blogflog! LKH finally admits what we've said all along.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

It seems as though our dear Laurell is having trouble being a mundane domestic. In this latest gem of a blog, she yearns for the "1950s wife."  She also admits to looking for a second partner, and to writing wish-fulfillment. 


LKH in bold
Me in gales of laughter, or regular font.
URL: http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/05/domestically-challenged.html

Jon had a doctor’s appointment this evening, just a check-up, and Trinity and I did errands. By the time we were all back home, it was too late to have the dinner I had planned. As in, dinner would have been at Trinity’s bed time. We have staff to help organize us during the work day, but no one in the evening. At night, it’s just us to do the whole grown-up thing. Some day’s we’re better than others, but today was one of those moments when I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a wife?   


I'm having a hard time being sympathetic here.  First, she put a possessive apostrophe in the word "days," which is never a good idea.  Unless there's a person or place named Day, which there clearly is not in this case.   Second, the concept of the evening meal isn't a new one.  Most human beings are conditioned to have one, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that someone needs to prepare said meal.  


Not a real wife, but that 1950’s ideal that never really existed. Someone that is organized and helps you be organized, and makes sure that we don’t forget that to have dinner before bedtime, we have to start at X o’clock. I ended up going out and bringing in food. It was healthy food, sort of, and we ate. Trinity is now tucked into bed, and we are finishing up so we can go up soon. So we got everything done that needed doing, eventually, but when I realized that I’d missed the window for dinner, I felt like I’d failed.


Here we go again with that 1950's wife business.  It's become one of her most overused phrases, along with "double-edged sword," "pretty to think so," and "that Gallic shrug."  For someone who purports to be a huge feminist, LKH really does have some antiquated ideas about what a wife, and a responsible woman, truly is.  Not all women are organized.  In fact, I know a lot of men who are incredible at keeping to a schedule.  It's really a question of prioritizing.  


There are days when I think, wouldn’t it be nice to have that organized grown-up in the house. But it’s not me, and though Jon is more practical than I am, he’s not the most practical person. But, you know what, I’ve never been attracted to anyone that was terribly practical. Even my first husband wasn’t organized or practical. 

Interesting.  So Laurell, who is most certainly not Anita Blake *cough cough*, has a need for someone who is practical.  Hmm.  I seem to remember a character who had the exact same problem!  Until she met this creepy, well-endowed mutant leopard who she insists is the most practical person she's ever met.  But that would mean that the author is basing her main character on herself! 



Now, my Chief of Domestic Operations, Sherry, takes care of the dust, and someone else buys the groceries, after I make the meal plan, so all we have to do is cook it in a timely manner. You’d think we could manage it, and most days we do, but every once in a while the absent-minded professor/artist kicks in, and we just forget. 


Chief of Domestic Operations!  I should get LKH to word my resume, seriously.  A Chief of Domestic Operations is a housekeeper, or a cleaning person.  There isn't anything wrong with being a housekeeper, so why does it merit a fancy, ridiculous title?  Unless I'm wrong, and Sherry really is the hub of on an entire division of cleaning-persons that she dispatches to LKH's house, overseeing the entire operation and thus actually being some sort of chief.   I could very well call my mailcarrier "Chief of Correspondence" but I have a feeling he'd find it condescending.


But, in the end, we got dinner, and the kiddo in bed, and it all got done. But it is one of those days when I think longingly of having one extra more practical person in the house, but let’s face it, even if Jon and I could find a third adult that we wanted to cohabitate with, we’d never be attracted to someone organized and practical. When we were both dating, our choices ran high to artist, techies, writers, and scientiests. None of these jobs, or degrees are likely to net you an organized mate. Now, now, I know there are some out there in all those categories that are the exception to the rule. Those professor types that are far from absent-minded, must be out there, but I never dated them, and neither did Jon.

Well, that'll stop the rumor mill from churning for sure!  I have to question the wisdom of someone who cries foul left and right whenever people read her novels and claim that she's either experiencing or hoping to experience the situations she describes, only to sit down and blog about the fact that she'd like to add a trois to her domestic menage.   She and Jon are looking for a Nathaniel!   I feel like putting out some sort of broadcast to any guy with hair longer than 20 inches to be on the lookout for LKH and Jon, who may or may not be lurking in the bushes outside of fetish clubs.  


Also, I take offense at her generalization that "artist, techies, writer and scientiests" are unorganized and impractical.  Also, I'm curious if an actual scientist could do a study for me, and determine what, if anything, is a "scientiest."  I'm sure the results will be astounding.  


So, even if we added another person to the household, we’d be no better off. We might have fun, but the chance of us bringing someone into the house that would actually help us be better in a practical manner, is slim to none. I think one of the reasons that Nathaniel in the Anita books is so domestically oriented is pure wish fulfillment on my part.

So there it is guys.  In black and white.  Or turquoise, as the hideous font on her blogfeed will attest.  If she has Nathaniel being a domestic as "wish fulfillment," then clearly the wishes she is fulfilling are Anita's, and by extension, her own.  Otherwise, it wouldn't matter if Anita decided to bunk with someone who didn't know what a dishwasher was.  Clearly, Nathaniel is a creation born out of her desire to have a second partner to make her biscuits and clean her lampshades.   Which sounds horribly like a double entendre, but we're talking LKH here so all bets are off. 

Comments

[allova.livejournal.com]

I feel like putting out some sort of broadcast to any guy with hair longer than 20 inches to be on the lookout for LKH and Jon, who may or may not be lurking in the bushes outside of fetish clubs.

This made me laugh because I could picture it so easily.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Hee, I know, right?! I had this ridiculous mental picture of Jon being all excited to use the super-cool spy gear, while the two of them crouch with clipboards rating the clubgoers. Blechhhh!

[nicbemused.livejournal.com]

That's one of the most overpriveledged whines I've ever read. "I have someone who keeps the house and someone else who does the grocery shopping, but doing my own cooking is just too too much trouble."

Laurell, most of us spend our weekends doing the errands and cleaning and grocery shopping because we have neither the time to do it during the week nor the money to hire ONE person to help us, much less 3.

Grow up.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

It seemed awfully childish to me, as well. I realize that she was just venting after a day, but still, is she so far removed from reality that she thinks the average person will relate to having several hired hands and *still* being unable to get dinner stuff done? Even if that's the case, she could do to be a bit humble, you know?

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons where Marge joins the country club and the rich housewives say "we'll rough it!" when they have to do something without the maids there (make dinner, I think?)

Geeze. I grew up with a maid, I admit, but there wasn't enough to do in the house to warrant 3 people. The maid did it all and was gone by 2 o'clock because she was done. And my grandmother's a neat freak that demanded a lot of cleaning. Then again... the idea of having someone else to do my grocery shopping is rather boggling.

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no fooling. And what in God's name could all those errands have been about with an entire domestic crew to take the edge off of being a grown woman?

"Errands" = Went shopping and forgot to feed my own child.

[karmyn75.livejournal.com]

oh boo hoo. Cry me a freaking river, lady. People manage to work all day and still get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. My sisters both work full time jobs, their husbands work full time jobs, they have kids, and they still manage to get dinner on the table every night before the kids have to go to bed. My mom works full time and manages to get dinner done every night. I know my oldest sister tends to plan meals for the week and my mom often does this. Of course, it's nothing fancy most of the time.
Today my mom worked all day taking care of babies pretty much on her own since her coworker doesn't do much, then had an after work chat with the boss about her concerns, picked me and my neices up from the library, then came home to fix dinner and had us all fed and things cleaned up before my sister arrived to pick up her kids. And my mom is 61 years old.
You have no excuse, LKH. You work at home.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

The way she talks, you'd think she worked miles away, in an isolated building with no phones and no transportation! I remember a blog from not too long ago where she left a note for her daughter in the kitchen so she could go to her office and work. Which would make sense, if they weren't in the same freaking house!

[kiaxet]

Artists don't know where all their paints, pencils, sketches, and general artistic materials are, of course.

Techies aren't detail-oriented enough to make sure every line of code is accurate when writing or repairing a program.

Writers obviously don't keep notes about characters and plots and can't organize scenes. (Although it's entirely possible she's writing this from personal experience, and who am I to argue with Laurell's methods?)

And scientists would never keep meticulous notes with accurate data so as not to invalidate their experiments. Of course not.

[/sarcasm]

I'm slightly stunned at the assumptions she makes, and I feel like after reading the blogflogs here for two weeks I really shouldn't be.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

It's like she lives on a different planet sometimes! To paint entire groups of people with that broad of a brush is just hilariously short-sighted. People aren't more or less organized depending upon their jobs. I'm at the point where I'm not even stunned anymore, lol. She just keeps adding more and more crazy to her pile of complete and utter crazy.

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

I must confess the blog made me see red, which is why I flogged the bloody thing too.
You made me snerk loudly several times, and I'll delete my flog of this if you wish. Just say the word.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Glad it made you laugh :) The flog that is; her blog really irked me too! I only pointed it out because I had just put it up about 20 minutes before. I'm not the mod, so I wouldn't dream of telling you to take it down~

[tsula.livejournal.com]

Dude, I wish I had someone to buy my groceries for me... and, hell, finish unpacking the things in my house, clean my rats' cages, mow my lawn, AND cook me dinner... but none of the above is gonna be happening anytime. So my friends and neighbors will just have to continue to be regaled with my musical misadventures in domesticity, and somehow it lacks the epic!failure LKH bemoans over forgetting to cook dinner ONE night.

And as a artist, it's not lack of practicality nor organizational skills that generally has me running about like an overglorified headless chicken, it's pure fucking laziness. I simply don't want to be bothered with the work it takes to organize, cook, clean, or all of the above (until my OCD trips into overdrive).

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I simply don't want to be bothered with the work it takes to organize, cook, clean, or all of the above (until my OCD trips into overdrive).

My point exactly! I'd have a lot more respect for her if she'd just say, "Yeah, I know I have a lot of help but frankly I can't be bothered with that sort of thing." End of discussion. Instead we get a whole speech about how hard it is, and how much she wishes she had a wife of some sort. All she needs to do is make it a priority, which clearly she can't be bothered with doing.

[reticentric.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm curious if an actual scientist could do a study for me, and determine what, if anything, is a "scientiest."

LOL for some reason, man that made me laugh hard. Excellent flog.

I bet LKH doesn't even realize what she really said when talking about Nathaniel and how he fits into Anita's life. I really believe she is that thick and can't put two and two together at this point because she's so deep into all that nonsense.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

thank you so much :) I'm inclined to agree with you there, she probably doesn't even realize it. She's been gazing into the abyss just a bit too long.

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

OMG.

Seriously?!

Sweetie, my German grandmother, who didn't even know English when she got over here, took care of a house and a toddler and a handled the buying of all of the stuff she needed on a weekly basis while her husband traveled the world in the Air Force.

And she did it when she couldn't even understand English.

Since me and my sister have been about eight years old, I've taken care of my herd of siblings, kept up good (not perfect but good) grades in school, cooked and cleaned, and handled everything while the adults worked their asses off to keep a roof over our heads.

And I am a geek and always have been.

You work all day long from home!

You have a maid!

FFS, you make enough money on your goddamned drivel, you can't just get yourself a cook and shut up about your wahwah?

Here, LKH, the world's smallest violin and it's playing for you, you poor overworked little "writer."

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Gaah, not the stupid "50s wife" thing again... At least she admits that it wasn't real, just an ideal, but she doesn't seem to get that it wasn't a good ideal. The notion that someone should base their life on serving someone else is one that a modern-minded person finds faintly distasteful. It's a pretty grotesque form of entitlement, when you think about it - convincing yourself that your work is so hard and so important that you need someone to cater to your every need outside of it. What more, than you deserve someone to cater to your every need outside of it.

The only difference is that while male entitlement accumulated over who knows how many thousands of years, LKH has managed to acquire LKH-entitlement in just the short years of her lifetime...

[kerame.livejournal.com]

Gaah, not the stupid "50s wife" thing again... At least she admits that it wasn't real, just an ideal, but she doesn't seem to get that it wasn't a good ideal.

It's a terrible ideal, but I don't see how Jon hasn't lived down to it. He devotes his entire existence to catering to her every whim, he even grew out his hair "as soon as (she) requested it". But she rescinds his gold-star-submissive status because he had to go to the doctor? Because he couldn't get a meal to the table on one freaking day!?! That's what strikes me about this post, not her ass-backwards politics, but her notion that she expects to be able to sail through life without doing one single thing that she'd prefer to avoid.

It reminds me of the time she spent an entire week playing with her new car, and the one time she mentioned her flesh-and-blood daughter, it was to complain about having to spend some time with her on the weekend, and further complaing that she didn't have a weekend assistant to do the job for her.

[mizmalice.livejournal.com]

Lazy biatch.
Us normal people manage without hired help, so can she.

mini blog grammar snark

[naeko.livejournal.com]

But, in the end, we got dinner, and the kiddo in bed...

LKH: *tucks the pot roast in*
Trinity: ...

Re: mini blog grammar snark

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

ahahahaha! I bet she's hoping that pot roast wakes up to be a werewolf. It would explain so much!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I know that personally, I'm a slob. I live in domestic chaos. I can't find anything if I put it away where it belongs. As soon as I'm out of the house, I become a total anal-retentive with everything needing to be clean and put in its assigned place. I've known science types that get absent-minded about the little things, but it's never to the Jerry Lewis level, because most of the time we're dealing with stuff that can kill you. So dilligence is necessary.

However, if you really want a clusterfuck for professional organisation, I recommend working for the government.

My trauma from this blog is over the whole, "I wish we had a Real Nathaniel." NO WORDS. I'm too busy having flashbacks to that blog where she and Jon went stalking people at the mall and couldn't agree on anyone they'd both date.

I'm going to retreat into the apocalypse now. Christopher Walken will read stories to me.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I tried to reply to this in the Walken style of speaking, but it really didn't translate into text, LOL. How funny would it be if the two of them placed a personal ad, looking for a Real Nathaniel. It would probably read something like,

Married Couple seeks a submissive, 18-25, who is comfortable with the darkest reaches of the soul and willing to share in the domestic duties of a writer and her hangers-on. Must own leather clothing. Short-haired men need not apply, exotic eye color a plus.

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

Random thoughts about this blog:

1. Jon had a check up at the doctor. Last time I went to the doctor it took about an hour. That leaves (minus 8 hours of sleep) approximately 15 hours for him to figure out dinner-if that's his chore.

2. Buy a slow cooker. Throw ingredients in, set on low and it will cook all day. I made a pot of chili on Sunday that way. I figure I'll need to cook again on Thursday.

3. Guess what? We call run out of time. It's part of being a busy grown up. When that happens suck it up and order a pizza. Don't whine about it. I bet Trinity would have been perfectly happy with a slice of pizza.

4. On bad days ask your Chief of Domestic Operations to toss a quick meal together. I bet, especially if LKH is a decent boss (and tips once in a while) she'd throw some chicken in the oven and open a bag of precut salad. It's not that hard.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

That struck me as hilarious too...that Jon's doctor appointment was the wrench in the plans here. If it's a check-up, then he isn't too sick to do anything. Even if it took three hours in the waiting room, in the span of a day I can't imagine how this would absolutely ruin everything.

I have a feeling LKH is very, very particular about the types of meals they eat. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but sometimes you don't have time to prepare that perfectly healthy yet completely delicious meal. But damn, a stir-fry takes like 8 minutes, I really have no sympathy on that point.

[evareia.livejournal.com]

Dear Laurel,

If you hire someone to cook your food or be your "50's housewife", you pay them money, you do not have sex with them. It is irrelevant if you and Jon do or do not find this person attractive. It is actually better if you don't, so that poor soul doesn't run screaming from your house on the first day. You don't have to like your employee, you have to like their work. Surrounding yourself with people who find you hawt does not necessarily lead to domestic bliss.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

That's one thing I didn't get. She hired a housekeeper, and she can't hire someone to cook? She HAS to be attracted to them? I just don't understand this big hangup about someone who's attractive. Does she *have* to have everything the way Anita has it?

[alondra-del-sol.livejournal.com]

Oh for the love of God, I forget how ridiculous LKH is until I read something like this. It just makes me want to bang my head into the wall. Poor widdle Laurel how dare she have to lift a finger. She just makes me so angry sometimes, and sort of ill. At this rate it might not be long before they do have a Nathaniel, after all I can imagine the male troos (I'm assuming there are some since she did get Jonboi) lining up with resumes in hand. *douses mind in brain bleach while twitching*

[anycah.livejournal.com]

There is a point to be made in that a lot of institutions are set up around a family with a "1950s" stay-at-home wife/mom (banks, the post office, package delivery, doctor's appointment and other stuff for sick kids, etc), but, um, not like this. Not by someone with a flexible schedule who pays people to do her housework and errands. When all you have to do in your house is cook dinner, and it's planned, and it's still too much? I understand being engrossed and forgetting, but there is no sympathy here when that's the only chore you have.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

You know, I hadn't ever thought of it that way, but you bring up an interesting point. I'm frequently annoyed when I miss the narrow window of banking hours, or when I find the notice that I've missed a package and have to actually go pick it up. It just never occured to me that it might be a throwback to the days when many women were at home to take care of that sort of thing. Now it's even more annoying to me, lol.

[jeza-red.livejournal.com]

She just insulted every working parent there, hasn't she? -___-... or every person who can use a friggin' microwave...

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Whether she intended to or not, she pretty much did. And I'm pretty sure she insulted an entire decade as well. Coupled with her sad view on gender equality, I'd say this particular blog post of hers is just a massive shipment of fail.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

When we were both dating, our choices ran high to artist, techies, writers, and scientiests.

So first I was going to mock "when we were both dating." Then "our choices went high." Then I skipped over the single artist and went straight to scientiests.

There's just too much here. I can't even form a coherent thought on WHAT to mock, let alone mock it.

[sparklyappolion.livejournal.com]

Now, now, I know there are some out there in all those categories that are the exception to the rule. Those professor types that are far from absent-minded, must be out there, but I never dated them, and neither did Jon.
This statement does not make the generalization okay. At all. It always annoys me when people do this.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

I agree totally...it's just a shitty justification for having myopic views, in my opinion.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

You know, I sometimes feel bad about hating Laurell so much. I don't want to hate people, really, because it's not a nice feeling. But she is so fucking condescending, arrogant, and whiny that no matter how bad I feel for my negative emotions I simply have to hate her. I try to give her the benefit of the doubt, try to be nice.

But the woman is out of her freaking mind. A friend of mine works two full jobs, her husband works a full time job, and her house is spotless and they have dinner on time and every friday night they have get togethers. If they can do it, I'm sure Laurell can, and that's why she offends me so deeply. How can we sympathize with her when we do all this shit ourselves when she hires staff/married Jon? She needs to start looking at her blogs from a different perspective. But then again, she's so self-centered that it's probably impossible.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't hate her, but she has to be one of the most naive and narrow-minded people I've ever heard of. I have a feeling she probably didn't mean for her blog to come off the way it did, but she's one of those people who posts all her weird feelings without thinking to edit and rephrase. It's either laziness, or she believes that her fans love her so much, they'll salivate at any tidbit she posts.


I'm single and childfree, so I can't relate on that level. But that said, I have some ladies on my friends list who are military wives who would laugh themselves into a coma after reading that last blog. Single moms, too, who manage to work full time and take care of domestic things without a staff. Everyone has days where they just feel like it's all a bit much, but they generally have the sense not to blog and whine about it, while knowing full well that a lot of others have it much worse.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

...oh for fuck's sake.

Laurell, you have one child, a husband, and (from the sound of things) a full-time maintenance staff, plus you get to work from home. Most people have none of the luxuries you are afforded, yet you bitch and whine and claim you need more help.

I wonder how she manages to take care of her DOGS, let alone a human being. After a post like this, I.m frankly curious about how she's managed to raise Trinity from birth. Babies need 24/7 care, and Laurell simply doesn't seem like she's up to the task. Yet obviously the kid's still alive, so...bwah?

And, yeah. If you're going to protest for years that the books have NO reflection on your actual life, nope, nothing to see here, folks, move along…and then openly admit that, why yes, you ARE shopping for a third partner to take the load off (AND emphasize that it's a ROMANTIC relationship you're both seeking, not simply a live-in roommate), in a PUBLIC BLOG, no less, then for God's sake, stop bitching about all the people who proposition you and Jon at signings by claiming it's just not your thing. Because according to this post? IT TOTALLY IS. You just declared open season on your marriage. Mazel tov, honey.

...there are so many more things wrong with this post, but I could get rapidly teal deer, plus my brain might explode, so I'll just stop now.