Girls v boys (warning, contains penes)

Now don’t get me wrong on this.  First things first: I adore my son. Totally, utterly adore him. But I do sometimes wish I’d had a daughter as well.  I always thought I would.  Way back, when my sister was having her fourth (or was it fifth?) child she said, very firmly, ‘I can see you with one child.  A girl. I just know it.’  Now, see, maybe this is why I’ve always been a bit wary of the psychic malarkey.   Cos while she got the one bit right, I have ended up being the only female in the house – yup, even the dogs have dicks.

But anyhow. I don’t have a daughter and, unless I become one of those ancient mothers with babies (which SO isn’t going to happen) it’s going to stay that way.

I was going to crash in front of the fire but, having successfully ignored the phone ringing, I caught a late tweet (perils of Twitter) from Charlie:

nice, innit? particularly without us being noisy

‘It’s Rachel’s birthday; you’re ignoring the phone! Just join us at the Thai. Now!’ 
What can you do?  So I whizzed down the pub to tell Adrian and James I was off out - again.  Problem with the pub is that you can’t whizz.  So, by the time I’d wriggled away and got to the restaurant, they were finishing off the noodles. 

Their youngest, G, is my godson and he’s delicious. But oh, I do love their girls so much:  The Mistress of All Evil and Princess Delicious.  The MoAE wanted to talk books and music and fashion.  The PD was keen to tell me how she’d pulled a fast one on the MoAE who now owed her a small fortune (plus interest).  I admired the PD for her business acumen but felt a stab of pity for MoAE who has as corrosive an Amazon habit as I do – books, music, shoes – we’re soul sisters.  She wanted to know about Samael – she was my first beta reader, inhaling every chapter as I wrote it.  So I told her about the rewrite: she wasn’t impressed.

‘But I loved the surfers, and the crusties.’

‘Yeah, but what the zombie beheading and the crucifixion and that unseemly tussle at the gates of Hell?’ I said with a sad shrug.

‘Oh God, yeah! You haven’t…??  You HAVEN'T???? But those were the best bits….’

I explained that editors seemed to think the book was too complex, had too many sub-plots, was too dark.

‘But we teens love horror!  We devour dark,’ she said with venom, with a firm emphasis on ‘we teens’ (when you’re thirteen that teen bit is mega important). ‘We love complex stuff.  We teens are deep.  Dumbing it down is just patronising.’

Well, couldn’t argue with that.  She did a great eyeroll (told you we were soul sisters). ‘I can’t think about it,' she said flapping her hands. 'Let's listen to this instead.’ She pulled me down and stuck an ear-bud in my ear. 

‘Are you trying to shock Jane?’ said her mother, ‘Cos it won’t work.’

‘I know, silly,’ said the MoAE. ‘She’s cool and trendy….’  See why I love this girl? 

‘You’ll love this,’ she continued. ‘It’s called….’ She dropped her voice…’I’ve Just Had Sex.’

So we listened to it together. Catchy tune so we started jigging around a bit.  And then I just howled with laughter.

‘Penis. He said penis….’ I covered my mouth with my hand. ‘Shit, sorry.’ (flapping my hands guiltily in the direction of my young godson). Rachel gave me The Look. ‘The penis bit was okay…’ she said witheringly.  ‘….the shit wasn’t.’  Damnit, bad godmother again.

‘But, but…you can’t say ‘penis’ in a song; it’s just such a ridiculous word.’
‘I know,’ said the MoAE happily.  ‘It’s hilarious.’

And it was and we just howled with laughter.  And then laughed more about hair and friends and how ridiculous boys can be.  And tried on sandals and considered doing the helium out of the birthday balloons, like we did last year. 

I left with the biggest smile on my face.  Big hugs from everyone apart from my godson who took my hand very carefully, bent over and gave it a soft, respectful kiss (he always does this – it is just edible).  When I got home, I asked James if he’d heard the Penis song. He frowned with total disdain. ‘God no. That’s disgusting. Why on earth would I listen to something like that?’

Girls and boys. Different creatures.   

But, but…just watch the video – it cracks me up.  Maybe it's a girl thing.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/lQlIhraqL7o