Release Me

You go through a period of time where you think fairy tales are bullshit. Dumb kids stuff, you know? Simplistic ways at looking at the world, especially in this day and age.

I've had some friends tell me stories recently that make me question that.

These stories are their normal. They tell them as if they are mere annoyances, or facts of life.

One male friend moved back home because his (step) father is away on business all the time. So he helps his mother raise his half-siblings. I'm sure he gets lonely. He feels a lot of responsibility. I began to wonder if they make him sleep in the cinders, but I was told they're quite nice to him, it's just a lot of responsibility.

Another male friend's family needed financial help. So he agreed to move in and pay rent to them. He now lives in the garage. Without a bed. Yes, he pays rent, buys his own food, cleans the bathroom and still doesn't even get a room. This sounds so much like the start of a Russian fairy tale that I keep waiting for Baba Yaga or the Tsarevna Marya Morevna to show up.

Then there's my ex, who I do often wonder if he was trapped by the Snow Queen--emotionless, cold, and yet bewildered by the isolation. Or was he Snow White, poisoned and waiting? Sleeping Beauty, broken by the mundane?

What do men do in our society when they're the princess trapped in the tower?

One of the reasons I loved Russian fairy tales so much was because they often mixed it up. They realized that sometimes it was the men who got lost or enchanted or trapped, far more than the Disney-approved heroines that have taken over our archetypes.

In Fenist the Falcon, the kind sister asks for no fripperies from her father when he goes into town. She just asks for a feather from Fenist the Falcon, her one true love.

Seems like her boyfriend was condemned to be in bird form during the day because he turned down a witch.

So her step-sisters--is it really necessary to say evil stepsisters in a fairy tale?--find out she's got a guy in her room at night, and put knives on the window so he can't get in.

So she sets out to find him, and rescue him for good. I'm sure they end up king and queen of some random Tsardom. I remember that Baba Yaga was helpful in this story--sometimes she was, sometimes she was evil.

I was rescued once. It didn't so much involve a kiss as a lot of screaming and yelling. "Fuck you!" was said a lot as well. On both sides.

See I rescued him too. That's the hard part to fathom. At least for me.

I was depressed, disorganized, undisciplined and had no hope. He was depressed, starved for affection, and had no hope either.

I was good at affection. He was good at self-discipline. And as we each clawed our way out of a world we hated, I taught him that it was ok to be a good person, that he was worth caring about; and he taught me how to set boundaries, and how to get crap done.

We didn't need happily ever after. I'm not sure we had happily during. We were most likely the most horrid relationship ever. We had been friends before, we are friends again, and I'm sure we both look back on our relationship and shudder sometimes. But that's when I woke up. That's when he woke up. And if there IS to be a happily ever after for me, it's because of what we both did then.

It's been four years now since I started to wake up.

And it's about time I said: Thank you, Javier.

Hey Good Lookin'!

So.

Ever since waking up, I've wanted to wash my dishes. But it's a big job, so I'd have to eat first. I had a muffin, but it wasn't quite enough for cleaning.

I have some sourdough French Bread from my favorite bakery, so I decide to make The. Best. Sandwich. Ever.

The. Best. Sandwich. Ever. contains:

French sourdough baguette.
Hard-boiled egg
Avocado
Mayonnaise
Black Pepper.

That's pretty much it. It's far, far more than the sum of its parts. I've tried adding other things--watercress (works ok), french mustard on one side, mayo on the other, cheese--but really, it comes down to those items=perfect.

I've got the bread and the avocado out on the table. Now I just need the egg and the mayo.

No mayo.

Now, except for the Best. Sandwich. Ever. and Devilled Eggs, I'm pretty indifferent to mayonnaise. I'd rather use Maille mustard or mild ajvar. Mayonnaise doesn't disgust me, it's just not something I'm very attached to--a total about face from my childhood, where it was the Queen of Condiments. But ever since France, where I first learned to enjoy mustard (Amora, for which I search in vain), mayonnaise has slowly faded from my diet. Hell, half the time I use plain yogurt as a replacement.

Looks like I'm going to have to have an unsatisfactory replacement for my sammich. *sigh*

So, I pull out the mustard, the ajvar, and what I call the "box o'veggies," where I keep my partially cut peppers, and my prewashed lettuce and scallions.

I grab an egg and go to put it in the pot and realize: no clean pots. I look at my pot. It's still icky from Friday's tomato soup. With some choice self-directed curses ringing in my head, I decide to microwave myself an egg.

Many people do not know that you can microwave "fried" eggs. When I first moved back upstate, we didn't have a stovetop or an oven, just a microwave. So my ex and now friend, Javier Ortega, picked up a Time Life microwave cookbook from oh, 1974ish. So Javier became QUITE the microwave/toaster oven gourmet. And one of the few things I picked up from his experiments was that you could microwave eggs....

So I sprinkle it with some herbs, throw it in a microwaveable bowl and hit "Popcorn." Because in my world, there are three microwave settings: Popcorn, 1Beverage and 2Beverage. I must say that recently, I've been expanding into "Defrost" for that 50% awesomeness. But in truth, almost everything in the world can be cooked by some variation on those three lengths of time.

Onto a miraculously clean plate I place my baguette piece, my ajvar, my mustard, my lettuce, my avocado slices, and my now done and popping egg. Small fireworks are going off in my microwave. I wipe the top and sides once I open it, so the microwave won't get dirty.

See, in truth, my messiness is a function of two things: one, my complete and utter inability to organize things; two, my cleaning perfectionism.

I have no trouble organizing ideas; in truth, I'm quite good at it. People at work used to mystify me by saying I was good at organizing. But they were talking about ideas. To me, that's not organizing, that's just, well, kind of breathing. But give me stuff—Files, clothes, sheets of paper, mail, etc.—and I'm lost.

Also, when I clean, I clean. Floors? I use a scrub brush. Dishes? Squeaky. I wash my wood floors first with vinegar and then use lemon oil for polish and shine. No wonder I never clean! I can't move around the stuff! and when I do clean it by necessity takes hours and hours and hours! They recommend that you do your dishes every day. That's an hour a day out of my life. And yes, for one person's dishes.

Meh. At least I enjoy cleaning. Except for dishes. I always hate dishes.

Finally, I bring the sandwich into my office, so I can write Kyle an email while I eat it. And like many of my emails to Kyle, it's better served as a blog post.

Only this time, I actually posted it. And I still haven't washed my dishes.

*slinks back to kitchen sink*