I’ve always thought that if I were to be a supernatural creature I would be a werewolf. I’m pale and nocturnal when given the opportunity but brooding isn’t my thing at all so I couldn’t be a vampire. And I couldn’t be a Creature From the Black Lagoon because I’m not a particularly strong swimmer and (little know fact) I am repulsed by fish. Not even just the idea of eating one but the very sight of a fish causes a visceral reaction in me. I don’t know if I have some fish based past life trauma but there it is.
So, obviously I’d be a werewolf. It seems like a pretty sweet gig because I’d get to be a relatively normal person 27 or so days a month and for the other three I would just lope through the woods with my goofy ass walk and try to engage terrified campers, and squirrels and what-have-you in small talk about who their favorite Pretty Little Liar is and why. It’s fine. Seems fine at least. So when started feeling all exhausted and brain foggy on Friday night and I realized that it was a full moon I was fully ready to achieve my ultimate werewolf form. Except I never turned into a werewolf (Sarwolf?). Turns out I just feel gross. BUT if I had wolfed out there’s a wonderful online resource I could have turned to.
It’s called A Werewolf in Australia and it’s absurd. It’s a really fun webseries and the main gist is that this very nice werewolf named Colin has started a YouTube channel to provide advice and tips to new werepeople. This was clearly made by a bunch of folks who had like seven dollars and a fun idea. Colin’s werewolf suit looks like they bought a teddy bear suit from a random furry dry cleaned it thoroughly and then cut the face out. It’s filmed in living rooms and, like, public parks. It’s great.
Colin tells you how to eat ethically when you want to be a vegetarian but your body craves warm, bloody meat (you go to the witch market and get frozen bits of these other dimensional beings made of 100% evil and eat them). He guides you through the precarious world of supernatural dating with the Spellbinder app and you get to see all of these supernatural creatures dating profiles which are clever and hilarious. He gives you tips and tricks for locking yourself up during the full moon (you need a storage building, metal cable and a Nintendo Switch). And he does it all while trying to maintain a sunny, optimistic attitude only to be crushed at the end of every single episode by the reality that being a werewolf kinda sucks. Also, he wears these big furry gloves with long claws the whole time and watching him try make a stir fry with them on just absolutely cracked me up. Ha!
I did some reading and they really did make this because Australia doesn’t do Halloween and they wanted to dress up and do something fun so they did. That’s kinda why Ryanne and I started writing. We just realized we could and it sounded like a super rad time. Ryanne had an office at the back of my friend’s store and we would go there on Saturday afternoons and evenings and write. By write I mean we would take turns coming up with stuff to make each other laugh and occasionally type things.
God knows what the people shopping in the store thought because I’m sure they could hear us. Possibly that the place was haunting by the hysterically laughing ghosts of two lunatics who were strangely obsessed with the video of that time Prince was on Sesame Street?
I know they could hear us because we could hear them too. There were these two friends that used to come in all the time when we were actually working and one of those girls had the best voice. I would be sitting there, tasked with figuring out who Flurry Winters really was and what was her motivation but I would just be entirely focused on that voice and trying to hear exactly what she was saying because it was probably really interesting. I was entirely mesmerized. Hell, I nearly walked out there to find her a couple of times. I never did because I didn’t want it to seem like I was blowing off work to go be a weirdo but I really wish I had just opened the damn door.
Anyway, turns out I’m still not a werewolf just exhausted and brain foggy. Although one never knows… Maybe next month I will become one with the moon. In the mean time I’m gonna stock up on Luna bars because I love a good pun and give a little piece of advice. If you want to do something creative you should just do it. Paint something, if you play an instrument play the hell outta the thing, write some weird stuff that amuses you. Being creative is good for the soul and a whole lot of the time it’s really, really fun. Go out there and confuse some antique buyers into thinking they wandered into a haunted house. You never know what good stuff can come from it.
Holland + Harper Productions 