Fairytales

I've been thinking about them a lot, lately. Whether or not they come true in real life, if they do are they as gruesome as their literary form, what's the alternative to a fairytale ending, etc. Somehow, that's led me to the Legend of King Arthur, or, as one translation was entitled, The Death of Arthur.

What I remember most, about reading those stories and books as a child, was how I felt completely torn between Lancelot and Arthur, yet had NO sympathy for Guinevere whatsoever. I *hated* her, with a burning, angry, intense passion. I wanted to slap her face. I wanted to push her off a balcony. I could have garotted her with a piano wire. And I just wanted to hold Arthur and stroke his weary brow and listen to the details of his stressful day and comfort him in ways which, as a ten or eleven year old, I didn't even understand... and at the same time, I wanted to fling myself into Lancelot's arms and kiss him and bite him and scratch him in a fury of greedy desire (yes, at ten or eleven, lol).

I remember understanding how wrong it was, that Guinevere, with the best man in the world by her side, should yearn for his best friend. It seemed good to me to wind up with Arthur OR Lancelot--either one would have been acceptable--but to claim both? Sheer greed. Sheer unfairness. Sheer unfathomable luck. She had two of the best men in the world (albeit fictional versions of them) and I just knew, I would have been better for either of them.

I was so jealous. Reading those stories, I was half-mad with jealousy, that a fictional character (and not even a very good one, just a pretty, indecisive, silly female) would have two such fine examples of man to choose from, and I had nothing. I knew then, better than I could explain, that there were no lion-hearted kings walking this earth, no white knights riding out of the mists, just skinny gawky teenage boys with bad skin and worse manners. I wanted to weep; I wanted to believe I was weeping for Arthur, or even the destruction of Lancelot's morals, or the whole sad sorry ruination of men in general; but I knew it was for myself.

That was more than half my life ago.

Nowadays, I've been around just enough (literally *just* enough--our survey says, I've spent much less time shagging about than most people my age) to have proved myself right. Maybe I've only had intimate contact with a handful of men, but it's taught me more than one lesson I'm not likely to forget soon.


Men are pigs. Men are liars. Men are unfaithful, and undisciplined, and unknowingly destructive. They are greedy, and selfish, and shallow, and stupid, for the most part. They are generally not worth the time and effort you put into them, and they are almost always too dense to even be capable of understanding their own flaws.

And I think I've found one I want to keep. Unbelievable.