Man-stuff

I grew up surrounded by boys. My Dad, three brothers, heaps of male cousins (and NO girls). I was always running around with them, getting my clothes dirty (clothes my big cousins handed down to me). I never really thought about being any different and my parents never treated me any different. This meant i learnt to chop down trees and ride motorcycles and couldn't get out of doing something just cos i was a girl. I have lots of lovely male friends and despite the fact that they quite often question their own masulinity, i love having them around and the man-edge they give to conversations and activities. Now that I am in London i hardly spend any time with boys. I mostly work with girls (there are boys down in the kitchen, and there is jake, i guess!), and i realise that that man-edge that my brother and all my guy friends provided for me back home is totally missing. I'm not sure what that all has to do with the Phantom- but gee, isn't he just about the most manly man out there. My Dad used to have phantom comics around the place when i was a kid so i kind of associate the two of them together. Actually, now that i come to think of it, maybe it was my mum who liked the phantom. ewww!