today in a dingy room on the lower east side

So today some interesting things happened. A transvestite in my early recovery class talked to me about her kleptomania and her shoplifting skills. She actually tried to show me how she steals. Her counselor gets on her case about her stealing but she says she just doesn't think she can give up stealing make up from the drugstore. Her drug of choice is now methadone. She called me a "fish" because I have a real vagina and the first class asked if I was the intern. She told me she's trying to cultivate a look which involves safety pinning one ear flap up on her beanie & leaving the other one down. She likes to tie a bandana around her knee and she detailed her whole make up regimen for me. She talked about how she used to get so excited when she got any money so she could go buy crack, and 40s, and cigarettes but how money isn't really as exciting anymore. She bought her first iPod this weekend. She is married to a "real man" who has big muscles and a bit of a pot belly but he's really strong. She says he always looks mad but that's just how his face is and he's not really mad all the time. Every class she spends the whole time writing him letters. Maybe she feels an affinity towards me because I'm the only other girl in the class. The first class she said "I write in my notebook like you do" today she said, "I don't stay for lunch like you either..." She has a beautiful name that I won't disclose here to respect her privacy. She said her gay mother told her a secret which is that lighter hair makes your face look softer. A long time ago her gay mother also told her that it was a very hard life she about to embark upon and warned her that many, especially men would treat her like the lowest of the low. And I thought to myself that her gay mother really knew what she was talking about. We're still so far from treating the trans community as equals and I think it's a real shame. They're just trying to be themselves, to be/find who they truly are, and that in my opinion is a very admirable pursuit.