Woo Tube (p. 1)

I open bottles incredibly well, as a result of having worked in a wine bar.

At the time, nine years ago, it was the only wine bar in Kansas. Perhaps there are others now (franchises?) named Vines or Sonoma Pete's.

Anyway, one day, at this wine bar, a man looked up from his big fat book. We spoke a little and fell in love... eight months later over email.

He was living in Chicago, and I was working in Western Kansas. Not as a waitress this time, but as an anthropologist studying sex among the meatpackers.

And despite what you may think, there wasn't actually a lot to do at night. After a long day of "participant observation," my options back at the dorm were to:

1) Play basketball with the boys from the John Deere tractor repair school
2) Paint my nails with the future beauticians
3) Exchange emails with this incredibly funny person in Chicago

By mid-summer, when the air outside was choked with cow-dust, our email pace had quickened to several lengthy notes per day.

His words on the screen brought a jolt of electricity matched only by re-reading my own. I wasn't sure who I was falling for, but it felt incredibly good.

I saw him in person during a quick trip back to the college town. Our paths crossed for only a few hours, but it was enough to confirm an IRL attraction. After several mix tapes and two anything-but-virtual visits, I packed my bags and moved up to Chicago.

And the internet, having served its purpose in our lives, went quiet.

(to be continued...)