They All Can't Be Oscars

Movies have a way of teaching you something. A good movie leaves you walking away thinking about it, analyzing the characters, the situations, wondering what you would have done. Teaching and learning is all that I seem to be about lately. I'm not sure why. But there's this strong urge behind me, pushing me to awaken my artistic side again, to expose myself to the world, and to let go of the zombie mom mode I've been in tune with.
As part of this challenge I decided I'm going to treat/teach myself something in several ways, one of which is going through Long Beach library's movie collection. Starting with the letter A, I'm going to slowly enjoy my way through their movie collection, hoping to learn something along the way. Julia cooked her way through Julia Child's cookbook, an author spent a year living her life by what Oprah said, and I'm going to work my way through LB's movie library, one movie at a time.
So, starting with my one movie at a time, I grabbed my first 'A,' 'About A Boy,' and watched it Friday night. What did I learn?......I guess I learned a child's way of viewing family and how much they depend and need love, no matter who it's coming from. The next day I found myself thinking more about Nugget and Meatball and how much I wanted them to know that no matter what happens I will always be the strongest force behind them, even if inside I'm having the worst day and want to be left alone.
Saturday night I watched 'Yes man,' not because it was on my list, but because it was HBO's new movie. I thought it was cute. It brought up some good points and did make me wonder about all the things I've said no to in the past. Would they have led to something great? I'll never know, but it made me decide that the worst part about saying and attending a dinner, lunch, coffee, play date with the next person who asked might be just a drab conversation, but until I go I'll never know. After all I believe that every person has a story, maybe one of these people I'be been reluctant to hang out with is holds the key to the New York Magazine story I'm looking for.
And it was the 'Yes Man' that led me to renting my next movie from the library. "Absolute Zero" was just that, an absolute zero. I picked it up, the next A movie following 'About A Boy,' and read the info..a movie about what happens when Miami freezes over and everyone dies. Go to the next one, I said in my head, but the 'Yes Man' made me stop and rethink. If I was going to work my way through the library movie catalog I had to do it right. So I rented and watched. What did I learn? I'm not sure. But what the movie wanted me to learn, "Science is never wrong," definitely repeated itself as I went to bed and curled up with a good book. Hey, they all can't mean something right?