The reviews are in!

The Cocktail of Life shakes us up and occasionally pushes us together with other people. Maybe love blooms, maybe both people are bored, maybe one person gets all sorts of ideas and the other hasn't come up with a good excuse to run. Regardless, you are suddenly both "together". After a time, things either grow into something more permanent, or the factors that threw you together fade away and you're again alone. Since this tends to happen more when you're young than when you've gotten some years behind you, you might not be totally aware of the forces at work, your own appearance and personality, and what exactly you were looking for in the first place. You look back, you see this string of names, you wonder what you did wrong or what they did wrong or what exactly led you from a gentle moment together to an endless void between. If you're supposedly mature, you pick up the pieces of your lost time and friendships, patch things, move on. I am not supposedly mature. Instead, I look back and I obsess over what details I missed, what ideas slipped by, how good I had it or how bad it was before I lost those ladies I've known. Why put all this in a web page? Why not. It's only on a computer that I can keep track of them anymore, so why not just keep it on the computer when I talk about them. Maybe it's therapy. Maybe I'm insane. Maybe I'm exhibiting the traits that cost me the relationships in the first place. Maybe I'm giving a membership list for a future support group. Regardless, I do accept one fact: The only consistent feature in all my failed relationships is ME. On with the show.

LORI HOJNAKI

Eighth grade. Not exactly the time to start building those foundations for a lifetime commitment. But what did I know? A young lady with pretty eyes and a nice smile warms my heart, I say hello, she lets me walk her to her home, heck, I figure I'm sailing into forever. I hated the town we lived in, I hated the people in the town, and I hated the school the people I hated attended from the town, but I did love her. I got involved in all sorts of school projects because she did; days became judged by how many minutes contained her, even if it was in the same cafeteria or sitting on the same bus. I guess she liked the attention; I'm not sure, thinking back, now. I was a strange, strange individual in that school, and I didn't fit any particular mold there. How much she would have wanted to be associated with me, I doubt it amounted to much. But she did talk to me, and we did walk home together, and I thought we had something. We sang together on stage at one point, being in the Chorus together, with a semi-select group of a dozen students. I was selected because I was the school's only Baritone, not because of any innate talent. More time, that's all I cared about. I think the peak was probably when Lori and I were both selected for the college bowl, which was perfect for me because I was (and am) a font of useless, mind-numbing trivia. I distinctly remember winning a round because I knew what job the Wright Brothers had before they had the first flight. I also remember that the lights got really hot and Lori fainted. Ultimately, and believe me if you can, she stopped talking to me after she got a perm. Her hair went from straight to curly and she had no more time for me. I was wrecked. A year later, I left the town forever, never looking back. I bumped into her in a supermarket a few years later; she was strictly ROTC and was with some guy who I hated for not being me.

KATYA VLADIMIRSKY (NOW CZAJA)

Katya was the first real girlfriend I ever had, the kind that you have dates with and call your girlfriend and there's no horror or shock on her side and a quick correction to all of her friends. I found her truly delightful, a heady concoction of brains, science fiction and a light russian accent that would poke itself out on various words while we spoke together. I think her interest in me was initially that of a fascination with my various strange behaviors around school, but when I turned around and showed that I wanted to be more than friends, she made her choice, and stuck with it. I'd not surprisingly gotten all the way to senior year in high school without anyone to date, instead turning my attentions to artwork, computers and an unhealthy amount of mass media. I could tell you excruciatingly detailed information about telephone systems, Chevy Chase films, and programming in BASIC, but I couldn't tell you what it was like to go to sleep knowing you'd kissed someone and thought them the center of your world. Katya changed all that. She was a tiny person, small enough that I would lift her to kiss her, until she got sick of it. Big wide eyes, white hands that could grip like death, and a need to understand everything. As I stumbled and rocked my way through my last months of high school, she was always with me, and I would often walk the miles between our houses to spend quality time at her home. Incidentally, her father hated me; he had no time for his daughter wasting her time with art types. Through his thick accent he'd inform me, sometimes in private and sometimes not, how completely inadequate I was for her, and how poor my choices were for wrapping myself in something as useless as cartooning or humor writing. My paradise started to shatter when I had to attend summer school to earn the credits to attend college; and this took me far away from my home in New York to Boston, where other interesting events and wonders gained my attention, but I always thought of the princess I'd left in her castle. When I returned, she was delighted to be with me, but I think she was starting to decide that regardless of what she thought of me, my being so far away (and in college besides) was just a little too much. I became one of the Thanksgiving Casualties, who find out during or before the Thanksgiving break of their freshman year that the little life they'd forged in high school was not to be. She broke up with me on the phone sometime in September or October, telling me the love just wasn't there anymore. Maybe I knew that was going to happen. She moved on, started dating other people in the high school, and I just kind of floated, becoming twice the best and worst of what I was before, unanchored, infamous, darkened. I saw her one last time; she was performing in a play at our high school, one of the fair and young ladies in a performance of "A Midsummmer's Nights Dream". I don't know why I showed up; that was entirely a stupid thing to do. The doors at the back of the theatre were open, and I stood in the doorway, quietly watching the proceedings. I realized my mistake in a short time; just the sound of her voice wafting over the crowd made my heart leap; I remembered all the words she'd said to me, all the things she'd said about us, and our dreams. She was speaking words from the play, but they were words from her nonetheless, and I was crushed.

KAREN RUBIN

It was Karen's idea to kiss me first. It was Karen's idea to give me a night of romance and attention. It was her idea to come over again and treat me coldly, and ultimately to tell me I was a jerk and to never talk to her again. It was my idea to cry.

SARAH TRIGERE-BESSERMAN (NOW ZOE MOSHE)

TUESDAE RODRIGUEZ

Over a decade later, and I still have no friggin' clue what Tuesdae Rodriguez was for, about, doing, or thinking. All I know was, it was, ultimately a great ride, except she maybe could have mentioned on the phone about how the super secret answer was to turn off the light!

KELLY RAFUSE

I still remember when she broke up with Tory. I'd been at her side for quite a few years now, supporting, friendly, honestly respectful of her and never making her feel uncomfortable. I hoped, really hoped, that this was My Time. That with her long-term relationship gone, she'd look around and it'd be one of those classic last chapters in the book, where the hero turns and sees that the person by their side has been the one who loved them most of all. Excellent theory, anyway. Very soon afterwards, she invited me over to her place. I was elated; I knew that I couldn't go from close friend to romance in a night or even a week, but I wanted to lay the foundation for that, to say the right words, to do the right things. Maybe I'd write her a song, or draw her something, or take her out to movies like we did at the beginning. Something, anything. But I'd get to see her, free of her boyfriend, just someone who I hung out with, no other person between us. When I visted, we talked about various stuff, and she was brimming with excitement. She had great news and she wanted to share it with me. "I finally got to proposition this guy at the radio station!" she gushed. "He was the best sex I've ever had!" While I've had an awful lot of pain and grief in my life, I don't think I've ever had it that concentrated, before or since. I don't even remember what I said back; I'm sure it was complimentary. I don't know how I walked home without throwing myself in front of a truck.

TRISH WINTLE

VIRGINIA CRAWFORD

Virginia Crawford helped me learn the hard way not to construct your castles and plan your future until you know who you'll be doing it with. You look mighty foolish with a half-built castle and no princess.

KAREN WERNER

Karen Werner was my truly great mistake; a fascinating, fun girl who I mistreated to the point that I lost her forever. More than lost; she hates me. I met her on one of my temp jobs, working at a medical advertising house called Grob, Inc. She was the secretary, and needed to do work for another part of the company, so I became the front-door secretary for a while. I thought she was a knockout, but I have a personal moral code about co-workers, so I certainly didn't say or indicate anything (at least, I like to think so). I worked there for a while and the job ended. Some time later, I was asked to return to Grob, and came to find that Karen had left. Additionally, I found a document on the shared drive of the company with an angry letter from her about how she'd been treated. I was sad for her but didn't think much of it until she called the front desk a few days later. We talked a little while, and she said she'd read the job listing for her own job in the paper, and that's why she had left. She was asking to be transferred to one of the employees who'd written a shining job recommendation for her. To this day, I don't know what it was in my voice or demeanor that might have tipped her off about my feelings, but she called back after speaking to the employee and asked me out. The number of times I have been asked out are finite and tiny, and each one is therefore a glittering jewel suspended before my nose at arm's reach. Of course I accepted. Now we encounter a problem; I was still semi-involved with Virginia Crawford at the time. But as is indicated elsewhere, Ginny and I had this really terrible rubber-band type of relationship, wherein she would decide we should be going out, and then suddenly we would be going out, very intimate, very romantic, and then just as suddenly she'd turn off the tap. It was if I hadn't even gotten her phone number. So each time I was shut out, I considered myself loose and free, although if Ginny showed me even a slight as much interest, I was back there like a puppy. It was during one of these "tap is off" periods that I had accepted Karen's date, and I really didn't see a conflict at the time. Ginny and I still talked and hung out occasionally, but it really was the case that I was jammed back into 'male friend' mode, barely allowed to give her a parting hug, much less anything indicating an intimate relationship. Ginny had actually moved out of my apartment months and months previous and was living in a multi-roommate house in a nearby town. So my dates with Karen, light and friendly, grew (mostly at my urging) into a more romantic and intimate nature. I think she was somewhat surprised, but seemed to return my interest. We grew into what would probably be called a casual couple; we never met each other's parents, only met a smattering of each other's friends, and while I showed up at her job at one point, it wasn't something she appreciated. This was all fine with me; I was having a great time with her. My attraction to Karen is a little hard to explain; if I use the crude and sketchy approach of comparing her to a celebrity, I considered her a very sexy Yeardley Smith. She had a unique voice, bright eyes, and a quiet skepticism that made me laugh. And she liked going out; being a bit of a hermit in the way I do things, the fact that she wanted to take me places so we could spend time together was a wonderful feeling. I was just... happy. One day, of course, it all came crashing down. Karen had spent the night one weekend and Ginny came by to say goodbye (she was moving out of Massachusetts). So: Karen and Ginny met each other. For the first time. In my bedroom. Where Karen and I were. No good could come of this situation. And none did. They were cordial and polite to each other, but the tension was obvious. Even though Ginny and I were basically finished (and I in fact made sure to kill any further contact with Ginny for years afterwards), now Karen and I were finished. She simply stopped talking to me, and except for an ackward phone call, no more time was going to pass between us as a couple. I should have told her how crushed I was, how I felt about her, how she meant all sorts of things to me, but I just thought it would ring hollow. I'd screwed up, I should have told Ginny I was now someone else's and I should have indicated that surprise visits were no longer welcome. But I didn't. A few months later, it got to me that in fact, Karen had married a co-worker. Married! I was really and totally crushed. Now there was absolutely no chance of anything in the future, no opportunity to apologize... she had a new life and that was that. Years later, I ran into Karen in Central Square in Cambridge, while standing outside my job at a video game company. I should have taken the hint at that point; while I was truly and absolutely delighted to be looking into those eyes again, her demeanor was a few points short of nervous and agitated. I asked how her fella was, and she hemmed and hawed in a way that told me that things weren't going as well as they could. And she quickly went on her way. Some time later, while idly searching old names in Google, I stumbled upon a variety of web pages and mentions of what appeared to be Karen Werner. Could this be her? I read up about how she was helping with research, doing work at a college, and generally being someone with a good place in life. I wrote to her, and said hello. She wrote back I'd gotten the wrong person. I wrote AGAIN, because I was sure I hadn't. She then truly, and completely let me have it. How poor I'd treated her, how badly she'd felt, how I'd demeaned and belittled her thoughout the time we were dating. I was horrified, and have felt ever horrified ever since. A rotten end to a truly ruined bright spot in my life.

KAMIO CHAMBLESS

Kamio Chambless and I were the classic Internet Relationship, too able to synchronize online via the soul to realize that a art chick from Santa Cruz and a computer/film nerd from Boston were facing waaaaay too many hurdles to overcome them and be successful, especially considering neither of us could drive. No other girlfriend comes close to Kamio's pure artistic talent.

TRISH HUGHES (NOW HOWARD)

BOVINETICS. The Science of MooOlogy. I don't get it. But then again, she didn't get me, so it all evens out.

MAURA BEDDES

Maura Beddes and I just smooched a lot one weekend, but apparently this was enough for her to start calling me a boyfriend, so what the hey.

MICHELLE STORA (NOW GRASSIA)

Michelle was a complete mistake, start to finish. Having thought that I'd broken up with Dory (a thought that we apparently didn't share), I kind of fished around and caught Michelle (MAS, she called herself) in my net. Within 3 hours of first meeting online, she had driven over and she spent the night. We frolicked and cavorted and all that fine stuff, and I should have thought that I'd cheered myself up and moved on, but no, I started to get some emotional attachment. At that point, we ran into a fundamental problem: Michelle was entirely insane. Like, the really bad insane where the insane has hidden and is able to run the puppet well enough to get by, but the insane comes out to play whenever necessary. Which occasionally happened. Where you and I have a brain, she had a whack-a-mole game and a speaker that plays Ice Cream Truck music. Days and a few weeks went by, and I started to realize what I'd gotten myself into. But sap that I was, I still had attachment to her, and so when she finally dumped me, in a distant, rocking-in-the-chair kind of night that harkens to a V.C. Andrews novel, it actually devastated me. It was especially painful because the guy she dumped me for wasn't interested in her, all that much. I then realized that losing her attention was like losing sunlight, because she was so internally broken that her focus was a kind of intensity one usually associated with Shakespearian romance. Alas, when he removed Michelle in a finality that rocked our little social group, she turned her attention not to me, but to the fellow who would become her future husband. Ironically, he found her online, and immediately forbid her to be online. Then came the babies, and I turned away as one turns away from a car accident. I get the impression she's happy and content and one of those busybody, intimidating mothers you see in a hundred suburbias. I have no idea if she's still insane. Ostensibly, we'll read about it in the papers if she is.

SARA GLOVER

I will never speak to Sara Glover again.. but I'd play her a song.

KNOW THE CODES

	She Dumped Me
	I Dumped Her
	She Has Since Had a Kid
	I Was Self-Destructive Afterwards
	She Might Not Have Thought Me a Boyfriend