Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

He thinks Peggy is somehow coded as transfeminine because she is sexually ravenous.

So it is officially established prog doctrine that women hate sex. Amen and awoman. Stunning how far feminism has progressed since the 80s when the show aired.

 

[Wonderland foster child]

their writing style is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Agonizingly precious and inkhorn and *so* *very* *goddamn* impressed with its own cleverness. It feels like every single sentence went through multiple drafts.

That would be good editing (although didn't she have a piece about how she couldn't handle criticism of her writing?). But I don't think she had much editing.

"We also live with two little dogs, one weighing 10 pounds and the other five, who are similarly magnetized to their meals. They spend much of the day between their own breakfast and dinner in following the baby around, trying to lick up any spare milk or accidental crumbs he happens to unloose. For several hours every afternoon we resemble a little chuck wagon party, all trailing after one another; I dropping occasional fragments of crust and cheese on my son’s head, who in turn discharges little blurts of milk onto the floor, and eventually everything is dispatched by the little jaws waiting just below our feet."

Four littles in one paragraph? Yeesh.

1 - if you say the dogs are 10 and 5 pounds, we get that they're small.
2 - I doubt most F&W readers know the size of the average chuck wagon party.
3 - blurts are little by definition.
4 - see 1.

Having said that, while the line editor was having a three-martini lunch, the tone (too clever by half as it is) is clearly dialed down several notches from her newsletter. Someone whipped this into a compromise between her "voice" and house style.

 

[Larry David's Opera Cape]

Four littles in one paragraph?

Several days ago someone highlighted a pooner reddit post- I think it was in the pooner zoo, might have been SRS thread- where the girl was talking about her new "penis" and the pain she was having in the aftermath and compulsively used the term "lil." "Just having a lil discharge and it hurts just a lil and I'm just a lil concerned and idk not much but just a lil bit."

Ever since then I cannot stop noticing how much pooners use "little" and "lil" in their writing. WTF.

 

[Potatis Salad]

That would be good editing (although didn't she have a piece about how she couldn't handle criticism of her writing?). But I don't think she had much editing.

"We also live with two little dogs, one weighing 10 pounds and the other five, who are similarly magnetized to their meals. They spend much of the day between their own breakfast and dinner in following the baby around, trying to lick up any spare milk or accidental crumbs he happens to unloose. For several hours every afternoon we resemble a little chuck wagon party, all trailing after one another; I dropping occasional fragments of crust and cheese on my son’s head, who in turn discharges little blurts of milk onto the floor, and eventually everything is dispatched by the little jaws waiting just below our feet."

Four littles in one paragraph? Yeesh.

1 - if you say the dogs are 10 and 5 pounds, we get that they're small.
2 - I doubt most F&W readers know the size of the average chuck wagon party.
3 - blurts are little by definition.
4 - see 1.

Having said that, while the line editor was having a three-martini lunch, the tone (too clever by half as it is) is clearly dialed down several notches from her newsletter. Someone whipped this into a compromise between her "voice" and house style.

Also two instances of "satisfying" in one paragraph:

Splendid and satisfying is the sight of a properly fat baby, with elegant little creases and divots and folds in the places where wrists and ankles and knees will someday be. It’s a pleasure to see a four-month-old baby drink milk. There’s a very satisfying process to it.

This piece seems like Mallory shat it out with Joelike speed and carelessness. I would normally be fairly receptive to a whimsical meditation on Life After Baby but this ain't it.

 

[behindyourightnow]

As is often the case with parents of a new baby, our own mealtimes are a rolling, informal affair, like a medieval Royal Progress. By the time I’ve finished breakfast, Lily is just getting ready for hers, and Grace usually takes her first meal sometime after I’ve finished washing the dishes from lunch. The two of them often have their supper around the time I start going to bed.

Sounds like she keeps hours with the baby, and Lily also gets up reasonably early, while Joe sleeps in long enough to not have his first meal until after lunch (the alternative is that Joe skips breakfast, but he doesn't exactly have an "intermittent fasting" physique). Note also that Joe and Lily eat together, while the maidservant takes her maidservant meal alone (maybe in the attic?)

Also, Mallory washes the dishes. Quelle surprise. Could they be any more of a stereotypical pooner/troon couple?

(Is there a word yet for a pooner who gets roped into various types of unpaid domestic drudgery by a male crossdresser? Because it happens so much.)

Carrying on:

Lately I’ve found myself taking most of my meals over the baby’s head. It’s a lot of fun, wearing a baby.

Most of her meals. So as suspected, Mallory is doing all the childcare while Lily and Joe live their lives and Joe indulges in their hobbies, like macerating caster oil seeds in bathwater.

For a while I tried to time my meals against his sleep schedule, but that didn’t work very well. I’d gotten overly used to the extensive naps of his very early infancy, when there was time to do laundry and tidy up before I thought about having a bite to eat.

Unpaid maidservant duties confirmed. She tidies up, does laundry, washes dishes (kitchen is too small for a dishwasher I guess), prepares meals, keeps baby strapped to her body for most of the day. All while having no legal right to the child and receiving no compensation, while the real couple in the house barely tolerate her and occasionally lock her outside.

Rocco making her shriveled ovaries pang in despair doesn’t hold any legal weight. Then again she, and Joe, have been bereft of any original writing content for a long time. Maybe just like a tired sitcom they decided to cast a “cute kid” to provide story ideas because they have run out long ago. Rocco seems to be the central character in all her new writing work for magazines. Mallory finally had a fresh story angle to pitch and she’s making maximum use of it.

I almost wish that were the case, but I think Mallory just genuinely adores this baby. I think that's why this article got picked up: the editors decided that her stream-of-conscious blathering (uninteresting when directed at her usual random topics, like William Shatner or bestselling nonfiction) here reflects a genuine maternal affection that readers might recognize and identify with.

I'm not sure the editors are correct, given most normal readers will do a double take and ask themselves why the author of the piece apparently has two wives, and just get more confused from there.

 

[monstrous bubo]

So it is officially established prog doctrine that women hate sex. Amen and awoman. Stunning how far feminism has progressed since the 80s when the show aired.

No that’s just Joe surveying his own sexual history and incorrectly concluding all women hate sex. They just hate sex with him.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Several days ago someone highlighted a pooner reddit post- I think it was in the pooner zoo, might have been SRS thread- where the girl was talking about her new "penis" and the pain she was having in the aftermath and compulsively used the term "lil." "Just having a lil discharge and it hurts just a lil and I'm just a lil concerned and idk not much but just a lil bit."

Ever since then I cannot stop noticing how much pooners use "little" and "lil" in their writing. WTF.

A lot of people of the trans persuasion, of both sexes, want to be a child of the opposite sex.

Sure, there are sexual disgusting reasons for that, but I will add that there's also another component.

If a man says he just wants to be a lil dude or a woman says she wants to be a lil girl, it's...well, it's really fucked up and people notice that it's really fucked up. If you act like a pubescent teenager of your own sex, everyone of every political persuasion will give you a wide berth. But switch the sex of your childlike performance, and for the woke, all is forgiven. Second puberty and all that, totally understandable, way to live your truth!

For both the men and the women, the desire to live as girls and boys seems to come from a desire to be freed of responsibility. From the perspective of either sex, it can be easy to fall into a hole of jealousy about the unexperienced childhood, which one can imagine to be better and freer and more true. If you tried to relive your girlhood as a girl, or your boyhood as a boy, no one but the most dire fetishist freaks will hang out with you because it speaks of a lack of character and evasion of responsibility, also possible serial killer tendencies. Be a heckin' manly lil dooderino or a demure uwu trans princess and you can still be invited to cool parties.

 

[monstrous bubo]

Midwestern connoisseurs of midwit literature have a treat awaiting them


link | archive | Wisconsin Book Festival announcement

 

[Terffals]

inkhorn

Love when KiwiFarms broadens my vocabulary. What an apt description of both of their writings.

 

[Autistic Nonetheless]

I like how in contrast to the Bex polycule people basically trust these two (Lilly and Mal, obviously) to take care of the kid. No one is gonna leave Rocco dangling off the second floor window while they are busy getting railed by the entirety of craigslist, or arguing about the proper pronouns for Palestinian children. This is not a Mrs. Jellyby situation. He will be clothed, fed and reasonably stimulated.

God help him when he hits puberty, but even then, this not being a munchausen's by proxy case is already him winning the troon lottery .

Im rooting for you li'l dude.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

As is often the case with parents of a new baby, our own mealtimes are a rolling, informal affair, like a medieval Royal Progress. By the time I’ve finished breakfast, Lily is just getting ready for hers, and Grace usually takes her first meal sometime after I’ve finished washing the dishes from lunch. The two of them often have their supper around the time I start going to bed.

Also, the use of the rather archaic expression "takes her meal" which I'm sure Mal thinks is very amusing and cultured -- look at me, just a simply country boy using fancy British terms! -- but to me calls to mind a trooned-out version of Downton Abbey in which the household staff weren't paid and occasionally fucked Lord and/or Lady Grantham.

 

[Free the Pedos]

Midwestern connoisseurs of midwit literature have a treat awaiting them

View attachment 6389245
link | archive | Wisconsin Book Festival announcement

I first read that as “retardedly.”

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

I almost wish that were the case, but I think Mallory just genuinely adores this baby.

It'll be very funny to watch Mall's Pikachu face when the novelty of having her around wears off once the kid starts being self-sufficent. Her only hope is that Lily and Joe are stubborn enough to "prove the haterz wrong" by keeping her around, but Lily has such scant social media presence that in the long run I don't think that'll matter once her usefulness is up. Hell, Lily having a baby with Joe is a clear territory mark against her, but she doesn't get it, just like she doesn't get why she's in the attic room.

This lazy moron. He's writing "a series of reflections" but he needs ideas for what he's supposed to be "reflecting" on. I'm sure the resulting "reflections" are going to be super deep and worthwhile. Great job.

I've said it before, but Joe's plan is to become a famous author - and why shouldn't he think that he would? He's really funny, quirky and oh-so-interesting! Lily and Mall says so, while having to support this dead beat. Are they going to have to pony up money for his debt to Berkley? Maybe if Mall makes money on her book they can use that to pay it off. After all, they're a power throuple who shares everything - until one day they don't.

 

[Zemblan Physics]

She tidies up, does laundry, washes dishes (kitchen is too small for a dishwasher I guess), prepares meals, keeps baby strapped to her body for most of the day. All while having no legal right to the child and receiving no compensation, while the real couple in the house barely tolerate her and occasionally lock her outside.

Is she really retarded enough to not be seething inside? It’s so obvious she’s the odd man (lol) out. She’s the spinster aunt, the unusually plain Scandinavian au pair, the adult sped sister who needs a place to stay, but not an equal partner to anyone in this throuple + baby. If anyone is having sex in this household it’s Joe and whatshername and even though anyone sane would be grateful for that, Mal MUST have that gnawing feeling of… regret? fury? resentment? suicidal ideation? somewhere in the pit of her stomach when considering where her life choices took her, right? Right?

This is doing my head in.

 

[𝕺𝖑' 𝕯𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖘𝖔]

top of those, I placed the sliced tomatoes, which I’d been macerating for not-too-long in a salt of white mulberries. Then some finely sliced raw rhubarb, and finally, a bottom-of-the-bowl dressing of lacto tomato water, which I’d infused for a couple of hours with hibiscus flowers.

First of all

What the fuck is "salt of white mulberries"? I am autistic about cooking and this is not a thing.

Second of all

This nigger needs to stop acting like letting random backwash sit out for a week until it starts getting fizzy and then putting spices in it is haute cuisine.

 

[Bookwork]

salt of white mulberries

Google gives three returns, only. Every single one was to the Grace Lavery IG.

These are words original to him. Original thought. Original lit.trit.toor. Finally. Somebody call Berkeley and tell them the news.

He could get on a roll - yeah, like what about salt of white rolls? Salt of white truffles? Salt of gooseneck barnacles? Crank out a cookbook, Salt of Grace. Stanley Tucci will take note.

 

[𝕺𝖑' 𝕯𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖘𝖔]

Google gives three returns, only. Every single one was to the Grace Lavery IG.

These are words original to him. Original thought. Original lit.trit.toor. Finally. Somebody call Berkeley and tell them the news.

He could get on a roll - yeah, like what about salt of white rolls? Salt of white truffles? Salt of gooseneck barnacles? Crank out a cookbook, Salt of Grace. Stanley Tucci will take note.

Even the "macerating tomatoes" part annoyed me. Macerating is done to make berries softer by drawing liquid out with sugar. Salting tomatoes draws out the liquid but the point is to make them firmer, not softer, and prevent them from giving off too much liquid. I would credit him for using the tomato water in dressing I do this... or use it as a booze chaser but then he had to go and "lacto ferment" it. Was he slicing his fucking tomatoes a week in advance? And why is this retard so averse to using oil, which is supposed to be the main component in a salad dressing?

I'm fucking dying at the lapsang souchong thing. Like holy fuck, it legitimately is nice for cocktail syrups (pl i made some last night it slaps in a marg) but fucking rhubarb? Did he just pick lapsang because it sounds more pretentious than lipton?

Also The idea that this nigga just keeps random old ass fruit peels around in case there's an opportunity to use it as a pretentious garnish... Jesus christ dude I was gonna say just learn to fucking chiffonade basil but that's a big ask of our 3 star chef who cannot chop an onion correctly.

That's exactly what I meant.

I'm trying to economize on my epithets, so I picked the one that got at my specific point. Goes without saying he's a sexual creep. (But say it again!)

TY - This was my vague understanding of it. But I had to add the disclaimer bc in the US it's far more woman-specific, and not about being merely shitty or stupid.

Yeah here in the US it's probably one of the most vitriolic words you could call a woman, sort of the equivalent of calling a black person a nigger in a serious racist way and not a shitposting online way.

 

[Free the Pedos]

It'll be very funny to watch Mall's Pikachu face when the novelty of having her around wears off once the kid starts being self-sufficent. Her only hope is that Lily and Joe are stubborn enough to "prove the haterz wrong" by keeping her around

I think it’s equally likely that Joe will kick Mal out when it’s clear the baby prefers his primary caregiver to his sperm and egg donors, as it is that he’ll keep Mal around forever to do women’s work.

 

[blue gopher snakes]

I like how in contrast to the Bex polycule people basically trust these two (Lilly and Mal, obviously) to take care of the kid. No one is gonna leave Rocco dangling off the second floor window while they are busy getting railed by the entirety of craigslist, or arguing about the proper pronouns for Palestinian children. This is not a Mrs. Jellyby situation. He will be clothed, fed and reasonably stimulated.

God help him when he hits puberty, but even then, this not being a munchausen's by proxy case is already him winning the troon lottery .

Im rooting for you li'l dude.

Well that’s because Bex’s baby is being raised in a household almost entirely populated by “males” while Rocky is being raised in one that is primarily “female.” You get to pick which of them are women. And depending on what Jewish holiday it is, whether Becky is a man or woman today.

Mal is so dumb. If she wasn’t so distracted by her own feminine urge to care for the baby and her insecure position in the throuple, do you think she’d tantrum about how unfair it is that Joe and Lily have dumped all the “women’s work” on the only man in the relationship? How transphobic of them.

 

[ratters]

Remember how Grace bragged that his side was going to win because they were all younger and sexier than those nasty TERFs? Unrelated to that, here are some pictures of the other guests.

There's this autogynephile sleep paralysis demon:

View attachment 6310079

This person, whose gender identity is "fat":

View attachment 6310081

And this person, who despite some unfortunate bone structure, is actually a woman:

View attachment 6310100

Don't worry, she makes up for that fact by devoting her career to assuring crossdressers that feminism is actually for men and not for silly little broads like her.

Two dudes, a fat, and a neurotic handmaiden. How will the venue handle the crowds attracted by this fun bunch?

I hope it's not too late to express appreciation for this post.