An American Werewolf in London And Other Reasons to Live

About twenty-five years ago, I gave my father the widely popular book, 14000 Reasons to Be Happy About, by Barbara Ann Kipfer, as a Christmas present. It lay on the kitchen table for a long time, and I used to open it and read a couple of things at random whenever I was at the table. I don’t know if father ever read the whole thing, I don’t think it is that kind of book anyway, but I saw him reading it several times back then. We still have it in the bookshelf at home.

I know my love for lists precedes the time I saw the book and decided it was just the thing for dad, but I think it did further my devotion for order and clarity. While I don’t agree with Monica’s famous exclamation about how rules help control the fun, I do like to have my books and records and DVDs in autobiographical order, exactly like Rob Gordon suggested in High Fidelity, and also like to punctuate and assemble my writing in segments of threes or sevens or nines. I love categories and subcategories. I even love Kant’s Categorical Imperative. I love how when Frasier is yelling at Niles, accusing him for doing something I forget what, Niles’ answer to the accusation is to yell back that he denies it. “But not categorically?” points out Frasier. I have never been into making explicit pro/con lists, I think in my whole life I have resorted to the double column perhaps five or six times, all those times neatly exhibited in my many journals, but I understand well Rory’s affection for those.

Now, as the darkest hour of the year is quickly unfolding before our eyes, the tear ducts clear and running – it is not unlike cleaning the rain gutters, is it?, the melancholy autumn playlists of our chosen streaming service back in circulation, suicidal thoughts still a month and a half away, but awake from the long dormant cycle and up and brewing, and our general Scandinavian moroseness at full throttle, let’s examine, once again, some reasons to live yet another day, or, to be at least happy about, like the lady says.

Okay, One. Griffin Dunne belting out Santa Lucia at the beginning of An American Werewolf in London. He and David Naughton are at the moors, evil is brewing, and they decide to continue on foot anyway. The movie is full of wonderful details and so much fun, and the metamorphosis scene is truly gorgeous.

The Howling. This is not a list of my favorite werewolf movies, I swear, but perhaps it is a werewolf list by association. The famous line “Silver bullets, my ass!” became a general response in any given situation for me and The Yawning Man, while we were living together in the East.

Three. The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx. I have read it four times. And counting. I am moving to Newfoundland as soon as I get enough money.

Having a friend unexpectedly say I love you.

Breathing in crisp, frosty winter air. There is truly no other feeling like that.

Norah Jones’ albums, and especially the following line from the song Little Room: “Oops I hit my elbow on the doorknob it’s right there.” That line is the first thing that comes to mind whenever Norah Jones is mentioned to me. Perhaps it is endearment by proxy: I am extremely accident-prone, and tend to hit my head all over the place. The chandeliers, doors, door frames, but also doorknobs, yes indeed, I can’t tell you how that can be, but it is true, those electric hand driers in public toilets, cabinet doors, other people. Once I walked straight into an on-coming person’s head while I was loping on the street and explaining something to a person walking behind me, so my head was turned, and the impact was so powerful my left eye swelled shut and blackened entirely, and I had to take two weeks off work to let it heal. I looked like Jack Sparrow.

The porridge bistro Mama Bear. Not unlike Joey saying in the infomercial how he can now drink milk every day, I think after trying the Oatmeal with Avocado, Air Dried Ham, Boiled Egg, and Maple Syrup, no man, or woman, is the same ever again.

The smell of a chocolate Christmas advent calendar. When I was a kid, the chocolate calendar was a total luxury, and no one ever cared that the chocolate actually tasted horrible. It was chocolate. We never had the ludicrous Lego calendars, or the Kinder chocolate calendars, they didn’t have them in the market yet, period, it was just a generic chocolate calendar with tasteless squares in plastic mold. But the smell was intoxicating, and with tangerines, the absolute smell of Christmas time for me. Because there were no crazy hundred-euro toy calendars available, it was always either the chocolate, or the picture, calendar. If you had a picture advent calendar, well, that was just sad. And always, always, to be eaten in the morning of the given day. Not by opening all the lids at once. Rules, man.

The sound of ice cracking beneath my boots as I walk across frozen puddles on my daily walk.

The song Pink Light on Laura Veirs’ 2007 album Saltbreakers. Hell, why not the whole fabulous album, one that I spin and spin and spin every autumn. Hell, why not Ms. Veirs’ entire catalogue. She truly is one of world’s unsung songwriting geniuses.

Nine (actually, it’s eleven, honoring the new season of Stranger Things, but let’s keep up appearances according to today’s topic, why don’t we). Seeing my man, for the first time since last winter, this morning wrap the gray wool scarf I knitted him two years ago as a Christmas present around his neck. Seen as a token of his love for me, I guess, which makes it so worthwhile.

P.S. Interestingly, as I was checking the spelling of some word or another on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and thesaurus, I saw that today’s Word of the Day was werewolf. Coinkydink.