“Green Plains has always been a death trip,” said a tragic, pallid lesbian I recalled from a women’s dance, or was it a womyns’ dance?, one of the most boring events of my adolescence.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

I wanted to tell her, You’ll be happier if you stay away from them.  But you can’t say that to a lesbian, can you?

The radical lesbians in Green Plains were not a merry bunch, and, indeed, if I had spent more time with them, it might have been a death trip for me, too. Humor was not their strong suit:  Betty Friedan was too comical. “Why are we laughing at ourselves?” asked a lesbian at a lecture by Friedan at the Student Union.  I wanted to apologize to Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and one of my heroines, but she was used to handling such people and did fine on her own.

The women’s dance was a peculiar rite in Green Plains.  First, the fashion:  drag, not Laura Ashley or Coco Chanel.  Dressed in men’s suits, like the dykes of earlier decades, I suppose as a homage to gay rights activism, or the Revolution – though what men’s suits had to do with it I could not say – they also had identical home-cut (think Covid) short haircuts, which gave them a smart dash of military chic.

And yet you had to be there in that cold hall above a store – the thermostat was set at 30 or 40 – to understand that the dance was potentially fun, but mostly an exercise to vanquish the cold.

Now I don’t want to be unkind.  I have no ill feeling toward gay, or queer, or bisexual, or trans, or non-binary people, or others.  But I found these women too earnest: they belonged to radical collectives that were constantly arguing politics and at the same time trying to root out agents who infiltrated their groups. They had little to worry about: since we teenagers knew everything, the agents would not have had to work too hard.

“We thought there was going to be a revolution,” one of these women was quoted as saying in a newspaper article a few years back.

We know!

None of these radical lesbians, to my knowledge, had an interest in seducing/statutory-raping teenage girls, except for the one who groomed/ preyed on me.  I was her Teenage Girl # 2, and she had a most peculiar pick-up line.  After taking me out for coffee (read cocoa) when I was a 16-year-old waif who did not live with her parents, she lent me a copy of Anne Sexton’s poems, then called me on the phone, then wept because she said I must have read her marginal notes and figured out that she was gay.

This was pessimistic (or optimistic?) on her part, because I had not opened the book, and would not have read the marginal notes if I had.  I had no interest in reading what I learned later MAY HAVE BEEN THE ONLY BOOK SHE HAD EVER READ. 

Those who read this blog will know that I loathe scrawled notes in books.  I recently blacklisted an online bookseller who sold me a “very good” copy of Angelica Gordischer’s SF novel, Kalpa Imperial, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, covered with unintelligible notes on almost every page. 

I had coffee with her –then she introduced me to bagels. A couple of weeks later I was established in her house, because she SAID she was in love with me, and this would be my home… FOREVER.  She said that I was so special, so talented, so brilliant… all the things we like to hear.

It was a strange relationship. I lived with her for a year and a half and really do not remember any activities we shared.   We didn’t take walks, we didn’t ride our bicycles, we didn’t listen to The Band, we didn’t hang glittered tampons on trees in people’s yards – activities I had formerly enjoyed. She was in her thirties, I was an immature child.

Soon I felt isolated. She discouraged me from seeing my friends. I couldn’t tell ANYONE about the relationship except three approved friends, one of whom was gay, in case somebody ratted her out and she had to go to jail for statutory rape.  I still saw my friends from time to time, but it was increasingly difficult to get away, and when she was there all we did was sit around. 

And I felt depressed at school, because I was afraid to say almost ANYTHING.  While I was treating a yeast infection with yogurt, a home remedy that did not work, or glumly reading the latest revolutionary newspaper (how I longed to be a suburban housewife!),  other students were presumably living normal lives.  I was in a secret two-woman collective where if I didn’t pretend to be 18 she would go to PRISON. 

I attended school less and less. My German teacher yelled when she saw me outside,  “If you don’t start coming to class you’re going to fail!” She was well-meaning, and she was right:  I used to be on the Honor Roll, and missed teachers’ approval.  But then she said if I didn’t find anything interesting in high school, I wouldn’t find anything interesting in life.  And that’s how she lost me.  To make it up to her, though, I took German in college.

Sometimes I caught bad colds and stayed home all day crying. I did have a lot to cry about.  “My lesbian lover” had suggested that we piss on each other during sex.  She claimed that she and Girl #1 had loved it. I firmly said No.  It was so degrading, I was indignant that ANYONE would speak of such a thing to me. 

There was also a road trip where I had to pretend to her family that I was 18.  Her brother, a professor in Illinois, slammed out of the room when she introduced me with my fake age (“Oh, by the way she’s 18!)” and he would not speak to her for the day or two we were there.  His wife and two daughters were very nice.  But this experience made me numb.  I was there, in the background, but why? What was she trying to prove?  Could it be that only an underage lover would accept her?  These things flashed across my mind, as she paraded me across the country, sometimes introducing me as her girlfriend, other times as a friend.  I learned on this trip that she came from an upper-middle-class family, well, perhaps upper-class, I’m not sure, but I was surprised by their big house, where I stayed in the basement.

 And then I was at the university, and I was loving Jane Austen’s Emma and the Greek tragedians, and I left her… and I made heterosexual friends…  got married…  and am very happy with my husband, whom I admire more than anybody.

And below are THE SIX SIGNS OF UNHIPNESS, i.e., HIPSTER INCOMPATIBILITY, which will help you decide if a person is right for you. The six signs of unhipness are in italics.

1.  Polyester pantsuits.  If it isn’t cotton or wool, you probably shouldn’t wear it, because it’s essentially plastic, burning fossil fuels, but they never know that. Polyester used to be much stodgier than it is now, and since the material doesn’t breathe, it causes B.O.  Really. 

2.  Electric blanket.  You do not need an electric blanket.  You can pile up a bunch of blankets that you do not have to plug in the wall.  Also, you won’t get electrocuted.  I feared the house would catch on fire.

3.  Melanie.  Normal people listened to The Band, George Harrison, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, etc. If there is a Melanie album in the house, get out of there!

4.  Shoplifting books.  It is probably not your dream to go on a shoplifting date at a bookstore.  You are supporting the book trade single-handedly by buying books, or so it seems, and if you Steal This Book, as Abbie Hoffman titled his book, you are betraying books, writers, the book trade, the whole literary establishment.  Turn down the damned date.

5. “Love the One You’re with.” If you find yourself singing Stephen Stills’ greatest hit, leave the relationship immediately.  I did try to convince myself that I should stay because of this song.  That’s how  pathetic I was as a teenager.

And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey
Love the one you’re with
Love the one you’re with
Love the one you’re with
Love the one you’re with

6.  Hissing at the movies.  If your thirtysomething lover hisses at a heterosexual couple in a movie theater because they are kissing and she cannot, because she will go to jail, and everyone turns around and frowns,  LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.  Because the hetero woman will march up the aisle, confront her, tell her she is married and can do as she wants, and tell the hisser that she isn’t very attractive and…  All true, alas..  I slid down in my seat with shame and pretended I was not with her.