Tippi and the Birds

The one positive thing that came out of becoming HIV+ was that it saved me from being an alcoholic. Granted I still drink, and do, on occasion still get wasted, but with the meds it doesn't happen very often. In my 20's I was a real booze hound. Blackouts and passouts I knew very very well.

One Halloween (about 10 years ago) after a month of feverishly planning I put together a Tippi Hendren costume from "The Birds". Let me say right now that I don't do drag. I was at best scag drag. With no makeup, I'm more of the Kurt Cobain type drag, not trying to impress, just trying to be funny and or peculiar. The clothes was pretty easy to put together, a turtleneck, skirt, trenchcoat and a blonde wig. The most time consuming part of the project was trying to figure out how to make black birds. (note: this was before we had Halloween USA) I finally ended up making them out of black felt with little googly eyes glued on either side of their heads. I had about a dozen pinned to various parts of my costume with their beaks covered in blood like they were in the process of pecking me to death. The best part was that I took those antenea type things that attach to your head that have springs that stand up with sparkly stars or ball thingys attached. Well I ripped the ball/star things off and attached my felt black birds. I had two sets on my head and two on each arm which made a total of 12 black birds flying around me. Along with the ones that were already attached to my costume, It was truly a scene.

Halloween night me and a friend of mine went out to the bar. Of course the majority of the boring people in the area didn't dress up so needless to say I got hammered that night so I could deal with being one of the very few who actually came in costume, not to mention being in drag. Well it ended up being one of my blackout/passout nights and one minute I'm at the bar and the next its morning and I'm waking up face down on a sidewalk... in a residential neighborhood... in a pool of my own sick....Still in my costume....AAAHHHHHH!!!! That wasn't even the worst part, I didn't even know where I was at.. until I noticed the 7-11 across the street which is open 24 hr.....NOOOOO!!! Luckily I was just a couple of blocks from my friends house, so I stood up wiped my mouth and scurried down the street and around the corner and luckily my car was parked outside my friends place. God only knows what the people that saw me thought, laying there on the sidewalk with those little black birds pecking at me and bouncing around my head and arms like they were...