My #StreamTeam Review for the Month of June

Alternately Titled: How to Survive in Trying Times

Yes, I’m a month behind (AGAIN) in posting my Netflix #StreamTeam review. Why? Because I have a love/hate relationship with my Netflix app and I’m either all-in or avoiding movies, depending on the day…my mood…and recent acts of senseless violence.

In other words, I overthink EVERYTHING.

It’s just that…when the world starts to seem like it’s falling apart, I grope for Truth and Beauty like there’s no tomorrow.

Because we don’t know, frankly, if there will be a tomorrow.

So then I think, okay, I have to make today really really count.

However! I am not going to go all heavy on you. Not just yet, anyway…nudge nudge wink wink…but give me time and I’ll surely get there.  Meanwhile, let’s start out with a goofy question:

 

 What’s the craziest place that you’ve watched Netflix? 

Here’s a visual to jumpstart your memory:

 

 

When I saw this graphic for the first time last month, I thought, “Oh for heaven’s sake. I don’t ‘sneak’ Netflix.”

And then, to my great horror and shame, I found myself locked in my closet watching Almost Famous.

And then, a couple of nights after that, I snuck in some Malcolm in the Middle in that very same place: on the floor of my closet, wedged between a box of wire hangers and a half dozen rolls of wrapping paper, popping Snickers minis into my smeared, guilty mouth.

Which begs another question: How did I not know about Malcolm in the Middle?

So much for my self-righteous carpe diem.

I watched in my closet because these shows aren’t for kids; I watched in my closet because I needed a break; I watched because these characters are flawed and adorable.

Kind of like me, on one of my good days.

Kind of like all us. We are flawed. We are loved.

 

So here’s what I’m thinking; here’s the “Intense Maggie” part. Maybe…just maybe…the stuff we choose to watch on Netflix can make us kind of, sort of better people? That’s what I’m hoping anyway, because if I don’t love the characters I don’t watch. I don’t have to want to be the characters—although Almost Famous was pretty much my life in my 20’s—but I have to have a connection of some weird sort so that when I’m done with my “recreating” I feel uplifted.

Is that weird?

That’s weird, I freely admit it.

But I want to feel like I’m making a difference and I crave making connections with other people. That’s how I deal with the terrorism and shootings: by making eye contact…by smiling more. The other night,  I was out for a walk.  A black guy with a healthier pace passed by, and then looped around a pole at the corner and passed me again. As he did, he glanced at me and I gave him a big ol’ thumb’s up as he trotted past. His grin made my night, it really did, because you know what?

This Black vs. White stuff is ridiculous and sad.

Meanwhile my two teenage daughters been bingeing on back-to-back episodes of Hawaii Five-O and my littles turn on their good ol’ standbys: Phineas and Ferb and Dreamworks How to Train your Dragon.  Do they feel a connection to these characters? Probably not, they’re just watching.

Still, for those of you that are  old enough to choose…

Live each day as if it were your last.

Have fun.

Don’t sin.