Fandom, Dragon*Con, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and why I love Labor Day weekend in Atlanta

First, I loved The Night Circus. There a lot of reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads that are clearly split between "loved it" and "hated it" camps.

Reasons I loved it:
1. Nothing was as I expected.  The contest was not what I expected.  The protagonists were not what I expected. I didn't expect the deaths to happen the way they did.  I didn't anticipate the ending until very close to the end. I kept reading because I wanted to see what happened next.
2. The Circus sounded so cool.  Yes, there are long stretches of description and atmosphere.  They are necessary for you to understand why the circus was so popular.  And it's so unusual, like the Cloud Maze, where attendees can climb a 3 dimensional maze. I want to climb that.  The Ice Garden sounds like something I would love to see. And who wouldn't want to visit the regrets pond (not what it's called) where you drop a stone in a pond and with it, release a regret you hold in your heart.
3.  The description of the fandom. The novel spends time with fans of the Circus who travel from city to city to see it and send telegrams to alert each other when it shows up.  Who share their stories at cafe meet ups and in newsletters. As I am a participant in a few fandoms, I love that our part in it was included.

On a related note, Ms. Morgenstern was a speaker at the Decatur Book Festival this Labor Day weekend.  She spoke on Saturday.  But I missed it because I was at Dragon*Con.

We didn't buy a membership to attend Dragon*Con this year, because of the baby.  Though I think she would have done okay. My mother-in-law was in town, so we went to the Dragon*Con parade, then had lunch at Durango's on Peachtree Street, on the outside patio, which is prime people watching.  There are the people in costumes going from hotel to hotel for Dragon*Con.

There are the college football fans in town for  some bowl game, staying in the same hotels as Dragon*Con.  Husband's a football fan so that's fun for him too.  He would call out "War Eagle!" to any Auburn University fan walking by.  It would startle his mom every time a group would shout back "War Eagle!"

It was also Black Gay Pride Weekend in Atlanta, though up the street a bit.

Labor Day weekend in Atlanta is a great weekend of fandom of many kinds.  I love it.

The heroines I'm reading

I recently finished “The Snow Queen” by Joan Vinge, who lives in Madison, WI (I used to live there!).  It’s a sci-fi novel, about a planet ruled by a Winter Queen who exploits a local species to achieve longevity.  However as summer comes (seasons last for decades), her rule will end and so she tries to use cloning to extend her rule.  It’s a fast paced story about power and control.  I like that there are several female protagonists and everyone is drawn in shades of grey. 

On the feminism and culture blogs I read, there has been a lot of discussion about how many authors, directors, etc. will have the heroine suffer sexual assault as a catalyst for turning her stronger or to provide impetus for action.  What I like about The Snow Queen is that all of the heroines face challenges and reach a breaking point, but in none of these instances are the tests sexual or violent. 

The Queen’s challenge is to hold onto power in the face of death.  The federal police chief’s challenge is to maintain authority within her force despite the overt and covert sexism by the men above and below her in the police hierarchy.  And the challenge of maintaining federal law over the locals.  And fighting depression caused by a subsonic device planted in her apartment.  Wow.  I’m really liking the police chief more and more.  The Winter Queen’s clone’s challenge is to survive a psychic break.  See, no sexual violence anywhere.

It is interesting to note that Vinge wrote The Snow Queen in 1980. 

The other book I’m reading is “Hot Ice” by Nora Roberts. Yes, the romance writer.  I’ve only just started but so far so good.  It’s got a “Romancing the Stone” vibe to it.  It’s about a thief who steals some documents that he thinks will lead to a legendary lost diamond formerly owned by Marie Antoinette.  As he’s running from some thugs, he jumps into a car driven by a bored smart heiress who manages to shake the thugs.  She decides she likes the excitement and the quest so joins him as a partner.  Of course, sparks fly and but other things, like being pursued by bad guys keep them from acting on it.  Plus, it’s more fun that way. 

What’s also fun is that this book was written in the 1980s as well, so they have to use the library and books to figure things out, not the Internet and GPS.  Reading about the old tech is fun too.

I like Nora Roberts because her stories make sense with and without the romance.  As with any story, the characters have to be fully drawn characters to be enjoyable.  The plot has to make sense and be driven by internal and external forces, not just coincidence.  What brings the heroine and hero together? What keeps them apart? Does it all make sense?   

Another thing I like about her books is that her protagonists are often entrepreneurs, running book stores, pizzerias, bakeries, a wedding consultancy, an inn, etc.  These are settings where the heroines clearly are in charge and have a lot of agency, and also meet a variety of people, for instance neighbors/customers who need help which sets the plot in motion, and the hero so there can be a romance.

It seems every few years I start writing a book but only get as far as setting –thinking about who are the characters?  What do they do? Where do they live? How do they live?  And there’s always a romance in there. But never get as far as thinking about the plot.  Once I populate the story with people and a setting, what are they supposed to do and why?

I’ve got notes about these characters and images in my head about them.  I may just draw them and not bother writing the stories. 

Sewing and comic books.

I bought a sewing machine and this quilt top is mostly machine pieced. Because there are so many biased pieces, it's a bit wonky.  Will need dense quilting to keep it flattish.  Since this picture was taken, it's been pin basted to batting and backing.  The backing is just white muslin.  Some time ago, I bought a whole bolt of white muslin.  It'll come in handy.

I've also signed up for an intro to sewing class. It starts next week.  Am very excited. Mostly I want to make quilts, bags, and clothes for the baby and simple dresses for me.

Have also started reading Birds of Prey comics, set in Gotham City.  Not sure yet what I think of it. But it's written by Gail Simone, whose tweets show a lot of feminism, so I'm persevering.  Plus, I got them from the library.

In other news, it's insanely hot in Atlanta.  But today it's actually hovering near only 90 deg F, so I've turned off the air conditioning and opened the patio door for some fresh air.

Time for color

We've been using a pack of plain white cloth diapers as burp cloths / light shade blankets.  However, I looked a Veronica clutching this and thought: My child needs more color!

So I bought some Rit dye and this is the result.  Much better. The colors in the picture below are not quite accurate. The orange is really a brighter mango color.

Dyes used, clockwise: Lemon Yellow, Kelly Green, Teal, Royal Blue, Scarlet Red, Sunshine Orange. I just eye-balled the amount of dye and water. I had a lot of yellow left over after the first cloth, so used it to dye another one.  Hence one bright yellow and one pale yellow.  The aqua is from using a less Teal to water ratio.  The bright red is from using just Scarlet. The darker red is from overdying a Scarlet cloth with the leftover Royal blue. The green is a yellow overdyed with Kelly green.

The scarlet red does run terribly.  I used the microwave method which was fastest. I rinsed them all till they ran clearish, then washed them with my regular laundry.  Now that we have a baby, there's always laundry to do.  

So the yellows and orange cloths went in a load of yellow and gold clothes.  The blue and green cloths with jeans, blue towels, etc. and the red cloths with red and black clothes.  There was a red/white/navy baby dress in with the reds, and yup, the white in the baby dress turned pinkish.  Oh well.  

I really want to dye more things now.  

Kind of on a schedule

Baby is one month old now and sleeping from 9pm to 4am, then back up at 7am.  If only I went to bed at 9am too.

I do try to take a nap during the day when she does, but so many other things call my attention.  Like quilting.  Finishing that 5, er 10, year quilt, then sewing those swaddling cloths made me really want to do more quilting.  Also, it's getting really hot in Atlanta and all my knitting projects are wool, so....cotton fabrics it is!

Baby likes to nap in the ring sling as I wear it, so I've been catching up on TV.  Thank goodness for the Internet and the pause button, since I hardly ever get to watch anything at the scheduled time.

So I've been watching:
Revenge -- soapy, soapy goodness
Scandal -- Love how take-charge Olivia Pope is and the unrequited love just gets to me.  And Mellie...what a smart piece of work she is.
Once Upon a Time -- love the Queen's outfits and outrageous hair
Grimm -- love Sgt. Wu
The Good Wife

I also started reading A Dance with Dragons, the latest book in the Game of Thrones series and have lost patience with the misogeny.

Have brought home Baby!

Her due date was May 1, but on April 18, got the call from the birth father that the birth mother has gone into labor.  Then at about 10am EST, got the call that Baby was born.

What followed was a whirlwind of ticket-buying, packing, and traveling to California on April 19. I needed to be there to take physical custody of Baby by the time birthmom was discharged from the hospital.  If she had given vaginal birth, discharge would be 24 hours later.  Since it was cesarean birth, discharge was 48 to 72 hours after birth.  That gave Husband enough time to wrap things up at work and be there on Saturday.

The hospital was great.  They let me stay overnight in a room down the hall from the birthmother and I got to room in with Baby on April 19.

Birth parents were great.  They're smart, they made the best plan they could for Baby. Husband and I traveled to CA to meet them in March and really like them.  Baby comes from good people and I will only ever have good things to say about them.

After about a week in CA, while waiting for the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children to clear in CA and GA, I could finally bring Baby home to Atlanta.

Husband couldn't stay in CA for the the 10 days I was there.  But at least his mother came from Wisconsin to help out and meet Baby.

Baby's pretty well behaved so far.  Sleeps most of the time, waking about every 3 or 4 hours around the clock to eat.

I'm doing pretty well.  The bout of insomnia I had earlier this year has trained me up for this.

Baby is perfect and Husband and I are thrilled.

Five, er, Ten Year Quilt

It's done!

Here it is, on a bare queen-sized bed.

Started: 200? Was so long ago, I don't remember anymore.  But I know I started it while living at the first house I owned so was sometime after 2000.

Finished:  April 4, 2012.

All fussy-cut and hand sewn. Tied, instead of quilted. Binding is pre-made of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I love it.