Vaginal Corona

When I was 18 I went out with a guy named Ben. It was our first year out of high school, we were overseas together and we were in love. One warm night we were so in love we decided to bequeath our virginities to one another.

Afterwards Ben said he was surprised that I hadn't bled. I mumbled something about horse riding, tampons and masturbation, then I fell asleep.

Fast forward 18 years to a few days ago when I web surfed my way to a pdf booklet put out by RFSU (the Swedish organisation for sexual enlightenment), which starts like this:

Known by the established term "hymen," the vaginal corona is the subject of many myths and misunderstandings. The most important of these is the notion that a woman’s vaginal opening is covered by a membrane that ruptures on penetration. This is incorrect. There is no such membrane. RFSU wishes to dispel the myths and promote knowledge of the true facts. In this booklet, we aim to give you a more accurate idea of what you will find just inside the vaginal opening of every woman.

Holy popped cherries, batgirl! My entire life I thought I had a hymen, and that somewhere along the line between being born and meeting Ben, this precious proof of purity was disturbed.

Between clitoris and labia in my Cambridge Illustrated Thesaurus of Biology is the listing for hymen:

Thin membrane partially closing the vagina in a virgin woman. It is ruptured when coitus first occurs.

Ha! One more myth of the patriarchy debunked. I wonder if there's a word for the membrane that seals a closed mind.

Sugru

Thank you Rachael for my care parcel!

I don't know which I was more excited by, the packaging or the contents.

The contents: Sugru.

Sugru feels like modelling clay, or Blu-Tack. It fixes in 30 minutes into whatever shape you mold it, and is ready to be used after 24 hours. It fixes soft because it's made from silicone. It sticks to metal, plastic, glass and ceramic. It's waterproof, dishwasher-safe, heat resistant, cold resistant, electrically and thermally insulating.

I don't write this to advertise, merely to explain.

Or if you're more image inclined:

After I fixed the ring and knife handle I was walking around the house like a woman possessed, trying to find broken things, considering what I could chip or bust or smash, just so I could mend it. I gave myself a high 5 I was so excited, when I remembered the missing bit at the bottom of the food processor.

I must admit I had hesitations at first, thinking of all the energy that goes into creating Sugru, but then I thought that anything that promotes the Repair Manifesto, over buying new gear, is definitely a good thing by me.

Overheard

The train leaves the platform. After sitting silently for a while, a woman looks up from her newspaper and says to her friend, "It says here that 90% of all large fishes have disappeared from the world's oceans in the past half century because of industrial fishing."

Her friend looks up in dismay.

The woman continues. "Only 10% of the whole world's tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut, skates and flounder are left. In the whole world! That's it—I'm never eating tuna again."

"Are you serious?" Her friend says. "I'm going to eat as much as I can before it's all gone."

Overlooked

Just over a year ago I was deeply moved as I took part in Deborah Kelly's tribute to one man's stance against the tyranny of his government.

So when PJ and I received an email about Ms Kelly's latest project, Muffled Protest, we jumped at the chance to be involved.

Here are some photos from yesterday's action in Melbourne, that aimed to highlight the overwhelming injustice of incarcerating asylum seekers and their children in detention camps—how blind we have become to the suffering of others.

First Things First

There was his first day of school and then the first time he flushed the toilet and washed his hands without having to be reminded. There was the first time he said I love you to me and the first time he offered to set the table without being asked.

When I became a stepmother to Z four years ago, he was four years old and could already walk and talk, dress himself and put himself to bed.

It's not that I thought all of his milestones were behind him, but that all of the significant ones that make parents reach for their cameras had already been lived before I met him.

But then last night something happened. I walked into the bathroom where Z was running a bath, and there he was, casually leaning against the wall, his feet in the water, his head buried in a book.

A book! Not a picture book, or a school reader, but Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox.

"Don't forget to scrub your knees," I told him.

"Yep, I'm just going to finish this chapter," he replied.

I raced out of the room and called my mum.

"He's one of us!" I squealed.

Four

PJ, Z and I celebrated our four year anniversary yesterday.

I was at work, and halfway through the afternoon I received this photo from PJ:

I called to giggle my gratitude, and casually mentioned that he in fact had a thought bubble coming out of his mouth.

Five minutes later, this arrived:

Four magical years, indeed.

Happy anniversary, boys! I wouldn't want to share this odyssey with anybody else.

The Plant In

Hello hello from Sydney!

We drove up five days ago to start working on the Food Forest project and have another six days of digging and planting to go.

It's all very exciting. In a few short days we have gone from this

to this

and will eventually go to this:

If you live nearby, come and say hello and check out our progress. And if you want to get involved, please come along to our Community Plant In Day this Saturday July 11th from 10am till 4pm.

We will have planted all the fruit and nut trees by then, but we'd love it if you could bring a clump of something edible, Cadigal and/or beneficial from your home or community garden, to plant on the day.

The location: St Michael's Anglican Church, Surry Hills. (Corner of Albion and Flinders, near Taylor Square.)

If you're a Facebooker, you can join in the fun here.

Why not bring a picnic and make a day of it.

Hope to see you there!

Born Free

I didn't know much about Julia Gillard before she became Prime Minister two days ago. I knew about some of her decisions as the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and as Deputy Prime Minister, but not a lot. Just another politician, I thought.

But after seeing Gillard interviewed on the 7.30 Report, I have changed my mind. She was gutsy, honest, intelligent, decent and likable. I agree with Joan Kirner, the first female to be Premier of Victoria, who said that Gillard is going to make politics fun again.

We also watched the 2006 Australian Story about Gillard. My favourite part was the story her mum, Moira, told about when her daughter was in high school:

Julia could never understand why the girls should stay in class to tidy up the classroom while the boys were just running around having a good time. So she said to the teacher that was not fair. Why couldn’t the boys do it one week and they do it the next week. He said to her 'Are you into women’s liberation, Julia?' And she said, she looked at him with utter scorn and said 'I don’t need women’s liberation, I was born free'.

The Hopenfogels

My lil ol' blog is two years old today, and to celebrate, I have decided to create an award.

Every year on the 29th of May, we here at the Land of Meg will announce the winner of The Hopenfogel award. Hopenfogel means Hoopoe bird in German.

Hoopoes were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt, and symbols of virtue in Persia, but I have chosen them as the namesake for my annual award because Hopenfogel was my great grandmother Edith's maiden name, and it brings to mind all the impressive women in her lineage.

There are no criteria for the award. Some years there may be more than one winner, some years there may nominations in several categories, some years I may forget all together, but for this year's award, there is a single winner.

And it is Norrie.

From The Age, March 10, 2010:

This Mardi Gras, Norrie received a gift that no other androgynous person in NSW has had before.

The night before the parade, the postman brought a certificate from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages that contained neither the dreaded ''M'' nor its equally despised cousin, ''F''.

Instead, it said ''sex not specified'', making the 48-year-old Sydneysider, who identifies as neuter and uses only a first name, the first in the state to be neither man nor woman in the eyes of the NSW government.

(Norrie has since had zie non-specified gender status withdrawn by the government who said that it is not permitted in law to state anything other than male or female on legal documents.)

But to us you are a winner. Congratulations Norrie! This inaugural Hopenfogel belongs to you.

All in Good Time

The found plastic we hung on the hook when we took down the kitchen clock.

The bit of scrap paper I stuck on my laptop to cover the clock there too.

I don't know which gardening metaphor I like better: companion planting or self-seeding.

If I were a slug, I would have eaten this too.

But I'm not.

If you live in Central Victoria but don't have a garden of your own, feel free to come and share in our bountiful bounty in exchange for a green thumb workout. We have a listing on Shared Earth. Come share!

Portrait of the blogger as a bandita in her balaclava bought to make the frosty mornings bearable on her bike.