I was going to post about GenCon

So, GenCon was last week and I went and it was good. I was going to post about it Monday evening but then I got the news that a a not-so-close friend of mine died in a car accident that afternoon and... it's just been a week around here in Bee-ville.

I also haven't had the heart to post about what's going on in Ferguson and my beloved St. Louis. You've probably heard everything everyone else has to say about it by now, so I wont start except that I just hope that constructive dialogue about race, economic justice, and the militarization of local police forces comes out of this and that that dialogue leads to real change.

I should say something pleasant though, because I need more joy in my world right now... So! GenCon was a blast. I hung out with many SeaMonkeys - folks who all know each other from attending the Jonathan Coulton JoCo Cruise Crazy cruise every winter. I've never been, but a bunch of my friends go, so I hung out with them and their friends and made friends! It was good. I played a few games but wasn't super impressed with any of them except for this one German kids' game that I might get for Babybee. The best part was that Boybee and I got to go on a date and I finally saw Guardians of the Galaxy. I know, I know. I said I wasn't so sure that I would care about this one, but man. Marvel really knows how to make a film! I've been listening to the soundtrack on loop quite a bit this week - it's been calming and comforting.

I leave you all with this:

Lucy

Tl;Dr Version of this post: Lucy has gotten really mixed reviews, but I'd argue this is because of poor marketing decisions. It's a campy sci-fi action movie but it's pretty low on action - there is basically no face-kicking and I was primed by the trailers to see some face-kicking and way more "serious" sci-fi. Other than that let down, it was highly enjoyable and entertaining. This movie sort of kind of meets the Bechdel Test if you squint at it.

Now the long version - SPOILERS AHEAD

Random Things!

There was this FB meme going around, so I'm going to share my answers here too! Also, for those who care, I ended up buying some sea foam green leggings and already have the tunic cut out for my GenCon Padme costume! Hooray!

8 Random Things About Me!
1. I don't like odd numbers and prime numbers feel weird to me... like chalk. I've tested it and the weird prime feeling doesn't extend to the bazillion digit primes, but I think that's because those don't scan as single numbers to (they're more like ID numbers at that point).
2. I have had a "best friend" for as long as I can remember and am never without one, though the person who carries the title changes every so often.
3. I am not a kid person, but I have always known that I wanted to be a mother. I feel supremely lucky that I was able to secure a partner who is an excellent co-parent and that so far we have been successfully fertile together.
4. I generally only have one leisure activity that I do regularly at a time - I'll go months where I only read in my free time, and then months where I only sew, then months where I watch movies, etc.
5. I have only once successfully kept a plant alive through it's entire life cycle (an African Violet from my wedding).
6. My favorite color is and has always been purple, all shades.
7. I love gender and drag. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that other people do not usually deliberately choose their gender identity, and generally only do when they're not "cis." I love "being a girl" but would be just as happy (maybe happier?) "being a boy" - the tipping point for me was that I'm heteroromantic and wanted to use my uterus to make people; outwardly identifying as a girl/woman makes those things much easier. I often think that the world would be a better place if more people reflected openly on their own gender identity.
8. 8 is favorite number and always has been, I also really like 4.

Cosplay Bucket List: Pregnancy Edition

I just had the realization that this may be my last ever pregnancy and thus my last pregnant cosplay chance - this is especially important because I intend to be obvious by GenCon and pretty darn big by Halloween. This got me thinking about what costumes I wanted to rock taking advantage of my fecundity, here are my top two (if you can think of other good ones, shout them out!)

I love Padme and this second trimeter get up would totally work for me for GenCon 2014. I've got a pair of black boots that would work and could theoretically find some aqua leggings (like these or these perhaps?), then it's a question of buying some fake suede-like beige fabric for the gauntlets and tunic, then fixing myself a space posture support vest-thing. The difficulty would be with the decorative elements - the left arm gauntlet has some embroidery which I'm having a hard time finding a clear picture of online (but I could either fake it or leave it off) and there are the broach and closure on the posture support vest-thingy:

I could get some scuply and spray paint it but I am not sure my artistic skills would be up to the challenge... I've got about 6 weeks to pull it together or to say F it and not bother... Humph.

My other pregnant cosplay desire is this meme:

I mean, pregnant Batman. The issue is of course that I wouldn't have a superman to go with (Boybee works while at conventions these days and I don't think I have any friends going). I could go the lazy meme route and get something like this though...

Except with my belly hanging out... Because I am classy like that. Yup. Very classy, or should I say 'klassy'?

MALEFICENT!!!!

As per my previous post, I saw Maleficent this weekend (free GrandmaBee babysitting FTW). The film was augmented by an ice cream sundae and detracted from by a mid-film power outage.

First and foremost, this film was sweet, interesting, and pretty. It wasn't OMG oscar material (except maybe for the make-up/special effects, which were very, very cool) but it was good fun. It knocked the Bechdel Test out of the park and maybe (?) failed the opposite test (I can't remember if there are any conversations between named male characters (of which there are at least three) that are not about Maleficent).
My thoughts with minimal spoilers (but yeah, definitely some spoilers) after the jump.

Rest in Peace, Maya Angelou

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Summer Movie Round Up

Ok, so the "summer movie season" started kind of early this year and I'm already late, but here is a round up of the movies I deem "baby sitter worthy" for the 2014 action/comic/geek movie season!

A note on my metric: now that we've spawned the biggest difference in terms of how we live our lives is that we just can't go out to a bar or to see a movie any more. These types of activities require baby sitting which needs to be scheduled in advance and gets pricey ($40+ for an evening with a teenager or costs in goodwill with GrandparentsBee). So, going to see a movie has become a much planned event, the bar for which is higher than pre-spawning.

No spoilers after the cut though I will discuss currently published reviews (and Hugh Jackman's rear end).

"Women's Issues"

While out and about recently, I saw a billboard that said "1 in 3 women has had an abortion" - a statistic that I've read before and that holds up against my personal experience with the women I know and love. I was just thinking about it and... why do we say "1 in 3 women" and not something like "1 in 6 people"? I mean, obviously, the stat is diluted by including roughly half the population who cannot possibly have an abortion even ... to use an oddly uncomfortable turn of phrase, even if they wanted to. But, men vote too and in a political  climate where control of fertility has become on of the most important battles, I worry that we have made abortion into a "women's issue" same thing with rape - men can be victims of rape and are also victimized unfairly by rape culture.

To continue this ramble, I continue to be alarmed that men are demonstrating in the streets for access to effective birth control measures that they have a say in - and dudes, anyone who thinks a condom is effective birth control better start decorating the nursery now (I hear safari animals are still in vogue!).

So, yeah... why are there "women's issues" separate from those that concern all of us? Why do we let "pro-business" men off the hook for voting in rape apologists who are more eager to control my uterus than tariffs?

I just think that I'm tired of being penned in, of not really getting a full choice, because I'm forced to vote for whichever idiot will at least grant me full personhood.

Motherhood in America: The Dystopian Future is Now

Save the Children, a non-profit that works internationally to raise money and advocate for children's health and educational opportunities, just came out with it's annual State of the World's Mothers Report. For those of us living in the United States, it looks pretty dismal.

In 2000, 2004, and once again in 2006, the U.S. was listed as one of the top 10 countries in which to be a mother in the world. We've slowly dropped in rank and are listed in the 2014 report at 31st. This rating is mainly a measure of something we in public health call "maternal mortality" which is the polite way of saying "how likely it is that any given woman will die while pregnant."

Seriously. Let's rewind a second and unpack that. In measuring how likely a woman is going to die during the 40weeks of pregnancy or immediately following birth. That could be because of an illegal or otherwise botched abortion. That could be due because she had an unluckily attached placenta that took over her uterus. That could be due to high blood pressure or blood clotting, both common in pregnancy. That could be due to infection, sexually transmitted or otherwise. It could be due to her violent partner. Any reason really.

Now that we're out of the Downton Abbey days of medical mystery, people rarely think about death when they see the two little pink lines on that home pregnancy test, but the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. has been rising. Back in 1990, it was around 12.4 women out of every 100,000 who would die. Today, it's 18.5 per 100,000.

To give you an idea of what those numbers look like, imagine the city of Chicago, which is approximately 2.7 million people. Assume that half are women, so that's 1.35 million people. The difference between a rate of 12.4 and 18.5 is 6.1  extra women dying per 100,000. In Chicago, that 82 women. 82 extra deaths. Now, because math, this does not mean that there were actually 250 maternal deaths in Chicago in 2014 because this is a statistic that looks at risk over life time, but I find that numbers make more sense when they are to scale. Each year, approximately 700 pregnant women die in the United States - seeing as how few women are pregnant at any given time (somewhere around 2% of women), that's a lot.

So why is this? Why when the U.S. outspends most of the world on health care do we have a maternal mortality rate that rivals Chile's? I have a theory.