Six

We bugged out of the beach today and booked a hotel room in town. Airshow nonsense had all roads around us clogged and sluggish and I was no mood to negotiate the streets because the military thinks it's a good idea to use my tax dollars on this collective penis waving venture than to buy the decent body armor to keep one more soldier from getting his or her arm or leg blown off in Iraq. This crap pisses me off on a deeper level than just being inconvenienced about excessive noise and traffic jams. We have limited tax dollars----this is the most productive way of spending it? Step off.
The hotel is having an anime convention, something I did not know when we booksed the room. This is God's way of giving me a cosmic wedgie. It's a lot of teenagers, early twenty-somethings and round girthed men in their late 30's still trying to coax in facial hair all in very strange costumes, some that defy description. As Cal and I were walking to our room, we saw a tall Black guy in a diaper with a painted Snidely Whiplash mustache wearing pink boxing gloves strolling past us. I'm not imaginative enough to make that up. Lots of diminutive Asian teens with magenta hair with outfits held together with a series of two inch safety pins. Studded dog collars. Plaid Catholic school skirts. Leather halters. That's just one kind of outfit. I wanted to take pictures but I feel it would be rude, like a parent taking photos of kids playing spin the bottle. I'm not sure of the whole point of anime, it's cartoons basically and people are fans of certains ones and they get dressed up as homage and a way of escape which I understand. Escape is healthy as long as it's temporary, as long as you come as a tourist. I gotta say, some of those outfits looked as if they had been on certain folks a very long time, some of the guys in their 30's for instance. Ah, unfortunate. But everyone here seems to be connected, lots of hugging and laughing at familiar referenced codes. It's quite strange but sweet, despite the bizarre wardrobe choices.
There's no way I could ever cast a judgment here having gone to my share to Trek conventions, although never ever in costume even though I have a perfectly good Uhura outfit hanging in my closet, unworn and mocking my lack of conviction. Everyone needs to feel like they belong, like people around them understand their passions, relate to their frustrations and laugh at their jokes. It's human need and it is unbending in this regard. We go where we are wanted, where ,when we arrive in a diaper and pink boxing gloves, we are greeted with open arms.