(no subject)

Canada Day rocked. We were sitting around mumbling about when we should go see the festivities, when I read out that there would be food kiosks running until 4:00. Bronwen went "FOOD KIOSKS. LET'S GO." Cindy, understandably befuddled, said "What? We're going now?" Bronwen put on her stern voice and said "THE FOOD KIOSKS ARE ONLY OPEN UNTIL FOUR, CINDY." It was kind of scary.

We walked down to Henderson and mingled with the masses of red and white. Got our obligatory burgers. Wandered around and settled in to watch the performances on stage. Silently boo'd at the conservative MLA and boggled at the fact that we actually call our mayor "his worship."

Then the bellydance company I used to take lessons with came on to perform a circus-themed set. It was really cool in theory (we decided that the tribal dancers looked like Mana circus visual kei cosplayers, which was a pretty awesome combination--all black and blue with dreadfalls and pinstriped turkish vests over coin bras and blue tights and unf). But they spent so much time doing the circus act and jumping between performances that it was a lot of scrambling and not a whole lot of dancing. I was pretty disappointed, considering I know what they're capable of. I hope it was simply awkward this time because it's all new choreography. They did, however, do a very brief tribute to MJ in their set, which got the crowd super-excited.

Then Jordon randomly called and invited us over to his house. We got to see his room. I have never witnessed such an epic shrine to j-rock in my life. There was a stack of CDs on the floor that reached almost to my waist. "Are those all your CDs?" Cindy asked. "No," he said, "those are just the singles." He owns more j-rock CDs than my entire music collection. He owns limited editions of everything. He owns LPs. He owns CDs that come with weird gifts in them, like cross necklaces and t-shirts and perfumes. He owns DVDs of who the heck knows how many concerts and music videos. There are posters on all the walls.

I don't even like j-rock. It still all sounds the same to me, even when they're all talking about whether this guy sounds more like Gackt or more like some other guy. How can they tell? But there is a lot of amusing prettiness. If you just, like, mute the videos, they're pretty entertaining. I could watch Kaya forever.

Also the first time I've met someone else who has actually listened to Anna Tsuchiya before. She's basically the only Japanese artist I still turn on regularly along with my other music.

Also the first time meeting someone who has HEARD of Shazna. Shazna is the HAPPY visual band! Someone gave me their album in high school and I loved it for being utterly ridiculous. I'm pretty sure that this video ranks among the top ten gayest videos in the world. (Number of females in this video? Probably zero.) Anybody remember when Izam played the villain in PGSM Act 0? All the Sailor Moon fans saw the promo photos and were like "wow, that lady is pretty hot." I got to be the one saying "uh, actually..." Good times.

Then we came home and made pancakes, because we had blueberries and a crapton of raspberries. They were tasty. Bronwen had borrowed Dirge of Cerberus from Jordon, so she sat down to play it, and it's freaking awesome. I was reading the guide to help her, so there was much shouting of phrases like "MATERIA! YES!" Then Melissa and David came over, and silliness ensued. People kept picking me up and carrying me around. It's weird being little even among little people.

We went to see the fireworks, and found a spot on the rocks by the water where we had a great view. The wind was chilly, so we all huddled together, and I don't know, there's something weirdly comforting about just being out on a beautiful night, huddled together with your friends. I had made Cindy change out of her dress for the cooler weather, but sadly did not pester her to put on a jacket, so David and I spent most of the walk back snuggling up to her. Then she carried me most of the way home on her back. We decided she is a chocobo.

Then Bronwen put on her new corset for everyone. She looks absolutely amazing in it. I want a corset more than ever now.