I made my first video phone call today! Well..actually, it was my first bi-directional video call. The other day my friend from Yellowknife was visiting her sister in BC and they Skyped me as they were figuring out how to make things work but it was only one-way. They didn’t have a webcam.

My Mum and Dad have been using Skype since last Christmas when I visited them and installed it on their computer. It’s a nice, direct way to talk sometimes. In the Skype. I’ve been using it for almost two years talking to my friends in Europe and using it for work. And since, I’ve had so many interesting conversations in the Skype. It is certainly a different level of communication–that’s another blog entry for sure. BUT RIGHT NOW..it’s all about video.

This Christmas, my sister Redd is in the Yukon and even though I called four or five times on Thursday, I still missed being home. I asked her yesterday if she could buy a webcam for my parents and help them install it. And that she did. THANK YOU REDD.

THANK YOU.

The first thing I did is stick out my tongue. PPPPPBBBTTTTT. Of course. Good job there wasn’t a spare box lying around, I probably would have put it on my head.

When the video arrived on my computer, I could see my sister sitting in front of her computer. We futzed around a bit trying to make it better, but I was too excited: “Get Mum and Dad!” I was so excited, I repeated myself like Jacob Two Two: “Get Mum and Dad. Get Mum and Dad!”

She called them and they came tramping upstairs. And we tried to figure out the level of detail I could see in their house. NOBODY was in front of the webcam, they were all standing around the computer. But I could see my Mum’s quilted wall hangings on the opposite wall (about 10 feet away). So I said so. “I can see your wall hangings Mum.”

She literally scurried over to the other wall and took them down and brought them back back to the webcam. “Can you see what they are Jennie? Can you see what they are?”

My video reception was grainy–I’m calling it pixelated. But I could make out they looked distinctly like the California Coast line. I loved it. I loved that I could see my parents and talk to them. I loved that I could see my Mum scurry over to the wall and bring back her wall hangings to show me. I LOVED that it was a quilted version of the California Coast from when they visited in 2005. (OH…I really have to do an entry on my Mum’s passion — quilting. She’s an artist herself in the material medium–and pretty damn good if I do say so myself). DAMN GOOD if I could recognize her hanging picture through the pixelated video.

Now, in the middle of all this, as my Mum was retrieving her wall hangings, I talked to my sister and told her other things I could see in the room. And she panned the camera. I laughed out loud because I COULD SEE the door to the upstairs toilet. “Don’t leave the webcam on Mum–and go to the loo–and leave the door open.” Because I know it’s just her upstairs sometimes working away on her quilting projects.

So, after my Mum stepped away from the webcam to answer the phone…I COULD SEE MY DAD standing in the bathroom WITH THE DOOR OPEN! Cheeky bugger. We all laughed.

We had few stops and starts as we figured out how to use the video and make it work, but all-in-all THUMBS UP. Thumbs up. Toes up. Shoulders. UP. For Skype video. And my parents in the Yukon. And my sister for helping them install it. And to Deborah and Paula for calling me the other day to get the ball rolling.

Mum, we are going to have that virtual tea and chat yet! (Explanation of virtual tea: circa 1997. Nortel Networks. Greg Skaret, Komei, Mudjat, and a few of my Nortel crowd were brainstorming the next electric spoon. I said that I wanted to be able to have tea in the kitchen with my mum –like the Holodeck on the Enterprise. I wanted to be able to appear in her kitchen and have a cup of tea and chat — from wherever I was in the world. With video chat…well-it’s a start.)

PS: I bought a dress yesterday for my New Year’s party. It says: sassy, classy, and single. It is also a conscious effort to address the nookey deficit (below). Well. It’s a start anyway.

My friend sent me this email last week. I am in a totally different email on most days, so I ‘m just catching up now.

I called her Saturday.  She’d had an interesting evening–celebrating her singleness. She tells me: “I can’t move. I feel awful.”

And I know the feeling. And I know she must have had fun at the party.

No nookey-fun though. She laughs and tells me: “At one point, there was a hand on my leg, wandering up my thigh. I looked down, quizzically, and removed that hand and put it back in the owner’s lap.” She leaned over and giggled. “Not tonight. I’ve had too much to drink.” Then she stood up. Found the toilet. And tossed her cookies.

At least she tossed her cookies into the toilet. I can remember a time when I was sitting ON THE TOILET and I tossed my cookies into my pants which were in the vicinity of my ankles. Or the time in Mexico when the toilet wasn’t a wide enough receptacle and  I just needed to aim at a larger opening and tossed my cookies, my dinner, my too-many margaritas into the bathtub.

Ugh. Drunk stories. I don’t really need to go there.

Boys. Hmmm…I don’t really need to go there either. But, I will agree with my friend. Sometimes, being single sucks. And at this moment for me, the suckiest thing about being single is the lack of regular, enjoyable, safe nookey.

Regular. Another friend in Ottawa told me once…”They just don’t know how lucky they are. They can just have it when then want it.” (She was–of course–referring to couples.)
Enjoyable. Enjoying yourself. Enjoying the other person.
Safe. Emotionally safe. Physically safe.
Repeat.

Lately, I’ve been sort of wondering what my status is. But, I decided I am definitely single. That is. I don’t have one boyfriend that I specifically hang out with and HERE IS THE KEY THING ABOUT THE SINGLE STATUS…I don’t wake up with another person in my bed. And I’m not waking up in another person’s bed.  So, logically, due to the obvious lack of another person…I am single.

However, I think I am dating. DATING. Isn’t that a weird word. What is dating? I don’t even like that word.  Dating. What does it mean? I used to pshaw dating because in my small world, dating meant more than one person. AND in my relatively sheltered life, I thought if I were dating someone–I would be sleeping with that person. AND THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL that I would be sleeping with more than one person. So…I never dated. Or thought I dated.

Recently though, I refined my definition of dating. Specifically, dating is spending quality time with other people and NOT GETTING ANY NOOKEY. So dating DOES mean more than one person–BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF NOOKEY part.

And I realize I spend my quality time with different people and those different people fill different areas of my life. But in the end, I wake up alone in my bed. And, as I type this, I realize that I’ll have to make different decisions about who I spend time with if I want to address the nookey deficit.

And in the meantime, I’ll join my friend and enjoy the “sight-seeing”.

The topic last week was work boyfriends…no…not boyfriends who work, or boyfriends that do work—boyfriends at work. When I called late Sunday evening, it was almost too late. My friend has one of her friends over and they have already been talking about boys.

I’m cleaning my house like mad, trying to get it ready for the renters arriving on Wednesday. Steve and Ana are painting trim and finishing off the bedroom. I take the phone to the other end of the house and start on the laundry room.

So? I ask. What’s up?

She’s giggly and admits there’s already been a conversation and a bottle of wine and I just wish I’d been there myself.

Work boyfriends. They were talking about boyfriends at work. The pros. The cons. The possibilities. Guys–you know who I’m talking about. You’re the guy at work we talk to, flirt with, spend our working hours thinking about…then…then we go home. And life goes on. Some of us have husbands or partners at home. Some of us don’t. I guess you could call us your work girlfriends.

Somebody I knew once said: “I don’t care where he gets his appetite. As long as he eats at home!” I have seen different perspectives. I have personally experienced different perspectives. I don’t have an answer to that. I guess whatever works for each individual.

So, the topic was: If you have a boyfriend at work, do you let your colleagues know about it? We’re just going to stick with a safe topic and assume that both parties are not attached to a separate third party. (That topic came up too. And I can only say that if you decide to get involved with another person who already has a significant other, know exactly – EXACTLY—what you’re getting yourself into. Be prepared for heartache, heartbreak, and disappointment.)

So. Do you let your colleagues know? We all decided it would be better for the relationship if you didn’t let them know. There’s somehow more excitement in your clandestine activities. However, I pointed out: Your colleagues will figure it out—eventually. They’re not blind.

We talked about what was attractive to us. Her friend is attracted to guys with degrees and higher education. My friend swears by the pheromones. Me—add an accent to that mix, and some witty banter, and well—we all agreed that if you had that combination—and you worked with us, you would likely become our work boyfriend.

They both had been flirting that week. I asked how that worked for them.

My friend scored some nookey.

I call on Sunday evening as I’m packing up my room. SO…how was your week?

Hi. How was your week? She asks me the same question as soon as she picked up the phone. We laugh and start over.

So. I repeat. How was your week?

Well. I got kiss and a snuggle on my birthday.

My heart sinks. I remembered her birthday ON THE DAY, but forgot to do anything about it. I’m wrapped up in my world of contracts, websites, and rentals. UGH. I have to get a life. But the kiss and the snuggle sounds promising. So I tell her: Well. That sounds promising.

Nope. Not really. I got a kiss and a snuggle and a “I just want to be friends”.

Oh. “Just friends”. We all know how that feels. But at least she (they) are mature enough to be friends. And mature enough not to start anything physical.

We talk a little bit about the one of the Sex and the City episodes where Carrie is researching her column on having sex like a man. And she meets Mr. Big a few times around town. And he finally gives her a ride home. And he asks: Why are you researching such topic? And she says: Well. It seems like a good way to have fun, don’t you think?

And he says she obviously hasn’t been in love before.

And we (my friend and I) determine that there really is a difference. Attachments start once anybody starts in physically (especially more than once).

We talk about that for a bit. Being able to put yourself out there knowing you might get hurt. And I know I can’t do that yet. BUT damn! I know I’d certainly like the feel of a warm body–but I’m just not putting myself out there like that (unless you count making out with a 20-something on a Friday night after I’ve had a few drinks–but ugh–have to watch out for that. Don’t want to become known as the local syphtonicmegatoid).

She’s putting herself out there though. She’s not afraid. She has a list even. I tell her if she lets me post her list, I’ll post mine (and then we’ll both be out there). COMPLETELY. UNPLUGGED. RAW. EXPOSED. And not just out there in our little hometowns. Out there. For real. On the internet.

She said she’ll take a few days to come up with the one she wants to post.

We talk about boys. Man. That’s what we do. We talked about boys in high school. Now we talk about boys from high school. And I don’t even remember their names until she says them:

Chris Jeselnik (definitely a spelling mistake). I’m going to have to look him up.
Bruce Wilson
Jason Casey
Lee Parker (I remember Lee Parker)

Those are the only ones we remember right off the bat. I tell her she needs to get on Facebook and start reconnecting.

I’m packing up my room and I find the photo album from when we went to Europe in Grade 12. And laugh. We’d ended up in London at the other end of the hotel from the rest of the group. We had ADJOINING ROOMS with three fellows from Georgetown University. I only remembered two names: Tony Giaccobi and Felix Bachoftner. I have a letter from Felix somewhere I’m going to post on my other website. It wasn’t a love letter, but I probably wish it were.

How is it that we didn’t get into more trouble with those guys? I ask.

Because we were so responsible Jen. That’s why we got the room on the other side of the hotel. We were the only ones who didn’t require supervision.

Too bad. I muse. We know could have had much more fun with those guys. Didn’t they invite us to the Les Mis production? Good God! Why didn’t we go to that? What were we thinking? (Was the three-dimensional neon L over my head even then?).

Probably.

We could have talked all night, but I had to finish packing and painting and everything so we just left things at that. She’s going to send me a letter to post on the other site. She found it while she’s packing up her house.

She’s also going to send me her list! I’ve got to dig mine up. A dare is a dare.

It was just a duck. With the potential of a buffalo or a bear. I called my friend yesterday–to make sure she arrived home after her weekend away. Silly me–I thought it was a date. But, her friends had just invited her to go duck hunting–but I didn’t know that until later.

She’d had a stressful week at work making decisions about her employment future and it was just good to get away from it all. She ended up in a gutted camper van on a cot with a sleeping bag and a dog. The dog was for company (and to alert her for wild animals such as buffalos or bears–none of which she’d want to encounter if she had to pee in the middle of the night.) We laughed and talked about that for a while, the pros and cons of outhouses vs. just going. And I told her I have a blog entry on “how to pee in the woods (and keep your dignity“). But, basically, she thought it was funny that she should have to open the door to the camper and look both ways before she stepped out into the night.

What were you looking for? I ask.

Buffalo. She laughed.

Buffalo?

Yep. You don’t want to step out into the middle of a herd of buffalo.

And all I can think is: Why are you camping in the middle of a herd of buffalo?

She wasn’t, but apparently, there were enough buffalo in the area — that there could have been a possibility that they would wander into their camp.

Right then. I say. Buffalo. What else? How was the rest of the weekend? (AND MY REAL QUESTION IS: DID YOU GET ANY NOOKEY?) because I still didn’t know that it wasn’t a date.

And she talks about shooting the rifles (and I don’t know when she learned to shoot rifles–I’ll have to ask her about that). And hunting ducks. They bagged two ducks. But, she says, the 12 gauge has a nasty bite if you don’t shoulder it properly. I have to ask is she bruised her boob (because I’m still trying to find out if she got any nookey).

No. She’s a bit indignant. I bruised my shoulder and now it’s sore.

So that’s it? You shot two ducks and had to watch out for buffalo before you went pee–what kind of a date was that?

She said it was just a weekend with friends. Just regrounding and regrouping after her stressful week at work. A weekend unplugged. (And that sounded sort of romantic to me).

Oh. I say. Where was your date?

She didn’t have a date. Just a weekend away with friends. She got some kisses from her puppy though. Does that count?

I guess, I sigh. I guess.

What about you?, she asks. What do you have to report on? Because she knows how uncomfortable I am. I tell her that after my housemate moved out on Friday, that I was relieved that it was done–I took myself out for a drink. And I had two blood-orange margaritas at Barn Diva. And I think the bartender made the second one really strong. And I talked to a couple visiting from Oregon. And I took them over to John and Zekes so they could have more of a local experience. And I ended up making out with a 20-something out back.

Does that count?

Definitely. She laughs. Definitely.

I start asking my girlfriends: What’s romantic to you? What is your idea of romance?

Three out of three answered: spontaneity.

My girlfriend in Yellowknife answered: “If he just called up in the middle of the day and said: Dress warmly. I’m taking you out. And then if he came and picked me up on a skidoo and we went ice fishing all afternoon. That would be romantic.

My cousin Nik says: A picnic after a hike out at the lake. Just walking and talking and spending time together with the forethought of a picnic. That’ll get you some nookey.

Mine? I don’t necessarily have anything specifically romantic in mind. But I know some personal thought, a bit of effort, and witty banter go a long, long way.

Oh. Wait..that’s two plus me. I guess I’ll have to keep asking. I’m certainly going to ask the boys.