Over the weekend, the DC area’s first mermaid convention came to town—or at least to Manassas. While my swimming skills can charitably be described as “drowning cat,” I had to know more about what goes on at a mermaid convention.
7:15 a.m.: I can only attend the first half of this convention, so I’m making the most of it by arriving the minute it opens. So I’m already hurtling down I-66 toward Manassas, playing the soundtrack from The Little Mermaid on full blast to help me wake up and, well, to get in the mood.
7:45 a.m.: “Kiss The Girl” really doesn’t hold up well in the #MeToo era.
8:15 a.m.: I arrive at the venue, which is a big rec center. The mermaids have rented out the pool and a few of the classrooms, but there are people running on the treadmill and doing step aerobics classes in other rooms. I wonder what they think of all this. I wonder if step aerobics is “feetist” to people with fins. A few mermaids are lounging around the pool already. Others are still getting their tails on.
8:20 a.m.: The first person I meet is Alana Dober, who runs a travel agency and is hoping to sell Sandals vacation packages to the mermaids in attendance. (The Barbados resort offers tail rentals, she says.) It’s her first time doing anything mermaid-y, but she’s gone for it, covering her face in sparkly bling.
8:45 a.m.: Amy Windorski (AKA Mermaid Aerial Princess) is a semi-professional mermaid, and she’s prepping for a professional underwater photoshoot. “This is my creative outlet,” Windorski says. “I’m in sales for a big corporation, and I do this in my spare time.” She is the first person to tell me—but not the last—that the first time she put on a mermaid tail, “it was natural. Like I put my feet on.” It does sound kind of appealing, actually. I’m starting to think I should have brought a swimsuit.
9 a.m.: Morgana Alba, one of the co-organizers of the convention and the D.C.-area’s “first professional mermaid,” is giving a talk about writing a mermaid resume. (Use waterproof ink, I assume? Or one of those magical fish-skeleton pens that Ariel uses?) In all seriousness, Alba says, a mermaid resume is basically the same as a regular resume, but you include pictures and use your stage name. Don’t include your weight, she adds, because it’s none of anyone’s business.
9:30 a.m.: I take a stroll through the merchandise hall, which essentially looks like if a beach-town tourist gift shop had a baby with the Renn Fest. There’s also a booth selling sparkly, bodycon athleisure wear with a stripper pole. Why not.
There’s also a booth selling reusable maxi pads. What’s the connection between periods and mermaids? “They help reduce waste, which is very important if you live in the ocean,” the shop owner tells me.
9:45 a.m.: Utilikilt count: Two so far.
9:50 a.m.: I join a class on freediving, which is exactly what it sounds like—diving underwater without a tank or other apparatus. You just hold your breath. Most professional mermaids have to be able to hold their breath for at least a few minutes at a time (the famed Weeki Wachee Mermaids average four minutes.) I sit at the side of the pool and watch the class, which is being taught by a freediver who claims he can hold his breath for seven minutes. I feel sort of unwell just thinking about it, and no longer want to be a mermaid.
The actual class participants are shivering in waist-deep water and doing deep breathing exercises. I feel like I’m at a sort of soggy yoga class. Ultimately, many of the participants manage a two-minute breath hold. I can barely make it a minute just sitting by the side of the pool.
10:06 a.m.: Two tiny sisters, wearing matching mermaid swimsuits, are here with their parents to meet real mermaids. The younger one is adorably intimidated, so she’s just splashing in the pool and not making eye contact with anyone with a tail.
10:15 a.m.: I’m not in the market for a tail, but there is a class on choosing the right one. I get there just in time to learn that the nice, professional-looking silicone tails weigh up to 50 pounds. Then the class participants get into an esoteric discussion about drainage holes, and not wanting to ruin the magic any more, I let myself out.
10:26 a.m.: I’m told I should check out the “fantasy portraits” area of the con, in which professional photographer Elizabeth Elder will take a picture of you in front of a green screen, then Photoshop you into gorgeous fantasy scenarios. “She even put a mermaid on the moon,” I’m told. What’s a mermaid doing on the moon? “Magic.”
10:30 a.m.: I meander back to the merch hall to meet “celebrity mermaid” Jayne Champagne (not to be confused with Champagne Jayne, who just really loves champagne). Jayne Champagne, the mermaid, is the world’s first burlesque mermaid. What’s that? “It’s like regular mermaiding,” she tells me, “with a little extra.”
10:45 a.m.: I run into one of the people from the breath control class, one of just a few guys around. “Are you a merman?” I ask. “I’m dating a mermaid, so I’m learning this stuff,” he says.
11:00 a.m.: I spot my first real merman. Tom Cardwell used to run a mermaid convention in Greensboro called Mermania that had 400 attendees. Today he’s wearing a pink neoprene wetsuit and a sparkly pink tail. He tells me that more mermen are due to appear, “but they all drank like fishes last night.” Is that a pun? An insult? Or just, like, a standard mer-fact?
11:02 a.m.: Utilikilt count: Three?
11:26 a.m.: Mermaid Montara is waiting to audition for the Circus Siren Pod, the Mid-Atlantic’s “most popular water artists,” according to the pod’s site. “I’ve been training every weekend since Morgana said she was doing auditions,” she says. The auditions are going very slowly, so I watch a few mermaids swim across the pool and back and then peace.
11:36 a.m.: More mermen have arrived! Tom was telling the truth.
12 p.m.: I catch a bit of the “Childrens Mer-lympics (dry).” The kids compete in the “dolphin jump”—a long jump in the rec room—and the “seahorse hop”—hopping on one foot while carrying an open box full of ping-pong balls. This loosely represents a dad seahorse carrying eggs to the kelp forest. Krista, who won the long jump while wearing a sparkly mermaid dress, gets to pick out rainbow stickers. Most of the kids tumble while hopping on one foot. They will be tired later, which appears to be the point.
12:30 p.m.: The two food trucks here don’t seem to have anticipated that a mermaid convention would have brought a big crowd, as they are slammed and sold out of half their food. To be fair, I wouldn’t have guessed that originally either.
12:45 p.m.: One of the mermen starts singing “Baby Shark.” I kinda glare at him.
12:46 p.m.: The same merman is no longer singing Baby Shark, but he is totally doing the dance.
12:55 p.m.: I meet Helena the Mermaid, who has an extremely rare hereditary disease that makes it hard for her to walk. “All people in wheelchairs are just landlocked mermaids,” she says.
1:45 p.m.: JoAnne Miles-Holmes is doing mer-laps in the pool. She says she switched from belly dancing to water aerobics three years ago when her knees started giving her problems. She eventually had a knee replacement, and around the same time, she met the man who would become her husband, who was already an active merman. (He proposed to her at the pool, natch.) “Between my love for making beautiful costumes, my love of swimming and my love for my now husband,” she says, mermaiding was inevitable. But he pulled a bait and switch on her, she says, adding, “Yes, that’s a pun.” Since they got married, he got too busy to swim with her, but she still does it because it helps her leg muscles get stronger after the surgery.
2:00 p.m.: I have to leave, which is unfortunate, because I still don’t feel like I fully understand this hobby. It seems to combine the cost and inconvenience of cosplay with the need to be athletic (see 50 lb tail), and the stringent requirements of mermaiding responsibly (no loose sequins in the open water, enough glue on your seashell bra that it won’t fall apart while you swim).
It hits me, though: Everyone just seems to be … happy? Maybe it’s impossible to be grumpy when you’re covered in glitter and wearing a starfish pin in your pink hair.
I think back to something a friend of mine told me: Most people grow up, and they stop playing. It’s nice to know that some people don’t stop.
