C is for Clara, who wasted away.
Send someone you love a virtual
bouquet absolutely free!
Or if you prefer sending real flowers, check out my dad's wares.
For old times' sake, here's my singles ad.
My mother is also on the lookout, so if you or someone you know might be interested, check her out.
My first
bf, Ed Eitzen (aka Fish), was a coworker at
the TC Public Library during my senior year of high school. He managed to
get me into all sorts of trouble with mom, and we almost missed Trick-or-Treating on my favorite holiday, but we
talked mom into letting us go anyway. Ed was my first real introduction
into some of the weirder sides of life, art, fashion, and music. He's a comic book fanatic, an
excellent artist and illustrator, and introduced me to They Might Be
Giants, Art of Noise, and Nine Inch Nails, to name a few.
Bf
number 2 was a guy I had had a crush on for 3 years before we started
going out. What I hadn't known was that the crush was mutual. Paul-Michael Molnar and I got together at his New Year's
party while I was home for winter break during freshman year. We had many
fun times together, including a trip to Niagara falls that summer. We
stopped in Stratford, Ontario on the way and walked along the river, where
we found a favorite tree of his that he calls the wishing tree. But the difficulty of a long-distance
relationship finally broke us up, and Paul is now married to a beautiful girl named Jessi, and they
have a lovely daughter, Bethany Anne, and son, Michael Patrick Gilbert.
Surprisingly, the singles ad mentioned above actually worked in snagging
me bf number 3. I posted it on my dorm door sophomore year (despite the
policy against putting anything on our doors), and one day came home to
find a "Job Application" from one Scott
Saunders lying on my floor. I called him up, we talked, we went out,
and the rest is history. And what a history. That first summer, Scott
came to visit me in TC, where we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes and (among
other things) goofed around on my (now dead)
car. We broke up and got back together over 3 years so many times I lost
count, and we were roommates for almost 2
years. Scott graduated in Art and Design in December '95 and was
working in Des Moines at last report. He also told me that he now has
a son, Benjamin James.
With two weeks of school left in my graduating year, I met another wonderful young man, Chris Mannes, with whom I spent a lot of
my free time before I left. A few photos of us: me hanging on him like some wierd growth, and Chris
trying to look stoic with Greg Parks while
playing their Playstation on the BIG screen. *smirk* Chris has a great smile that he unfortunately doesn't show to the
camera often enough, but I caught him while being sung to by a very drunk
Brian at a theatre party. After a couple of months, he decided that the
Long Distance Relationship wasn't going to work. When I last heard from
Chris, he was still at ISU, working in the theatre and on more degree
stuff.
After a
couple of brief flings with folks down here in Houston that didn't amount
to much, one of the vagrants of the net found my web page and decided to
drop me a line. His virtual bouquet and letter which started "I love
you..." caught my attention and we began a correspondence in January 1997.
Many letters and a couple of hours-long telephone conversations later, we
fell in love. I met him for the first
time on Thursday, March 6, 1997. He flew in from California, and all was
very very well. *bliss* We kissed before a word was spoken. He asked me in person what he'd already asked several times online and over the phone, but I still wasn't ready to give an answer, either yes or no. He offered me a promise ring, which I timidly accepted, knowing that in so doing, I was admitting to myself some of my depth of feeling for this man I had just met in the flesh. We spent every moment of the next three and a half days together, and every once in a while, he reiterated his question. And every time he asked, the deeper in my heart and soul I searched, until finally, Monday morning (March 10, 1997), I knew that the only thing holding me back was fear of the unknown, which is no reason at all. So I accepted his proposal of marriage. The fairy tale came true, but sadly the story came to an amicable yet wistful end in 2005.
