Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (debian ebook reader .txt) 📕

not ironic, why make it at all, is her philosophy. Gina’s a failed academic—at least, that’s what she calls it. Last time I checked she made a decent salary and had tenure in American Studies.

Gina claims the term failed academic is redundant. That’s why she uses it.

She promised me no male strippers, ironic or otherwise. Gina’s the type who, left to her own devices, would have to raise the stakes on male stripping—regular male strippers would never be enough for her, she’d shake her head in boredom at that idea, instantly dismissing it. Gina would have to get some paraplegic ones or maybe amputees. And she’d probably end up making out with at least one of them in a broom closet. Gina’s got game.

She and I brainstormed awhile, with her arguing at first for a pilgrimage to the theme park Dolly Parton owns. She said the infantile or pedophile aspect of weddings made Dollywood the perfect place to go—a whole family amusement park, with millions of visitors a year, based on the image of a woman known for abnormally huge breasts. The whole thing doesn’t fit together unless you factor in its standard deviation, what Gina calls SD. SD is the perversity of everyone, Gina says, which everyone totally ignores. “We’ll fly on the wings of an eagle,” she quoted (Gina loves to quote). “Dollywood, sweet promised land of giant breasts,” she rhapsodized, “the land of friendly, singing breasts. Land where the large breasts sing.”

Gina is fond of perversion, although, since her fondness is ironic, you can’t pin her down for being an actual pervert. Quite probably, you’ll never know. That’s the hard part with irony. But I said no to Dollywood; we’re keeping it local, Gina, I said. Chip would be heartbroken if I went without him to not only an amusement park but also Middle America. Tennessee has to count as that; the name of the town is Pigeon Forge. Meanwhile Chip would be clambering over spirals of razor wire. He’d feel left out, and I couldn’t do that to him.

“I’ll take a rain check,” said Gina D. briskly. “Oh, I know—we’ll go when Chip’s busy doing his midlife thing. There’ll be a free week in there, maybe a few, while you’re deciding if you should go the couples therapy or divorce route.” She flicked on her phone, opened the calendar. “Hmm, seven years. I’m putting a reminder in. Back to the party, then. You sure about the travel ban? Because Precious Moments™ has its own chapel in Missouri.”

WHILE GINA WAS planning my party, my almost-mother-in-law was also making plans: Chip had asked me to let her help. Chip’s an only child, and his mother had retired the previous year from what was, as far as I could tell, a Nurse Ratched-type position. She worked at an old folks’ home where, before she left her job, we used to drop in on her sometimes; I saw some elderlies who quaked at the sound of her footfall. Around the time of our engagement and wedding her main hobby was going to hear motivational speakers, and after each one of them she’d bear some pearls of self-help wisdom home to share with Chip and me. Chip’s mother brings motivation to the table, that’s for sure. She buckled down to setting up our reception, and if she wasn’t bringing me a swatch of this it’d be a forkful of something else.

I told her that I didn’t want certain so-called traditional aspects of wedding receptions, that is, the aspects that are repulsive. No feeding each other wedding cake, for instance, then mashing it around the oral region like giant babies. Strict pedophile/infantile thematic. Also no disturbing miniature bride and groom dolls perched upon the cake with glassy smiles, a serial killer’s dream of love.

Chip’s mother wasn’t happy about this, of course, she feared the opinions of the other relatives, some of whom would be hailing from Middle America or Orange County. I shouldn’t say she feared, on second thought, since Chip’s mother has never been one to frighten easily; more like she shared their views and stoutly wished us to conform to them. People don’t even perceive the standard deviant quality of wedding receptions—to them it’s cute, the cake-on-face smearing, the frozen serial killer dolls with tiny startled eyes and pink slashes where the mouths should be. Not for one second is your wedding-going public bothered by things’ actual meanings—and by public I mean those women who pass amongst each other all the information about what weddings and receptions should be, spattered across the generations like so much female deodorizing spray across the shelf at a Walgreens. These women are the clear standard-bearers of the nuptial industry a.k.a. basic wedding perversion.

To them a wedding theme is “starry night,” “angel” or “antique vanilla.” Yes, they firmly believe vanilla is a theme, along with warm yellow, mauve and tangerine. To them the sight of a full-grown man and woman mashing white-frosted cake into each other’s nostrils and chin pores is traditional plus heartwarming. If it were tradition to eat human intestines at wedding receptions they’d garnish the plates with curls of spleen. When these ladies happen to glance at the food-ravaged faceholes during the cake-on-face smearing and feel a shiver of revulsion, they simply disregard that shiver and smile as though, somewhere within the floral centerpieces, iddle fairies are giggling.

Gina maintains the standard deviance is Freudian. To her, breastfeeding is non-ironic, earnest and the child-raising equivalent of making macramé wall hangings; also to her, all children wish to nurse at their mothers’ breasts until the age of at least six, and not being able to do so makes standard deviants out of them. Gina’s not bothered by her own conflicts of opinion, though: another benefit of the irony position. You can be a walking pastiche of opinions, if you’re deeply committed to irony. If Gina is drunk she’ll get even more into it, telling all those who care to listen—and many