GIRL CRUSH!

How would I ever know this stuff if I didn't read the New York Times? The latest thing among sophisticated young Manhattan-type women is (are you ready?) THE GIRL CRUSH! You can read about this in an article by Stephanie Rosenbloom, "She's So Cool, So Smart, So Beautiful: Must Be a Girl Crush." If this sounds like something out of a supermarket tabloid--well, that's today's Times for you.

Ms. Rosenbloom begins by describing the fluttery feelings 26-year-old Susan Bruice felt watching as another woman's "long black hair whipped across her pale face as she danced to punk rock at the bar." She was smitten by her layered gold necklaces, oversize sunglasses (in a BAR?), her Christian Dior perfume.

"I'm immediately nervous around her," Ms Buice said. "I stammer around her, and it's definitely because I think she's supercool."

No, we're not talking about a couple of lezzies here. The article hastens to inform us that Ms. Bruice is in a live-in relationship with a boyfriend. (Hmm. Wonder what he thinks about this?) What she is going through is a common romantic (but not sexual) infatuation "that one heterosexual woman develops for another woman who may seem impossibly sophisticated, gifted, beautiful or accomplished." It's a thrill that triggers "feelings of excitement, nervousness, a sense of novelty"--much like falling in love, but--understand--NOT SEXUAL. The article goes on to tell about all these other super-sophisticated professional gals who are going through the same thing, and loving it.

I know exactly what they're talking about, I just didn't know I had ever had one. When I was 13 I was smitten with my 8th grade English teacher. What was her name? Miss Susie Something-or-Other. Miss Susie was way cool, although we didn't use that word yet. She was young, dressed sort of early-hippie (we didn't know what they were yet, that was about 1954), dug rhythm and blues before any of us had heard of it, and was definitely not Miss Grundy. She let us know she was dating an Army captain who drove a convertible, and somehow she left the impression they were doing lots more than holding hands. I wouldn't say I would have died for her, but I remember writing and re-writing my little themes so I would have the exquisite thrill of having Miss Susie read them aloud to the class. Oh, God! Died and went to heaven!

Miss Susie lasted exactly one year. I don't know what happened. Maybe the principal fired her for flipping him off, or maybe she just followed her captain to the next army post. My next English teacher was back in the prune-face mold. All the fun went out of writing themes. I wouldn't have cared if she sent them in to the Pulitizer Prize committee.

I haven't thought of Miss Susie for years. She and her captain are probably doddering great-grandparents. I am an old grandma myself who has one tit and talks babytalk to the dog. But I know one thing. She would still set my heart a-flutter. That's the way these girls crushes are.