24 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 23, 1996

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For information or an appointment call Brian Gill CCDCIII or Stacy Trostler LISW at 216/556-2315

Π

ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAIN

'Alice's Adventures in Lesbianville, the first leg

by Aubrey Wertheim

I am on the Massachusetts Turnpike en route to Northampton, by all reports the dyke capital of the Western Hemisphere.

My inner lesbian has been wildly scampering in the back seat ever since we left the house. We consider this a milestone, a horizon, the dawning of a whole new oneness with the Goddesshead-or what the Portuguese call cosmosa lesbosa.

With every sensuous bend on the road bringing us closer, we vibrate with newfound insight and consciousness. The moon knows more than every medical professional. Any exploitation of the Amazon River basin is a personal affront. All large womyn in passing cars are objects of veneration and longing.

We are stopped for speeding.

The short, pudgy cop embodies all that is patriarchal, phallocentric and viciously at variance with the natural order.

He kindly explains why I am being ticketed and the procedure for payment.

I take my citation without protest and drive away.

In the martiarchal, gynebuttressed, sapphifocal world to come, he will be enslaved, mute and neutered, in my crystal mines.

A sign with playful border of navel jewelry and golf clubs announces: 10 MILES

TO NORTHAMPTON.

My inner lesbian goes crazy. She insists we pull over and make labia sand candles. I try to explain we are a hundred miles from the

nearest beach in the dead of winter. She'll have none ofit: we'll make labia snow candles then. I try to explain the effect would not exactly be as gripping. My counter-offervery female-identified snow angels—is rejected outright. Too traditional, too virginal. She counters my counter.

We pull over. We pile out. We make labias in the snow.

Border of black triangles and ben-wa balls: 5 MILES TO NORTHAMPTON.

The radio crackles with static, then converts: all-wimmin format. Melissa Etheridge, Too F.I.N.E. Minds, k.d. lang, Diane Linday, Janet Jackson before she went Ultrafemme. Sweet Honey and Leslea Newman on former fundamentalist stations. Annie Sprinkles and Kate Bornstein overriding Limbaugh and Stern. Adrienne Rich on NPR (National Public Radicalesbians) with a womanifesto calling for a lesbian militia (“Lesbian Avengers were always vanilla!").

Border of Tarot Cards and electric hair clippers: ONE MILE TO NORTHAMPTON.

Aurora borealis in every possible shade of purple surge and shimmy over surrounding hills. Wommon-symbol crop circles appear in distant fields. Moons in every phase have chased the sun from the sky.

My inner lesbian has taken the wheel! I am in the back seat! We are barrelling up the ramp! Northampton's around the bend! To be continued.

Above the Fruited Plain is a regular column by Aubrey Wertheim, of Oberlin.

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