Legging It

What's making news today? Well, it seems shit has been lost everywhere at the most alarming rate because a school in Melbourne has banned girls from wearing leggings. The excuse for the ban is that leggings are supposedly distracting to boys. 

I'm of a mind that this is teetering dangerously close to the edge of the precipice leading to a sharp and deep drop into total buffoonery. Teenagers are little more than cauldrons of bubbling hormones, and it takes significantly less than exercise wear to distract them. What really gave me the irks is that it potentially plants the seed of, and propagates the idea, that women are 'asking for it' with what they choose to wear. How about just telling kids if they're distracted, to acknowledge their own feelings, and then get back to their schoolwork? 

The school has the right to enforce a dress code, and let's face it, leggings are not a uniformly item. If they're being worn as outer wear, then they're downright ghastly, especially in an institution of learning. If they're being worn under a skirt, then what's the problem? They're not much different to opaque tights. 

Who else is completely over this smoke? My head has been aching, and my eyes are irritated. I have been having flashbacks to childhood trips in the car with my parents, both of whom smoked at the time, and I would be stuck in the front between them and they would be puffing away, and steadfastly refusing to wind down the window, despite (or maybe because of) my constant pleading and whining. We would reach our destination - half an hour later than necessary because my father was a slow driver - and my face would be the colour of an avocado. The other day, I was rostered to work in my childhood home town, and I thought: Great! Looking forward to seeing the place. Got there, and couldn't see a damn thing! There was hazy smoke hanging about the place like a ghostly ectoplasm. It was like an absolute pea-souper of a fog, and the only reason I knew it wasn't fog was that my hair didn't coil and spring like Redfoo's. I had to travel to a farm that was being subjected to the smoke from a national park fire. These fires are a blight, but I should give thanks everyone I know has remained safe during this crisis.

Last night, I took my fifteen-year-old to see an ABBA tribute show. He thought he would show his sense of humour by wearing a Metallica T-shirt. I thought I would show my dagginess by doing the 'clap' and rotary dialling motions on the chorus of Ring, Ring. This made my kid cringe. 

Oh well, I am going to have a quick shower and crawl into bed now. I am very sleepy, and working tomorrow. One good thing this week: I've managed to get a few copies of Howling on a Concrete Moon sold. Click on the link on the home page of this blog, and you might end up buying a copy of your own once you've read the first chapter.