Friends Count

"househusbandnot?" "Yes darling", I said, knowing that since mrs househusbandnot was using my proper name I was probably in trouble. "Your blog was crap today. Your stuff on penguins and badgers didn't work." I knew this. So sorry about yesterday's post.

In my defence, although I don't feel particularly attacked - well I do, and by my most constant if deeply caring critic aka mrs househusbandnot - I did give you the teaser about the 100th househusbandnot post which by my calculations will be on 29 November. Any suggestions for content for this portentous post back to me please. I'm thinking something in 100s. Maybe 100 words I hate [or 100 you can't spell, Ed], or 100 things about me (although someone else has done this recently and the last 57 were really dull), or 100 things I have learned since I started househusbandnot, or 100 things not to talk about in blogs. I am sorely tempted by my 100 favourite songs of all time, but I have already dissed people who do this on their blogs. Like I said, any suggestions welcome.

100 is a lot though. At one stag party I went to a while ago in San Diego, two friends had made up 100 either or questions for the groom on their flight over from London. By the end they were really stuck and doing things like 'Chicken or Salmon?' having just been asked that question by the steward handing out lunch on the plane. I don't think they were reduced to 'Aisle or Window?' but it was close.

Although I don't know how many 100s of things I have actually done. Certainly smoked 100 cigarettes, and drunk 100 glasses of wine. And cooked 100 meals. And eaten in 100 restaurants. And died a 100 deaths in job interviews. Bill Wyman-unlike, I have had nowhere near 100 girlfriends. Maybe I could do 100 friends, with brief descriptions of each of them. Have I had 100 friends over the years? Despite tell tale sign that I am Billy No Mates in shape of fact that I have a blog, I must have.

Actually, speaking of friends, mrs househusbandnot and I were talking last night about the whole first year of marriage thing (which we are still in - just) and how friends get lost along the way in that first year: because they are too busy with kids; or because you are no longer the single person that they could invite to dinner parties to plod next to the other single person they know; or because you and your wife/husband/partner don't really fit together as a foursome with their wife/husband/partner; or just because things have changed and no-one can be bothered to work on that change.* I am an arch anti-sentimentalist - for which read I am deeply sentimental but try not to be - so try not to worry about these things. (And please don't think that I am going down the I Don't See My Friends Anymore Because Of You bleat at mrs househusbandnot, because it is simply not true. Anyone who uses that argument shouldn't be married and or doesn't really have any decent friends in the first place.)

Maybe I could do the 100 list in multiples of 10s? But then it will just be..er 10 lists of 10 things. Or maybe...well I don't know. But will think about it.

* Ironically, the two of my pre-marriage friends I thought would not necessarily get on with mrs househusbandnot are her most fierce and loyal fan-base, regularly berating me for not buying her more diamonds and not worshipping at the temple of mrs househusbandnot morning, noon and night - which can be a bit of a pain in the ass. ("Yes, I know she is wonderful. I know she is gorgeous. Haven't you had enough to drink? Yes, I know she is the one for me, and if I hadn't met her I would be a gibbering fool. Yes I promise to get a tattoo of her name on my forehead. Can we go home now.")