The month of May has been a time of change for me, and I suppose its time to let you in on some of the things that have been going on.

First of all, I’m sure its apparent by now that I’m no longer dating John, AKA Scranto. The choice was hard to make, but it was the right thing to do. I uncovered and embraced a part of my life that till recently didn’t make any sense. I’m polyamorous, and that pretty much means that you don’t limit your emotional connections to one partner. For some, being poly means you can have multiple relationships, maybe a triad or a few separate lovers. The difference that makes it not so slutty is that there is openness and communication across the board. For me, being poly means that I don’t have to be afraid to express my care and love for my closest friends, mentors, “daddies,” and I don’t have to hide it from my partner. I don’t wanna date 3 guys, I can’t handle it, I just don’t want to have to hide how I feel for someone and ensure my partner knows I love him just the same.

For a month, I’ve been discovering this about myself, figuring out what to do, how to make this work in the current situation, but I couldn’t. The choice I made was to break up with John, start fresh, and start growing up in 2009. It was tough, it hurt, but I feel 100% about the path that I’m on today.

Fast forward to now. When I refer to “the boyfriend,” I’m referring to Jay (see above in 8bit). He’s sorta the catalyst for it all. Its hard to explain, but for a time I thought I could date John and Jay, and keep it all perfect. That wasn’t going to work, but I took my time with Jay and he is the best partner for me as I walk down this path. I  love this guy, he keeps bringing out the best in me, and anyone that can put up with me deserves a fucking medal.

How did I meet Jay? Eh, its complicated (involves twitter, being thrown up against a wall, grumpybear, Forest Lawn, Westboro Church, a trip to Darien Lake, and a month long case of blue balls)… but it wouldn’t be my life if it wasn’t. I’m happy, real happy.

P.S. – It’s now totally cool to date someone you meet on twitter.

My webbie bud Yosiell, aka Project Detonate (the same fellow who did the awesome Monster Hunter custom) dropped this cuteness in my inbox the other morning… i felt compared to share:

Scranto on left, me on the right, as distinguished by our respective obsession.  Almost makes me wanna get a fursuit. Almost. Thanks a lot Yosi!

On a sidenote, ever realize how sometimes you can have buddies that you care about that you may have never met in person?  Does it really matter? How much validity is there on an internet friendship? If I fell off the map, would you folks care past a day? I’m not having a bitter moment, just inquiring…

Amanda Visell Weatherbot

I’m about a week and a half late posting about this, but John gifted me this amazing new print from Amanda Visell for Christmas. Amanda Visell really pwned 2008 with her hop skip and a jump from painting -> wood -> resin -> vinyl. While a lot of artist do this, Amanda keeps her wood and brushstroke style congruent among all mediums.

“Weatherbot” is a winterscene, featuring a enormungo robot with the ability to control the skies. The townsfolk appear to be gathering around, Gulliver Travels style, in attempts to thwart the metal monstrosity. Limited, signed, and numbered at 50 prints, by Amanda Visell.

PS – Giclee is the stupidest name for any printed technique. it even pronounces lame: “zee-clay.” However it produces amazingly accurate prints.

Check out more of Amanda Visell at her site.

I have dated John since February 2008, and I feel closer to him in more ways than I have with anybody else. I also live further away from him than anyone I have ever been with. How can I be so close, yet so far away?

Its the Internets baby.

My relationship with john was cultivated directly from social networking. We met on BearCiti, a friendly and well designed bear niche dating/hookup/oggling community. I oggled, he oggled back, “you’re My Type,” “OMG Woof!” From there we’d chit chat and IM, and bit by bit the urge grew to get on a plane to see a man I never met before, who’s mother thought I could be a crazy person (a valid fear I think). We met, fell in love, and then the realization hit that I would still have to live in Buffalo, and John (at the time) still had to live in Annapolis, and neither of us liked the idea of being apart. We had to give it a shot though. Luckily, with us both being geeks, we have a few tools that we use to build a relationship, 400 miles apart…

• Twitter – This is a lifestream spew of all my thoughts, rants, and aversions. John follows me on twitter and I follow him. We follow each others friends and have a comfortable network of people that share our thoughts. Twitter allows me to know whats going on with John, and vice versa. I know his thoughts in 140 characters. and he knows mine.
• IM – God we talk alot. Both of us use IM for work purposes, and all day we chitterchatter, rant and rabblerouse. Occasionally we get work done, but its good to know I have a link to him. IM is the good old standby.
• Blogs/podcasts - I blog (duh), and John does occasionally, but this is more than just our content. Its the content of the web. So many of my relationships have fizzled because we have ran out of things to talk about. The web is a series of tubes and they go on forever.  We share our web findings and our snark on a daily basis. From all this, I learn how John feels about things, his interests and opinions are a vital part of me feeling close to him.
• Flickr – This was something I wanted, whether together or apart. I wanted dinner parties and flickr sets. I get it all with John, and even though sometimes we quarrel over who gets upload rights, flickr archives it all. There has never been a trip with out a flickr set attached to it. Flickr doesn’t just benefit John and I, our friends and family see us in action (well, that set is private, actually) and provides a little validity, whether they need it or not.
• Phone Sex – This one’s a little bit archaic but Its the absolute most important thing besides physical contact: hearing your lover’s voice. John is the first person I talk to in the morning (I call and wake him up) and the last person I talk to at night. We have done this every day. I text a lot too, and with a smartphone I can manage and use all of the above social apps wherever I am. I admit to being a bit attached to my G1, but I’m also really attached to Scranto.  And as crude as it sounds, nothing is more fun than getting a dirty picture message out of the blue.
• Video Streaming – Here’s our most recent example: John and I aren’t spending christmas together due to logistics, but I still want to experience some bit of the Holiday Spirit with him. His present arrived a little early due to need, and he opened it last night over uStream. I watch and we talked as he unboxed it, smiled, and tried on his fancy new headphones. Sure it was a little weird, but you know what, it felt like I was with him. I got to see the look on his face, the joy of the gift, the appreciation. Thats what Christmas is all about right? That and spiked eggnog. I will admit we use video for other purposes, too… just not over uStream.

I don’t like long distance relationships, and neither does John. We do more than make it work, we thrive in it. All of it has to do with love, dedication, and a little web 3.o.

There a many other benefits of the web that can benefit long distance relationships. Think about finding cheap travel or job hunting. LDR’s used to get a bad rap because they were difficult to maintain and communication was limited to phone, or letters (something about paper, and stamps.. don’t know).  If you have hesitations about getting closer to that person who’s not so close, think long and hard about why you want to take the risk. Dating someone across the way can be heartwrenching, and no amount of twitter can help that. However, things have advanced in the ways of communication, and as long as you can maintain a strong connection, the miles don’t suck so much.

P.S – Its totally ok now to date someone you met on the internet. Don’t be a prude, update your snobbery book. kthx.

The first leg of my DC-A-Go-Go trip entailed a visit to the National Gallery of Art with John. There, we met up with his good friend Magda, who works in the most awesome place ever: the East building designed by I. M. Pei. A little note about the East Building, besides the fact that it houses the contemporary and modern works for the NGA, the building itself is designed so that there are no right angles. Like, none. Walking around inside the staff area, you can’t help but effect a sense of vertigo.

[Found out after this picture, not allowed to have camera's in the staff area. whoops!]

Its all really pleasing really; even the elevators are random heptagons.  Magda took us to lunch in the staff “refectory” (parallelogram tables FTW!) and then for a trip to the pedestrian walkway that bridged the east and west buildings of the NGA.

click after the jump to see the Villareal.

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I’m so in love with Scranto. Having him come up this weekend has settled everything in my head; all the fears and worries have shot out the window… John is the guy I’ve been waiting for.

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We did so much this weekend, in such a lazy fashion; it felt like the weekend was a whole week:

• Headed to Cathode’s for Big Ass Drinks Thursday night, learned that Mama still loves me enough to overpour my (and John’s) Margaritas.
• Rednecks in Bradford know how to cook, and two whole halfs of Chiavetta’s chicken equals a whole halved chicken.
• My dad smokes ribs better than anyone… still.
• I’m going to look like my Grandpa when I get older.
• Skylar John, and I can miraculously fit on a single (the size) bed.
• I love my bear.

Check out the photoset on Scranto’s flickr page to see all we that we did.

IKEA can make some total crap. Sometimes you wonder what exactly goes through the heads of designers when they produce something like the HATTEN, which looks like an acrylic cake carrier flipped on end.  Despite the seemingly drug induced design choices IKEA spews out en masse, you can always be assured they’ll have some wicked lighting to make up for it.

I saw the DIODER (featured in the video above) series last year, when I went with Angel and his biz partner to shop for new store furnishings. We had picked up the disc lighting, hoping for a multicolored cosmic front display, only to realized upon getting home, that we had picked the plain lights instead. Norman took back and we forgot all about them. Fast forward to last weekend with John down in Maryland, when we took the mandatory sweep through IKEA looking for an ottoman suitable for John’s new space. We saw the DIODER series again, this time in the form of adjustable light bars, brighter than the discs and a tad more expensive, but we thought the perfect solution for a faux ambient effect behind John’s Hi-Def.

He snagged the bars and I grabbed the discs, I wanted lighting for the vinyl hutch and these were perfect. However, as I never seem to learn from the past, the light bars turned out to be the plain boring white strips, though I managed to get the colored discs this time. John’s still trying to find a solution for the overly bright bars of doom…

Good luck trying to get these online, unless you want to pay nearly double from the .ca store and then extra on top to get it shipped from Canadia. Yes, Canadia…

ps. IKEA is the only company I know that gives you too much cord with your lights… not that thats a bad thing…

Alright, so it has been almost a week with no updates, and I have been quite mum about the Scranto visit. Work has swizzled my hours around and tossed on a few extra projects, sending me into reorganization mode with almost every one of my daily activities. Not to fear for the blog, I just have to schedule the time I have to update. I really hate responsibilities.. makes me itch.

Anyhoo, here is a video clip that me and John took while he was here. Skylar was an attention whore, sapping up to John and winning him over instantly. Watch out for the cute bear at the end… he’s MINE.

Skylar from John Scranton on Vimeo.

John bought himself a new digital camera, and sent me this video to show the quality of the recording. I twittered about it, only to have the bears demand viewing rights as well. So here it is, coupled with a testdrive of the new Sprout online flash widget creator.

Unless you catch my twitter, I’ve been somewhat silent about John on my blog, and partly its because I wasn’t thrilled to get the reaction. See, I’ve spent the last couple of years in Buffalo being the cruelest gaming asshole ever. I’ve dated a few guys, broken a few too many hearts, and pissed off a whole bunch of people. I’ve come to the conclusion that I no longer wish to continue this trend; it seems to get in the way of me finding real happiness. To go from player to lover, deceptor to devoted, is as easy as flipping a switch.  However, proving that that switch to people is a lot harder. Thus, the second part of my conclusion is that I no longer care how people will perceive my sincerity on this because I only have to prove myself to one person, and i quite like it this way. I’ve fallen quite deeply for this redheaded bear named John. John lives in Maryland. I most recently spent President’s day weekend with John, and we seemed to have fallen in love. I’m a firm believer that if you care for someone, then you make sacrifices and take chances that you wouldn’t normally do for anyone else. The risk of failure is only high when you hesitate, and is most surely 100% when you don’t take the risk at all. The mechanicals of our relationship are very intersesting, merging social technology and cross-culture immersion to make up for the physical gap between us.  A uniquely funded travel budget may be in the future, and beyond that is too early to tell. All I can say is this dude completes me in every way I could ever have possibly imagined and to pass this by based on something as stupid as distance would make me a fool. Oh, and he twitters…

[Click above for the Maryland Trip Flickr Set]