I tell you the Anime Expo in Anaheim was a blast. Anime people are the new hippies. They just are there to have fun. There was none of the "too cool for the room because I'm trying to impress Kevin Smith" vibe that you find at every last comic book show. People were very mellow, some just holding up "hug me" or "I'm a demon child looking for my mother" signs. Very mellow.

I left my daughter and her friend alone for much of the expo as it was a really safe place (with the exception of the Bonaduce scare. ;-) ) Besides she had her cell phone on and I was checking in with them every few minutes. Towards the end of the show I get a call from Ari telling me that they were upstairs. I had explicitly told them not to leave the downstairs floor. I couldn't be that mad but I figured it was time to bring the rope in a bit. I asked Ari to come down stairs. When she got there her friend was not with her. Apparently her friend refused to listen and wanted to stay where she was. (oh hell no...)

When I got upstairs with Ari there was her friend who had happened to find the most rebellious goth kids at the event. She was sitting down and flirting with one of them in her geisha outfit. Quite a contrast to the dirty black look of the goths.

A couple of interesting stories later (to be told later) I whisk the kids away and make for the car to go home. I over hear Ari's friend saying "Jesse was sooooo cool. But I have a boyfriend, oh well." I didn't exactly know where to start with this. First of all it's not every day you hear a 12 year old contemplating cheating on her boyfriend. Second of all Jesse was a biological girl who was identifying as a boy. Whether or not she really identified as a boy was in question. I more got the sense that she was the kind of girl who got off on making other girls belive she was a guy so that she could fool around with them. I've known many girls like that.

"No! Jesse was a boy! He was sooooo coooool!"

"Of course he was cool! He's on drugs and he's a girl! He knows all the right things to say." My retort got quite a laugh from Ari's mother later on that night.

Here's a picture of Jesse. You decide.




Aftermath:

I got a big kick out of talking to Ari about this a couple of days later. She told me that her friend had resigned to my analysis of the situation and said: "Well if Jesse is a girl then I guess I like girls."

This is one cool generation.