LaughAtlantis

This is Joy's new blog.

Shockingly, today marks four months of dating rOD. It seems like much longer than that (in a good way). So I'm taking this time to tell him (and the world, it seems) how very much I love him. He makes my days brighter and I just feel lucky and thrilled that he is in my life.

Thanks for four fabulous months, babe. Here's to a billion more.

And you know what?

Chickenbutt.

I don't normally take the time every year to actually think of things I'm thankful for, but this year there's so much that I just couldn't help but make a list.

My job - I'm good at it, I like what I do, and my company recognizes that I know what I'm doing.

My meds - I did a complete switch to a new epilepsy medication this year, and while it was not without its bad moments - quite a lot of them, actually - it's done. Nasty long-term side effects are no more!

My weight - Down over thirty pounds primarily due to the change in meds. I still have a ways to go to be a fashion model, and frankly I should be trying harder than I am, but I'm pleased.

My health - Better than it has been. No pneumonia this year. Yay!

My family - Grew by one person this year in the form of my niece, Julia Frances Rose Carletti. Adorable child. Looks just like me.

My boyfriend - Rod should really be first and foremost on this list because he just means the world to me. Sadly, I think Jerry Maguire has made the words "You complete me" sound almost hopelessly cheesy, but Rod really does make me feel whole.

My blog - My fabulously geeky boyfriend gave me my own domain name as a gift. It's just the sweetest thing ever and I love having a place to vent, to gush, to share, to rant, to just leave thoughts for posterity.

Other bloggers - I have a handful of people whose worlds I visit a couple times a week - or in some cases, a couple times a day. I'm hugely thankful for the diversion, the insight, and the laughter they bring me.

Improv - Speaking of laughter, I love my improv. It's such a release for me and it does my heart good to make people laugh.

Card games - This year I discovered and re-discovered SET, Xactika, Phase 10, Uno, Quiddler, and a few others. They make me happy.

Vacation - I'm glad I finally took a real vaction. Despite the fact that I never quite finished blogging about my trip, I had a fabulous time and cherish every moment. (Well, every moment except those two times I was seasick.)

There's so many more, but I gotta go - we're headed off to Rhode Island to have a fabulous dinner cooked by my brother - which reminds me that I'm thankful that he finally has internet access because it means I can keep in touch with him and his family more.

In any case, Happy Thanksgiving everybody...

Last night Rod and I got engaged. I really didn't know it was possible to be this happy.

I still haven't mastered that whole "posting pictures on your website" business, but Rod has, and he's posted a picture of my engagement ring!

Also, we've started a side website where we can blog and share about the wedding plans. (Or, you know, bitch about my mom. Either or.)

In honor of our wedding, Rod set up a whole new website for us to blog about the planning process.

Gawd, he is such a geek. Gotta love it.

This weekend marked one year of dating for me and Rod. It's been a whirlwind and wonderful year.

I want to write something in here about how much I love him, about the way he makes me laugh and about the little things that he does that make my life better, about the fact that no matter how awful a day I have, it's all made better by the fact that I get to come home and have him there to hug me.

I want to write something that won't sound sappy or overdone or completely, nauseatingly unreadable to the general public.

But I'm in love. So that's hard.

So I'll just say this. In three months, Rod and I are getting married. And as wonderful as the past year has been, I have a very strong feeling that it only gets better from here. Because each day for the past year certainly has... and I look forward to a lifetime of ever more briliant and wonderful days, together.

Monday was 'Introduce Joy to Something New' Day. On the table: sushi.

I have long been hesitant to try sushi because I am allergic to shellfish. A lot of sushi places simply list the Japanese words for the fish and not the English translations. Many more list the type of rolls but not the exact contents. For a novice sushi eater, this is overwhelming. For a novice with allergies, it becomes too much bother. How can I enjoy a meal fully if one hand is gripping the epi-pen in my purse "just in case?"

But this week is about doing new and different things. So when I told my husband I was willing to try sushi if he could find a place with a sushi-for-dummies-type menu, he leaped at the opportunity. Sushi is among his favorite foods and I think he's been waiting for this day in his heart for seven long years.

So off we went to The Naked Fish. I examined the menu carefully and at length. Rod and the waitress were patient with me. And soon, there was a huge array of nigiri and maki sushi rolls before me. Salmon, yellowtail, eel and avocado, smoked salmon with cream cheese (shouldn't that be on a bagel, I wondered?), spicy tuna with cucumber, avocado, and macadamia nuts... all allergy-safe and stunningly gorgeous.

Rod showed me how Americans mix wasabi into the soy sauce. I dutifully followed suit. (Apparently Japanese dab wasabi directly onto the sushi, but I am not ready for that.) And then I dived into the nigiri. I was sloppy about it and felt like an idiot, and ultimately didn't care. This was good food. The maki roll with the macadamia nuts was a flavor revelation. Sushi is everything I love - great fish and rice and vegetables and flavor profiles - it just happens to be raw. I sat back, kicking myself that I hadn't tried this years ago.

And once again (as with so many things lately), my husband was grinning from across the table. This time, it wasn't a smug 'gotcha' grin, but a 'finally, we can enjoy this together!' genuine smile. Sushi, here we come.

My first love was Donny Osmond. It was brief and unrequited. He was tall and toothy, curly-haired, and apparently a little bit rock-and-roll.

I was four.

The one thing I remember vividly from that brief shining time before I moved on to Shaun Cassidy and Jon from CHiPs in quick succession (my tastes hadn't fully formed yet, apparently) was that I loved to watch men sing. This became abundantly clear a bit later when I would watch Sha Na Na and develop instant crushes on anyone singing lead. A tenor line in a fifties ballad, delivered soulfully by Johnny Contardo or Chico Ryan, would send me into paroxysms of delight. It didn't hurt, I suppose, that they performed bare-chested while in gold lamé stretch pants and jackets. I don't suppose I really understood the appeal of that when I was eight - I just thought, "Ooh! Shiny! And they're singing just for me!"

I grew up and studied musical theater myself. I learned that actors on a stage weren't singing for individual audience members - but were trying to draw them in and make each person feel like they were having an intimate experience. And that if performers can make you feel that when they are on television, they're really highly skilled. At one point I remember seeing a televised performance of my four-year-old Dream Date, Donny Osmond, doing selections from 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.'

In 'Joseph,' the audience isn't supposed to fall in love with Donny Osmond. They are supposed to be moved by Joseph's plight and impressed by his resolve and compelled by his reunion with his family. But I was watching Donny Osmond sing 'Any Dream Will Do' in that coat of many colors and all I could think was, "Ooh! Pretty! I wonder where I could get a coat like that!"

Which I guess goes to show you... Donny Osmond is just no Sha Na Na.