Quick! Spit In Your Hands And Rub It Together!!!!!!!

I said I wanted to be sitting at my computer writing as I rang in the new year. But my significant other had different ideas. He wanted to be kissing and drinking champagne. What the hell? So if I'm going to spend the rest of the year doing what I was doing at midnight, does that mean I'll be a drunken kissing bandit? Geez, I don't even have any new year's resolutions. Guess I could start that diet. I could vow not to kill my significant other for making such lame suggestions as kissing and champagne. I could just have enjoyed the champagne instead of being so hung up on superstition. The superstition, I might add, that my mother always drummed into us kids. "Whatever you're doing at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve, you will be doing the rest of the year." So I picked writing out of my veritable grab bag of possible New Year's midnight activities. Mind you, I could have chosen lying on my ass watching South Park reruns or sloughing foot callouses. No, I chose the thing that I NEED to be doing all year. I have books half written, a blog I've been ignoring (though it's always niggling me in the back of my mind, virtually screaming at me "WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH THAT DAMNED BLOG, BLOCKHEAD?!")
God love my mother. I do too, rest her soul. This is the same woman who has had me spitting in both hands and rubbing them together every time a black cat crosses my path, NEVER having red in the bedroom, never letting anyone sweep around my feet, lest I become a spinster, let's see...oh, yes, never opening an umbrella inside the house, never killing a cricket...oh, also, birds in the house are bad luck, (wild ones, of course), one must always throw salt over their left shoulder if they drop it (do you have ANY idea how friggin difficult it is to pick salt up OFF THE FLOOR, people?) Forget about walking under a ladder, that's a given. We must always stop the clocks and cover all mirrors when someone passes away. Never claim a penny off the ground unless it is HEADS UP. There are so many superstitions that color and CONTROL my life. Why, you may ask? Because I let them. Because I am weak and feeble minded enough not to give the alternative a chance to screw me in the end. Because, hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it, right? I mean, in this economy the way things are going, and with life as delicate as it is, why gamble on shit, you know what I mean? So, on the outside, everyone thinks I'm this paragon of strength. What they don't know is how neurotic I am on the inside and how addled I can get if I don't spit in my hands when that infernal black cat crosses my path, or how I will GO OFF on some hapless waitress for sweeping around my table (only doing her job), or how I WILL NOT EVER, NO MATTER HOW MANY EXTRA STEPS I HAVE TO TAKE, EVEN IF OVER A CLIFF, EVER, EVER, EVER, STEP ON THE CRACK AND BREAK MY MOTHER'S BACK. Christ, I need a valium. The fact is, I'm proud to have a history steeped in southern superstition. It is part of my heritage. I am descendant from a full blood Cherokee Indian grandmother and Irish grandfather on my maternal side and my paternal grandfather (Opa) was full blooded German from Hamburg, while my paternal grandmother was full blooded Koasati Indian. I live by many superstitions, some southern, some Native American, some European, some just plain ol' garden variety bullshit. I love them all! HEY WATCH OUT FOR THAT DAMNED CAT WITH THE WILD BIRD IN IT'S MOUTH HOLDING A TAILS SIDE
PENNY AND AN OPEN UMBRELLA WALKIN' UNDER A LADDER SWEEPIN' AROUND YOUR FEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much Love,
Deborah