This week’s Huddle falls on Friday the 13th. So, do you have any superstitions?
Dara Nai: If you date your ex’s ex, bad luck will come to you.
Valerie Anne: I do a little dance and sing “I’ve got a pickle” from Little Rascals every time I do, in fact, have a pickle, but that’s more of a weird habit bordering on compulsion than a superstition. I throw salt over my shoulder if I spill it, knock on literal wood (no substitutes), hold my breath when I drive by a cemetery, and avoid walking under ladders at all costs-the typical stuff. Oh, also, I believe if you tweet too much about loving a fictional queer character/relationship, they will meet a tragic and horrible end.
Elaine Atwell: I throw salt over my left shoulder, and kiss the car roof if I drive through a yellow light. They started out as jokes but now I HAVE TO DO THEM OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
Dana Piccoli: Whenever I’m performing and someone wishes me “Good luck,” I have to spin around three times, spit and swear. I am incapable of not doing it.
Natasha Negovanlis: Like all thespians, I wouldn’t dare say the name of The Scottish Play in a theatre, or even while on a set, for that matter. For those who don’t know the superstition, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is supposedly a cursed play and saying the title in a theatre is forbidden. Some believe it was cursed by witches because it exposed their secrets and oddly enough, there’s never been a production of it where somebody doesn’t get hurt-or worse. Dundundun.
Lucy Hallowell: In my regular life I would say I only have a few-salt over the shoulder, say “jackrabbit” when you pass a cemetery, knock on wood, make a wish at 11:11 etc. But when I played sports it was out of control. I always put my hockey gear on in the same order (right skate, left skate, tie right skate, tie left skate etc), never step on foul lines when going onto the baseball field, touch each goals post before the game starts (hockey, soccer, lacrosse). So many others that I don’t even think about until I am in the midst of doing them. Every once in a while I do something super weird and my wife is like, “What the hell was that?” and then I have to explain that I am a giant weirdo.
Grace Chu: If you date your way through a group of friends, you shall be cursed as the person known as “that girl.”
Ali Davis: Don’t get a love tattoo unless you want to immediately doom the relationship.
Trish Bendix: I totally knock on wood. Most of the time, I end up spending too much time pondering if whatever it is I’m knocking on is actually made of wood, but I’m a terrible judge of that type of thing.
Erin Faith Wilson: The only thing I do is “knock on wood” but I don’t actually knock on any wood, I just say those words out loud. That’s the same right?
Kim Hoffman: When I was a kid, my dad would say, “Hold your breath!” as we passed by a cemetery in our car. I still catch myself doing that if I’m breezing by one on a highway somewhere. This is a man who calls to say the Bears lost because he was wearing his jersey. But mostly I just cross my fingers to promote good luck, like I cross everything sometimes if it’s really necessary-fingers, legs, arms. It’ll work.
Bridget McManus: I was going to say, no, I don’t have any superstitions-then I remembered that whenever I drive by a cemetery I hold my breath. In middle school the kids in my class insisted that if you don’t hold your breath around a cemetery then the spirits of the dead will climb into your body and take you over. That seems plausible, right?
Chelsea Steiner: I always hold my breath when driving by a cemetery, too! It gets really tricky driving by Forest Lawn cemetery in LA, which is massive.
Miranda Meyer: I do a lot of these: knocking on wood (I substitute my own skull if there’s no wood available), kissing the car roof when going through a red light, etc.) but it’s really weird because as I’m doing them I’m super aware that I don’t actually…believe in them? But I like the IDEA of believing in them, of living in a world that actually works that way, so the ritual of doing them is oddly comforting sort of BECAUSE I don’t expect them to work.
What superstitions do you hold?
