Just cruising

If the Gay Games in Sydney taught me anything, it’s that American tourists are afflicted with a remarkable condition: They all wear their pants really, really high.

More evidence of these high-pantery hijinks hit me last night, when I watched a preview copy of a doco called All Aboard: Rosie’s Family Cruise that’s due to screen on SBS next week. In All Aboard , 500 gay and lesbian families and their kids hit the seas to share parenting tips and compare their high pants and long rises.

It might sound glib (in reality, the documentary is quite moving and well-made), but these people wear really, really distractingly high pants. Even the kids on the cruise are high panters. Is this proof of the gay American high pants gene?

Or maybe it’s just an on-holiday thing, like Aussies and those hideous backpacker sandals. The girls in The L Word don’t generally have high pants -“ although, in Series Two (which should appear on Channel 7 sometime around never. I’m sure there’s one lesbian in Sydney who hasn’t bought the DVD yet) there is actually a high pants cameo.

Sure enough, it takes place on board one of those massive all-lesbian-all-the-time Olivia Cruises. The actual L Word girls stay true to their normal pants but, in the background, among the real, actual patrons of the ship, everyone’s pants are settled just under their boobs. With belts done up really tight and T-shirts tucked in.

I know this column makes me sound like a judgmental bitch, but cut me some slack. It’s Mardi Gras, which means lots of fun for everyone but plenty of work for me.

I’m also in the middle of one of those insane life-periods that seem to happen every couple of years (I’ve got a new baby and a two-year-old kid, my motorbike got stolen, I’m moving house, twice, I’m buying a house, I’m trying to quit drinking five cups of coffee a day, I’m in the process of re-staffing the Star ‘s editorial team, etc, etc, etc). Quite frankly, my life has gone fucking insane.

No wonder I’m focused on other people’s pants.