seriously stressed about finding her replacement.

But I wasn’t by myself for too long (as opposed to ~3 weeks in December/January), because the new roommate started moving in on Sunday. And then my normally very very sweet little Ruby turned into a huge territorial asshole and refused to share the house with the new roommate’s dog. And I had to put on my angry mom face and regulate.

Anyway. The real reason I posted was that I need some new reading material.
Do you have other blogs?
Do your friends have blogs?
Do your friend’s blogs follow awesome blogs?
Am I missing out on someone who is obviously kick ass, because I have my head in the proverbial sand (side note: how terrible would that be?)?

Link me up, kids.

And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for your support yesterday, and always. I appreciate every word.

“I poured my heart out…
It evaporated, see?” – Ben Folds

The short version is that I quit.

The slightly less short version is that he told me last night that he never has never loved me as anything more than a friend.

I could not be a bigger idiot.
I could not have found a bigger waste of my time.

It’s Monday. My brain is fried and I don’t want to think and I’m at work and my little dog is home alone and I’m all nervous and crap for her and….deep breath. Here’s a nice bulleted list of shit that has gone on lately that is fucking with my head in one way or another.

• CL Guy gave me the nicest kiss-off text message of all time. Said he was “not feeling the dating thing” but felt that we “still get along really well and should still hang out”. And also that he “understood if that’s not something I’d be into.”
• The Architect’s Friend and I had an AMAZING date the other weekend. Fancy cocktails and a wine & cheese bar and easy conversation that was enlightening and decidedly un-douchey. I had an AMAZING time but SINCE then, we really have nothing to say to each other. It’s like we used up all our good conversation in one night. Oh well.
• Have you heard that quote that goes something like: “We accept the love we think we deserve”? That sonofabitch is so true for me right now: I can’t process feelings. I can’t process intimacy. I’m a big ball of hormones and I’m afraid to go out and get some because I can’t wrap my brain around it and it SUCKS.
• My roommate moved out this weekend. She took her dogs and her car and her BF and all their stuff and it was sad and I don’t like changes and I don’t like when people leave. The whole “someone is leaving me” process just puts me in a bad place for a few days.
• My new roommate is starting to move in. I gave her keys the other week and she’s attempting the slow-move, where she moves a few dozen things at a time. So far, so good.
• Yesterday was Father’s Day – and my dad came and trucked little Ruby and myself out to the burbs – where she proceeded to charm the living hell out of my whole family.
• And the grand cap on things – The Architect decided to ask me for dating advice. I guess he met some girl and he’s measuring her up against me. And every word of that exchange just twists the knife a little harder.

I need a vacation. Badly.

AND! Who’s coming in for the big 20SB thing this weekend? I can’t participate in the big ridiculous shit, because of a wedding, but I’m definitely going out drinking with y’all.

If we’re facebook friends (and if we’re not, wtf?), you might have noticed that I recently got “married”.

Not married for real, obviously.
But re-married. On Facebook.

Back in college, my guy friend and I hung out SO MUCH that all our friends would not ever stop talking about how we should “TOTALLY BE DATING”. So to shut them up, we got Facebook-married.

Anyway. At some point, my then-husband decided that having a Facebook-Wife was killing his “shack up with chicks” game. So we got Facebook-divorced. His parents were sad. My parents continued to think the whole thing was weird. But we went along our merry ways.

We recently decided to get RE-Facebook-married. And all kind of acquaintances came out of the woodwork to congratulate us. Which led my “husband” and I to have the following conversation:

Joy: We need a wedding registry.
Husband: Target. Not even a question. I need some new boxers and a button down or two. Those are going on the list. Other things of note: Blender. Toaster oven. DVDs. The rest of the list is yours. I mean, we should probably go to register at Target, send out a FB message to all our friends, and see how much shit we can get.
Joy: I absolutely concur with everything you just said.
Husband: AND! Contrary to how I was in college, being married now will probably get me more ass! Let’s find me some homewreckers!
Joy: Yay let’s! This shouldn’t be hard at ALL.
Husband: On that note – from TFLN:  “(732): Facebook lets you pick usernames now. You’d better log on and get yours before homewreckingwhore is taken…”
Joy: That was WAY too perfect.