The vagaries of my mind toss and twirl like clothes flapping in a tumble dryer. I have today off because my father has an appointment near John Hunter Hospital with a rheumatologist. As it happened, my husband ended up driving him and I'm enjoying a few hours of peach and quiet. So I sat watching breakfast television, and all it seems to be is sap and sugar, and pointlessness. For some reason, fawning articles on the merits of models, both super and ordinary classification, really grind my gears. And because I am female, I will no doubt be accused of jealousy, but I can assure you it's not the case. I just get irritated when the media seems to lose its shit because someone's lost a contract with Victoria's Secret (which I'm sure must be such a great aspiration to wander up and down with ludicrous wings on that must upset the equilibrium, as well as a stringy undergarment that travels northward up your date). My internal irritation factor is also triggered when there is an article about how someone's getting their figure back within weeks after giving birth. How can I put this delicately? Oh, dear, I can't. I shall type it slowly. Who. Fucking. CARES? I don't. My figure returned in due course, and then went for a wander again not due to a pregnancy but a laziness and gluttony that I have succumbed to of late. I'm working on getting fit and healthy again. I don't care, but it worries me that some other women will feel pressured to look like they weigh six stone within a month of going through an incredible, life-changing experience instead of focusing on someone little and helpless, who really needs you.
The UK is talking of lowering the age of consent to 15, and there is talk of whether we should follow suit. Quite possibly, given our laws very closely mirror the UK's. I'm not sure if this is necessarily just a band aid solution. Kids under the age of 16 are already having sex, some at the rate of satyriasis-stricken rabbits. Maybe some very, very in-depth education about STDs, pregnancies, and emotional consequences might be a good idea. Certainly better than the education I was given in high school. The school assigned a rather pious teacher who didn't believe sex ed was the school's responsibility to teach such subject. Who can tell me what's wrong with this picture? I remember viewing a film called 'Are We Still Going To The Movies Tonight?' A girl rejected her boyfriend's sexual advances and he got the shits, and she timidly asked, 'Are we still going to the movies tonight?' Maybe 'Eve: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway' might have been better, although it might have scarred us looking at Jan Brady turning tricks. I do like the way the film showed the girl should have autonomy over her own body and not feel pressured into activity she does not wish to engage in. I think the only thing the teacher really tried to hammer home to us was for girls to always say no because guys preferred to marry virgins. You know, when I met my husband I wasn't a virgin. Many times over. Neither was he. We didn't give a shit. Twenty years later, we still don't give a shit about each other's past. And it helps to have someone with artistic ability to draw diagrams of the reproductive systems, too. This teacher's depiction of the ovaries, fallopian tubes and uterus looked like a front view of the skull of a cow, like what you see in the desert.
For some unknown reasons, bacteriologists and toxicologists in Antwerp decided to check library books for bugs and germs. The most nasties were found on 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. They apparently found the herpes virus on there. What the what? What I'm positive they did not find was any literary merit whatsoever. There was definitely none visible to the naked eye, and in my case, none visible to the reading-spectacled eye, either.
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