Curses Again! (Or, How I Got Hoodoo'd)

There is a huge storm here today, so I skied into work with Hardingfele. That took a little longer than I expected, even minus the break to get coffee and a croissant. I figured on brownie points for just showing up, but wouldn't you know that everyone else was here too, and on time! So here I am in an old hoodie emblazoned with the name of a state I have never lived in (another thing left to me by the former owner of Sylvia and the electric mandolin) and slippers, since I didn't want to wear ski boots all day, and everyone else looks like their normal selves. And why did I bother fixing my hair??? Hardingfele was laughing at me because my mascara ran in all this driving snow. "You look like Tammy Faye Baker!" she said.

(That's for Rich, so he knows what he's missing over there in Japan.)

In the electric Mideastern band I play in, we do an Arabic-tinged version of "I Put a Spell on You." (We also do this great flamenco version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit.") And do you know, I have had a spell put on me! If you remember my post about curses, people often put curses on other people without thinking about what they are saying. I had completely forgotten that this had happened to me.

Some terminology: there is probably a technical difference, but in popular parlance, "voodoo" refers to an actual religion that is an amalgamation of Catholicism and African spirit possession, while "hoodoo" refers to folk magic which is often malicious. So as opposed to Voodoo Head, the benevolent little doll that improves peoples' careers (he is currently hanging out with a busmate, improving hers), I will refer to my ex as Hoodoo Head. This would be the boy I was madly in love with in college. You see, ever since returning from visiting my family for Thanksgiving, I kept having romantic dreams about him. I thought, is this payback for talking smack about that acquaintance pining for four years over a guy she dated for a month? I have always maintained that you should not mourn longer for the relationship than it actually lasted, but here I was all googoo once again about a guy I hadn't seen in three and a half times as many years as I'd actually dated him! If a child had been born the last time I'd seen him, that kid would now have to pay adult rates at the movies! So what was my problem?

To remind myself of what a jerk he was, I reread my diary entries pertaining to him. However, that was a mistake because I thought, "Hm, maybe he wasn't as big a jerk as I remembered. Maybe some of it was me being a jerk." Which is true for everyone, I suppose, when they look back at their younger years, but in my case there was a specific reason which I will discuss in a subsequent post. (To add insult to injury, he ended up with someone who was very similar to me but without this particular reason for being a jerk.) Then, to my surprise, I found where he actually once said to me, "I hope you never get over me." He done hoodoo'd me!! And I had completely forgotten about it.

I think Hoodoo Head put this curse on me without much thought, and probably at a time when he thought we might end up together forever, in which case it would make a little more sense. However, it was a cruel thing to do because he did end up with someone else, so why would he even need me to never get over him? Honestly, he would probably be a little creeped out to know that I even think about him at all after all these years. (But since he doesn't read this blog, all my readers can feel free to agree that he has nobody but himself to blame. Don't hoodoo your girlfriends if you don't want them obsessing over you! D'uh! First rule of hoodoo, if hoodoo has any rules. Maybe I should make some up so this doesn't keep happening to other unfortunate lovelorn maids.) The irony is that Hoodoo Head is one of those skeptical humanists, or "brights" or whatever they call themselves these days, in the mold of Dawkins and Hitchens, so he would never even believe that he had put a curse on me. I am too decent a human being to curse him back; all I want now is to find out how to break this curse. (Hopefully it is not as powerful as the Curse of the Bambino, or, God forbid, the Curse of the Billy Goat! Right, Hardingfele? Look for the Cubbies to take the pennant in 2035 if it lasts as long as the Curse of the Bambino.) So does anyone know how to reverse hoodoo curses? If I'd only known, I could have asked around down in New Orleans.

Famous Hat