It is a new year, and I shamelessly advocate the sharing of time with friends by staring straight forward at a screen. How sick are you of the holiday festivities? Do you desire friends to shut up for a couple hours? Then hear my call!

Sherman Library may have the finest local collection of new releases and documentaries, but in my experience, Pawling Free Library is close, easy, and free. Your couch has the finest collection of cheese doodles, and is close, easy and free.

The quiet before Valentine’s Day, is an opportunity to hang out in your own backyard. On that note, I’m going to share as an example, my own movie night. I went with the John Hughes Love Hurts! theme, wherein the developmentally arrested teenager in me remembers, word for word, his best ever last-five-minutes-fade-to-black scenes.

This theme is particular to your peer group and, if you are a masochist, your adolescents who will mock in a sad attempt to hide their secret longing for the eighties:

1. The Breakfast Club: Judd Nelson’s fist-pump while Anthony Michael Hall voice over reads their report (Simple Minds’ Don’t You)
2. Weird Science: Hilarious, the outfits were major then, so drink in that visual, and travel back in time. (General Public sings it out with 1984’s sweetest song ever, Tenderness)
3. Sixteen Candles: Birthday cake, Jake Ryan, candles. This scene symbolizes Molly Ringwald’s transition from girl to woman; I do this for birthdays now but only for the flattering lighting.(A most honorable nod to the dance scene with Spandau Ballet singing True)

So movie night is silly and comforting. It’s warm inside. Laughter has been shown to relax a person for about 45 minutes. Happy New Year…any year, when you can find some laughter in winter’s long night.