Transvestia

costumes out of hotel furnishings, with the few cubic inches of make-up and jewelry, my brother could carry around. I thought I was pretty hot stuff! I'm glad I took no pictures then, because by my present standards I was a slob.

-

After the war things started to go sour. Our peaceful co-existance turned to bickering and sometimes out- right warefare. Finally, in 1952 he scared me right out of the picture for a year. Then I was back again, more cautious but stronger. We did something then that I've never heard of another pair doing. My brother and I signed a "peace treaty"! Part of it was a meticulous list of our personality differences, which still makes a lot of sense. The result was gradually decreasing suspicion and growing friendship. Though we've had some juris- dictional disputes". I think we got along better than many ordinary brothers and sisters in spite of my feeling useless and frustrated.

And so I thought I was getting to be quite somebody. Then two years or so ago I acquired my first copy of TVia, and began to wake up from that happy dream. It's painful but healthy, to find out how you stack up against others of the same kind; I found myself in pretty sorry shape. I was living like a mouse; my taste in clothes was beneath contempt; and even among our egocentric kind, I was outstandingly selfish and immature. I just about went out of my half-a-mind.

·

To save myself, I fell back on a trick my brother had learned over the years I took an inventory. This meant listing the assets as well as the liabilities, and

I was re-assured to find that I had a few which contact with people like Virginia and Susanna might help develop. Several odd facts stood out!

1-

2-

I'd been over protected by my well-meaning brother, and flattered into a false position. I'm

no "Tempest Storm" after all, darn it!

If I were on my own, I couldn't earn enough to buy lipstick, let alone groceries.

3- I've been doing his writing for years, he hates

3.9