Crowd-sourcing my fandom

Damn it feels good to be a Jedi

I'm a huge Star Wars geek and everybody knows it. I've got toy ships in my office, framed posters in my living room, and oh yeah, a huge Star Wars tattoo that covers my left leg from the knee down.  Being in love with such a popular francise has its pros and cons. Pro: you can talk about it with basically anybody. Con: Half those people are assholes who bring up Jar Jar Binks like they expect me to crumble and cry out something about Star Trek winning after all. And that? Is never going to happen. Ever. So just stop it.

Also there's the merchandise. So many shiny, shiny toys, just waiting for me to buy them. But that is both a pro and con. I'll never be able to own every R2-D2 shaped whatever that catches my eye (without losing my house, car, and probably my husband). I can accept that. But what took me longer to accept was not being able to have every bit of (free) information about Star Wars.

(What? How could you know everything? You must be crazy Ali!)

Seriously though, remember the 90s? Waaaay back in the stone age before wikipedia, iPhones, or the Special Edition Blue-ray pack? I do! Back then the internet was young (and so was I). Back then I felt like I could know it all, see it all, read it all (and probably print out more of it than my parents realized).

But slowly, slowly I started to miss more things, or find out about things after other people, and I started to realize that there was more Star Wars in the world than I could possibly consume myself.

Stuff like this.

This was exquisite torture. And it persisted. I would try to keep up with all the rumors, the cool new toys, the extended universe books. But I couldn't. And now and then a friend, who was totally not a Star Wars geek, would fins some awesome Star Wars thing before me. And it would drive me crazy. And then I would have to kill them and burry them in the back yard. Just kidding, but it would put knots in my stomach and kept me up at night. And it just kept getting more and more common.

Then one day it just stopped bothering me and just became... cool. I basically never have to look for cool new Star Wars stuff (although I do), because so many people send it to me anyway. It's a much nicer way to do fandom, and I wish I had found this zen years ago. So please, friends, keep sending me cool Star Wars stuff on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. It's awesome.

And may the Force be with you!