Kjoy's Life in the Sr Lane: Saved by 'Star Wars' – surviving work and coming out with Princess Leia

A group of coworkers coordinated a showing of the ORIGINAL no enhancements version of “Star Wars” tonight. It was a geekfest of the best kind. Booing at Darth Vader, cheering for Hans Solo, being torn over my lust for Princess Leia Organa, and of course the cuteness of the whining, youthful Luke Skywalker, not to mention the awesome Chewbacca! We ate homemade kettlecorn and popcorn, and for a few hours, the workplace was transformed into a cinmaaplex and didn’t feel like a life-trap, but a fun place to be. SHOCKING! People talked of where they were when the saw the original release in mid-May 1977, and who they were with. For some reason I don’t remember who I saw it with, but that was my graduation year, and the year my feelings for girls, not just Princess Leia, were about to burst out of my open heart like the creature in “Alien,” but that film hadn’t come out yet. In 1977 I was about to graduate high school and was struggling over my love of Patti P., and my faith… Anyway, the psychiatrist my mother sent me to when I told her I was having a crisis, said my feelings for girls was “Senioritis”- I’m not kidding – and that I was just suffering separation anxiety. After a pep-talk, he gave me body-and-mind relaxation tapes and sent us away. Of course I knew it was more than that, but I didn’t have the guts yet to tell my mom or Patti P., or challenge God on the issue, so the tapes held me together through graduation. So tonight sitting there watching Princess Leia’s breasts bounce in her flowing outfit and her kicking ass everywhere, I was taken back. Back to time when I fanaticized of owning the Millennium Falcon ship and thrusting it into warp speed with Princess Leia (who was Patti P. in my script) and how the two of us burst into the cosmos. Out there I hoped we’d escape the inevitable coming out fiasco by landing on Planet Lesbos, and once there we’d be far from God’s striking distance when we uttered out-loud, “We’re gay” then lived happily ever after. Yeah, that was a great night’s sleep. Now a 52 SR and having survived the coming-out saga, several lovers past Patti P. to the arms of my Corinne, and the realization that God/esses love us no matter what, seeing “Star Wars” took on a playful zest. I had survived many attacks of the “Dark Force” over the years and had come out smiling, secure, happy, and semi-successful. Not bad. “May the force be with you,” is still one of the most powerful lines in film.
As we all walked out through the office we seemed a bit stronger and taller as we left the rows of computers and headsets that defined us during the day. I thought: “Tonight we have defeated you. Come 9:30 am you will have your powers back again, but not tonight, now we are Jedi Knights,” and walked out the doors.]]>