Q. Son Not Honoring His Mother: I’m the 78-year-old mother of two twin boys who are about to turn 40. One is married; the other is gay. When the gay son came out to us a few years ago, my husband (since deceased) and I told him we love him but do not accept his lifestyle. He became upset and didn’t seem to appreciate our love and support at that time. My gay son brought his partner of two years to my other son’s wedding. At an informal dinner, my son and his boyfriend were sitting arm in arm on a sofa, in front of everyone. I took my son aside and told him not to be affectionate with his boyfriend in front of me because it made me very uncomfortable. He refused, telling me it was my problem, not his, and he had the right to experience love and affection just like everybody else. I told him that affection in general makes me uncomfortable, unless the couple is married. I explained that since we didn’t see each other much he ought to be able to honor my request because being gay is only part of who he is and he should be able to set it aside during those rare, special times that we’re together. He said I was trying to rob him of the full expression of his humanity!

He’s hesitant to talk about much of anything with me, even though I’ve told him many times I love and accept him, it just makes me uncomfortable to see two men being affectionate with each other. I don’t know how to resolve this, I feel like I can’t express myself to him or object to his lifestyle without being made out to be the bad guy. I’m losing him and I don’t know what to do! Please help! Mom.

A: Read over your answer again, Mom, and see if you can spot your own logical flaws. You “love, support, and accept” your son—except you want him to pretend he’s not gay when he’s around you. That ain’t support and acceptance. Why should he open up to you? I assume you don’t make your straight son show no affection for his wife or pretend she doesn’t exist. You’re telling your gay son that the core of who he is gives you the willies, so anyone with a shred of dignity would distance himself.

I understand that you are from a different generation and it is a shock for you to see men expressing affection toward each other. But you aren’t stuck in aspic, so let circumstances, and your love for your son, change you. You should be happy that he has someone he wants to link arms with. If you don’t want him to be ever more distant, tell him you were wrong. Tell him you miss him terribly and you want to get to know the man he loves.

Traditionalists may fret the dilution of the “brand,” but we are in the midst of a true technological revolution that is transforming everything. Keep up or miss out. Across the board, luxuries of the past are becoming increasingly accessible to anyone who is willing to do their part to earn them. A rising tide lifts all boats. Imagine how exponential the pace will feel when the recession is truly over. It’s nice to see that the pioneering spirit embodied in Stanford’s founding is alive and well today.

I generally love the proportions and beautiful construction of the large dressers that Restoration Hardware offers across the board. My main dresser–one of the house’s feature pieces that I most definitely splurged on–is from Restoration Hardware, but they had nothing like the Zinc 11-Drawer Dresser available at the time. The description and visualization in a room are old-timey, but I think the material begs to be incorporated into a modern loft which architectural detailing. I normally avoid matchy furniture, but I think the Zinc 5-Drawer Dresser could also be worked into a large enough room or collection of rooms. It may be the architect/construction document handler in me talking, but I am also drawn to the Printmaker’s Sideboard. It could be so awesome in a home office, and imagine the organization that is possible with such a piece! Restoration Hardware has been doing some great things with this shade of wood. Unfortunately, these two looks could be difficult to pull off together unless you had a home with quite a few different zones. I prefer to stick with furniture that mostly “goes” together so that it can be easily rearranged between rooms–or one day all muddled together in the flowing space of a loft!

On another note, it’s been a while since I blogged here. I made a bunch of notes for future posts but procrastinated long enough that they went out of date. If you’re interested in hearing from me more frequently, you can check out the previously abandoned tumblog that I recently connected to my personal home page. I’ll blog more frequently in short form going forward from there, but keep long form posts, on-theme material, and more potentially contentious stuff here. For more personal stuff, you can refer to our shared Dan and Laura tumblog, though there isn’t much there yet. I also have an online portfolio which you may or may not have seen, and I am in the process of bringing it fully up to date.

Here’s an excerpt from the Savage Love column that announced the birth of the It Gets Better Project (italics are original; bold added for emphasis on the thematically appropriate issue).

Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likelier to attempt suicide. Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs, and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids.

“My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas,” a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas [who recently hung himself] to my blog. “I wish I could have told you that things get better.”

I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren’t allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don’t bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don’t have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

[...] [M]any LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.

I wasn’t miserable in high school but I felt very trapped. It wasn’t cool to study hard around the jocks and being a jock wasn’t very admired by the honors kids. In retrospect and with additional information garnered over eight more years, I realize there were some great people there who I should have spent more time with, but 15 year-old me didn’t see it. What’s most important, though, is that high school plays almost no role in the life I have now (“almost” because I chose to  live only an hour away). I know from Facebook that some of the people who gave me a hard time back in high school got what they had coming in one way or another but it’s not even worth the energy to care. College wasn’t perfect but its scale makes popularity contests impossible unless you specifically opt in. And of course, college provides you the opportunity to select an environment that matches your identity more closely than the random thousand+ kids who live in closest proximity to where your parents chose to make a home.

Whether you’re an executive at Mott’s or a fashionista in Chicago seeking a deal on jeans, low-balling makes economic sense. It’s good for balance sheets, and the fact that people are being more cautious about what they pay for goods and service is a welcome reaction. But systematic low-balling has broad implications. Economist John Maynard Keynes identified the “paradox of thrift”—if everybody saves, everybody gets poorer, since a rise in savings tends to dry up demand. By the same token, there may be a paradox of low-balling. If everybody low-balls and steadfastly refuses to pay existing prices as part of an effort to improve their financial standing, then everybody will suffer.

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BEWARE OF ILLEGAL DOG!

File under: this is why people hate San Francisco.

The city apparently scours the records of local veterinary facilities for “unlicensed” dogs. I didn’t grow up in a dog owning family so maybe I just don’t know, but since when do people actually do this? It’s sort of like licensing your bike except that licensing your bike might actually be useful.

Scouring veterinary records to call out unlicensed dogs would seem to have two possible effects: 1. Encourage people to take their dogs to vets outside the jurisdiction of San Francisco. Sounds great for the local economy. 2. Encourage people who are really pressed for money (or just straight up cheap) to avoid establishing a record of their dog by never taking it to the vet in the first place.

The primary rationale that this notice provides for why I should license my dog other than the fact that it’s the rule (always a great reason) relates to lost dogs. Thanks but no thanks.

1. My dog is primarily an indoor dog. He even poops indoors. It’s highly unlikely he will ever get lost. Interestingly, cats (which are also indoor) do not require licenses.
2. In the event that Buster does somehow get lost, he has a tag that says his full name and our phone number. If someone found him and did not get immediately get a hold of us by phone it would take that person less than five minutes to locate us thanks to the magic of the internets. Buster even has a Facebook page. Pray, tell me what could possibly be on this miraculous license tag that is going to get Buster home faster than what he already has.
3. If by some crazy turn of events, Buster got lost sans collar, he is also microchipped (which is indicated on his collar). Most people who bother to go to the vet in the first place do this just in case.

There’s a chance that the licensing is really about the rabies vaccine, but I have an answer to that as well: rabies vaccines come with a tag to put on your dog’s collar as evidence of the vaccine. Do I really need another tag that verifies the same thing?

So basically, licensing sounds like a tax. I’m ok with taxes, but please tell it like it is.

Upon further investigation, I’ve uncovered the following:

The fee you pay for your Dog License and license renewal keeps your city’s animal shelter going. It is one of the primary sources of revenue for Animal Care and Control, so it can continue to provide its unique services to all the citizens of San Francisco, from finding new homes for unclaimed or surrendered pets to keeping neighborhoods safe from aggressive dogs, from caring for animals whose owners have died to teaching good pet care to school kids.

I agree that dogs in general (though not my dog) increase the costs of keeping the city clean. Children are also expensive to society, but (rightly so) there’s no special tax on them. If I support my neighbors’ children, shouldn’t they support my dog? Are the operations of Animal Care and Control any more the sole responsibility of dog owners than the operations of our public schools the sole responsibility of parents? I don’t think so.

Your dog’s Dog License shows that you are a responsible dog caregiver. When you walk your dog or let your dog run in designated areas, people will notice the license on your dog’s collar and know that you really care about your dog’s welfare. Dogs without licenses carry a stigma of owner neglect.

I call bullshit. I have never noticed a dog license. I totally believe in being a responsible citizen but would be much more interested in seeing a medal around the necks of taxpayers indicating the percentage they paid on their last income tax return. Nobody does that.

It’s the law. Living in San Francisco brings many lifestyle advantages and cultural rewards, but it also carries some obligations. Among these is the payment of fees for municipal services. Good citizens get their dogs licensed.

Again, I can’t seem to find a compelling reason to license my dog other than the fact that it’s the law. Best of all, from San Francisco Health Code:

Notwithstanding San Francisco Administrative Code section 10.117-87(c), said license fee shall be used to defray the costs associated with issuance of said license, including personnel costs.

There’s nothing quite like a tax to cover the cost of enforcing that tax. If it even covers the cost of mailing me these stupid notices and then processing the paperwork.

The face of the enemy.

Dan and I met a VentureBeat writer at a bar who mentioned that The Facebook Effect was “actually good,” so we both ended up reading it on vacation. It was admittedly a fun and interesting read that was difficult to put down. Even though The Social Network movie is based upon the other much less credible book, The Accidental Billionaires, I’m now pretty excited to see it anyway. One of the weird (voyeuristic?) parts about reading The Facebook Effect was that I vaguely know some of the players. I also tried to hit on Sean Parker via Friendster back in college. I guess the online social communities were really small in those days. (Parker was kind of smug, and now that I’ve read more about him I can understand why I failed. Fortunately so, as he has a bit of a rockstar mentality and was also much more attractive in his professionally shot Friendster photos than he is in real life.) What was less weird and rather enjoyable was being able to visualize the action since much of it took place in Palo Alto where I lived for four years. Even though it’s a good story, the book is not particularly quoteworthy. Still, I have gleaned what interesting tidbits I could and provided some personal commentary below.

At one of those meetings in June [2004], a financier offered Zuckerberg $10 million for the company. Mark had just turned twenty. Thefacebook was four months old. He didn’t for a minute think seriously about accepting.

Anyone who is my Facebook friend knows that I am a huge Facebook user. Some may have teased me for it or stifled me on their news feeds (fortunately, I don’t have to know). Ever since I joined when Facebook opened at Stanford in early 2004, I’ve been a firm believer. I have had multiple friends–and by friends I mean real friends whose opinions I respect–tell me over the years that either 1) Facebook is only in it for the money or 2) Facebook isn’t worth anything anyway. I knew Facebook was getting offers to sell late in my college years (2006) but had no idea that an offer, which would have been a substantial win for Zuckerberg at the time and for such little work, had come so early. Reading about offer after rejected offer really reaffirmed by long-held faith in the Facebook leadership despite all the bad press it had received over the years. It’s possible that Zuckerberg is power hungry, but he wants that power because he wants to control the product and make it good. Which he has.

About a year ago, I was considering trying to get a job at Facebook even though the commute would suck because it seems that no matter what its valuation is, that valuation always increases (meaning there’s money to be made all around). At that point, some friends, even ones who considered themselves Valley insiders, were saying that it couldn’t possibly be a good place to move because it had already done all its growing. If anything, Facebook would implode. Time and again, the naysayers have been wrong. Just sayin’.

Zuckerberg preferred working with people his own age. He believed they were superior programmers, for one thing. Sometime later, at a small conference, he showed his stripes in talking to a bunch of other entreprenuers. ‘I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,’ he said, according to the VentureBeat blog. ‘Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30?’ You can imagine how reading that made the growing number of Facebook executives in their thirties and forties feel.

Curious, does that mean 20-year-old Zuckerberg was smarter than 35-year old Zuckerberg will be?

[...] advertising should always be useful to the user.

Facebook’s ads have been immensely useful to me: all the way from finding Groupon before my friends to advertising for roommates in my college network.

[Moskovitz] and Zuckerberg were also closely following the outcome of Google’s acquisition in early May of Dodgeball, a company that used cell phones to help you track the physical location of your friends. ‘We saw that dodgeball was going to shit,’ says Moskovitz. ‘And Google was the mecca of start-ups. If an acquisition there was going to fail I didn’t feel great about going to a company [Yahoo!] that was known for being kind  of behind the times.’

Like I said, even when it came closest to selling, Facebook wasn’t really interested in letting its product get destroyed if that’s what it took to “cash out.”

Facebook was not meant to be cool, just useful.

He [Zuckerberg] recalls that in Facebook’s early days some argued the service ought to offer adult users both a work profile and a ‘fun social profile.’ Zuckerberg was always opposed to that. ‘The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,’ he says. He makes several arguments. ‘Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,’ Zuckerberg says moralistically. But he also makes a case he sees as pragmatic–that the ‘level of transparency the world has now won’t support having two identities for a person.’ [...] Zuckerberg, along with a key group of his colleagues, also believes that by openly acknowledging who we are and behaving consistently among all our friends, we will help create a healthier society.

That explains why Facebook has dropped the ball on “work” profiles. They are not part of the mission. I can’t say I 100% agree with this one. I think I’ve benefitted in some ways from the transparency that Facebook has introduced into the work world, but it’s easy (and naive) to say that you don’t need different identities when you work at a laid back internet company like Facebook.

As one expert in privacy law recently asked, ‘How many openly gay friends must you have on a social network before you’re outed by implication?’

On the bright side, at least you don’t really have to come out. It’s both a blessing and a curse that Facebook won’t really let you be anyone other than who you really are unless you actively lie.

If you are friends with someone on Facebook, you may learn more about them than you learned in ten years of offline friendship.

Feel free to make fun of me, but I have connected on a much deeper level with certain people as a result of the opportunity to get to know them online. One of my closest confidantes in high school was a friend who I chatted with late into the night on AIM but rarely spoke to in real life because he was shy. I think getting to know people online can also make it much easier to find the appropriate romantic partner and waste less time on people who are poorly-suited to you.

[...] more visibility makes us better people.

It’s interesting to see some old high school contacts being friendly and even downright nice to others who they wouldn’t have given the time of day way back when. While visibility probably makes us better people as adults (perhaps Facebook helps us recognize our common humanity), I wonder if this applies to present-day school kids. Facebook can bring all the problems that usually stay at school right into a tortured child’s home.

‘A more transparent world creates a better-goverened world and a fairer world.’ This is, for him [Zuckerberg], a core belief.

When readers log in to comment or interact on one of these sites or devices using Facebook Connect they are identified by their Facebook photo and real name. This addresses a huge problem that has afflicted blogs and news sites–the significant percentage of posts by readers that have been extreme, insulting, and anonymous. When discussants log in under their real names with Connect, the dialog becomes more civilized.

Until I read this book, I had forgotten how completely anonymous the internet used to be. Remember the early AOL experience which pretty much consisted of logging into chat rooms under names like BrownEyes42 and talking about nothing (or sex) with random strangers because they were the only other people online?

We had been thinking for a while about getting professional photos of/with Buster since he generally comes out as a black blob with point and shoot cameras, but the interwebs had something greater in mind. Mayka Mei and I went to elementary through high school together, and she’s been an active blogger pretty much since blogs were invented. Even though I’ve rarely seen Mayka in person since high school, I’ve continued to read about her life from time to time (especially since Google Reader made it easy to track new content from friends). One day I clicked on a link to her boyfriend/partner, Bill Robinson‘s, blog and discovered that he was a great animator. Seriously, I don’t even like cartoons but he was good enough to make it worth watching his feed. A few months later, I came across this completely adorable commission of his friend’s dog, Bandit. It took every ounce of will power I had not to show it to Dan immediately because it occurred to me that getting Bill to do Buster would make an excellent surprise.

I contacted Bill and was delighted to find that he was willing to work with me. Not all artists are so approachable or personable. The process, though excruciatingly difficult to keep secret, was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of photos for Bill to work from, and he generated the following sketches as a starting point.

I collaborated with Dan’s mom and my sister in order to select sketch G to continue to develop. Below are the two photos that inspired the sketch I selected. I’m sure it was no easy task to capture Buster in action like Bill did.

Next was the color sketch phase. Bill changed the angle a bit for better composition. We also added some of Buster’s favorite toys. The shark is a childhood toy of Dan’s that his mom gave us along with a bunch of others over Christmas. The bear came with flowers that Dan sent me relatively early on in our relationship. He was initially unhappy when I suggested letting the new puppy have the bear but later agreed that it was a superior use for the bear compared to letting it sit in my closet. At the time when we gave Buster the bear, he was the same size as it. He would drag it around the house and sleep curled up next to it.

Finally, Bill sent the final draft, I made a few small modifications, and then we were ready for the big reveal to Dan and Buster. We can’t wait to get the print framed and hung over our fireplace!

It was really nice out today, so I went to the park [in Fremont, CA near our elementary school] to read a book. I put out my blanket, read some, but got tired and took a nap. I had a midterm yesterday, so I was pretty sleepy. [...] I woke up to a lady with a tiny dog saying something, so I asked her to repeat. She accused me of being homeless, so I was like no, I just fell asleep while reading my book and held up my copy of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. I also found the whole situation particularly absurd because I was wearing 7 For All Mankind jeans, a Diesel shirt, and a Timbuk2 bag. But anyway, she continued to insist that I was homeless and lying but that she could help me find a place to stay. I responded with some words and showed her my car and house keys – figuring that the evidence is pretty irrefutable.

She continued to say, “Well then, why don’t you read at your house? There are kids here.” Looking around, I saw three kids in the distance, and, looking back, I really should have said, “Well why don’t you walk your dog at your house?” As the conversation went on, she became unnecessarily testy, and it ultimately resulted in her walking away saying, “I still don’t believe you.” But how absurd is it that you can fall asleep while reading a book in a park in San Francisco, and it’s perfectly normal. Meanwhile, if you do the same thing in a suburb, you’re accused of being homeless and a liar!

It’s funny because she did have pretty honorable intentions. After all, she offered to find me housing, but the incident really does say something about suburbanites’ mentality. First off, she accused me of lying about my housing situation purely because she categorized me as an unknown and homeless teenager. [...] Secondly, her question about reading at my house implies that I should not use the park unless I wish to do a specific activity that cannot be performed at home. In reality, most every adult activity can be performed at home, so she’s really saying that public parks are reserved for kids and dogs. The greatest part of the story is that she’ll probably go home and tell a story about a homeless teenager that didn’t want help and further perpetuate the stigma of strangers, teenagers, and the homeless.