A friend of mine once said (or, wrote on her website, rather) "The reasonable thing to put on my website is a bit of information about myself." It occurs to me that a reasonable way to start my new StarWars.com blog is with some musings and reminiscences about how Star Wars has permeated my life. I do so love to tell these stories.

It's been a joke in my family for a long time that it's no surprise I turned out to be such a Star Wars fan; after all, I was marked for life. I was born very nearly a year to the day after the release of Episode IV, and somewhere in the nine or so months before that date, my parents went to see said movie in the theater. Not knowing my gender at the time and unwilling to refer to me simply as 'it', they decided to refer to me as 'Wookiee', after Chewbacca. That moniker later passed on to a small stuffed dog that had a been a gift to me from my grandfather when I was a month old.

Wookiee has been something of a Velveteen Rabbit to me for 27 years now. He's held comfy spots of honor on my bed pillows on the rare occasion that I decide to make my bed, but spent more time gathering dust under that bed, having been knocked there during my usual morning frenzy to get to work. He's been stuffed, patched and restuffed, packed in suitcases and bookbags, and even mailed home on occasion after being forgotten on vacation. He's been through the war, but like Chewie, he's been a loyal friend. But I digress.

I grew up with Star Wars hovering somewhere in the back of my consciousness. I wasn't really aware of the movies themselves or the phenomenon attached to them until I was twelve or thirteen. There's some debate about whether I was taken to see The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi when they were out in theaters, but if I was, I don't remember it. At the same time, however, I do remember things like a preschool friend playing with his cherished toy AT-AT walker. I even remember that I had a favorite pair of C-3P0 underwear.

Star Wars just kind of snuck up on me. I watched the Original Trilogy in a goofy order; I saw Return of the Jedi first because it was on TV and my parents were taping it. I subsequently wore out that tape. Every time I see the scene in Return of the Jedi in which Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker come before Emperor Palpatine, just as the Emperor begins to turn around, somewhere in the back of my mind I have visions of static starting to obscure the picture.

I was psyched when I found out about the re-releases. I went to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes back with various combinations of friends from my dorm. There was another group of people from the same University at the showing of The Empire Strikes Back, and I believe the were some mutual friends between the two groups, so we sat together. I ended up sitting next to this über-geek type guy with a beard whose name was Mike.

For the re-release of Return of the Jedi, I had planned to go yet again with a group of friends, but ended up going by myself. I was a little bummed to be going alone, but The Force was with me that night and I ran into my über-geek from The Empire Strikes Back, clean shaven this time, and we watched Return of the Jedi together. It turned into something of an unplanned first date, and Mike and I ended up dating for three years.

The prequels have been equally fun. Because each one has been released around the same time as the original trilogy installments were, they've always been released right around my birthday, and been a great birthday present every time.

So here I sit. I have General Grievous desktop wallpaper. I have both a hardcopy and online scrapbook (well, I used to. See this entry. Various action figures, books and other Star Wars paraphernalia are scattered about my bedroom, with more squirreled away elsewhere. I've actually had an argument with a friend about the exact wording of Han's exasperated "I can arrange that." to Leia in the South Passage of Echo Base (and I won -- I pulled out my copy and fast forwarded to the scene in question to prove that it wasn't "That can be arranged.") Sometimes I wonder if I've been marked for life or scarred, or if there's much of a difference.