Why chocolate creme oreos will always remind me of Edward Cullen

Most people that know me understand that I have something wrong with my head. Most people that have known me a long time understand my tendency to get obsessed with stuff.

The list is long and stretches from Rainbow Brite to Star Wars to hippie clothes to Mercedes Benzes to Twilight. Being my friend on any teensy part of this journey will make you believe that I just have unhealthy feelings toward a few things...being someone there for the long run, you'll see that the objects of my affection change, but the obsessive feelings remain constant.

A couple of days ago, my husband and I were watching one of the six Star Wars movies and I said, "Wow, like fifteen years ago, I could have told you the names and types of all those aliens...and what planets they were from."

He seemed a little concerned. "Really?"

I laughed, and told him about my adolescent years, when I lived, ate, and breathed Star Wars. I could almost recite original three movies line by line. I made my parents buy me anything Star Wars that I saw at the store. I read about ten thousand Star Wars fiction books that took place after Return of the Jedi. I dreamed I was a Jedi. I was pretty sick. "It was worse than Twilight," I told him.

Since I am in the middle of the Twilight addiction, he couldn't visualize it.

When I fell into my third Thanksgiving break sickness, a feverish sinus infection coupled with dehydration from the stomach virus and the still present kidney stone, and a huge muscle cramp in my back that I was sure was the beginning of a heart attack, my mom came to visit and make sure the girls didn't set the house on fire.

That day, just to comfort me and keep my mind off of the false heart attack, I had started reading Eclipse again. Lucky for me, the Spike channel was running a Star Wars marathon, so I got to spend the day with Luke, Leia, and Han, and Edward kept me company during commericals.

See, my obsessions are like "loveys," those blankets and toys that two year olds have at their sides to offer comfort and protection. If I'm knee deep in sickness or bad stuff, something that I've come to love will at least hold me over until I feel a little better.

Mom brought Oreos, the new chocolate ones, and although I hadn't eaten in days I wanted them. Bad.

She watched me eat, and then wanted to know what in the world was on TV. "Return of the Jedi!" I said, a little grumpy. When Rob came home from hunting, shocked to find out I thought I was dying and Mom was there, she confirmed what I said was true- my Star Wars obsession was a lot worse.

And this got me thinking, while eating the oreos and reading about Edward professing his love for Bella, about all of my past obsessions. When I was thirteen, I became obsessed with this cartoon called "Bots" or something like it that only came on at 5:30 in the morning. I religiously got up every morning and watched it with my cereal.

And then when I was obsessed with soap. Well, not really soap but the evils of it. I banned soap from my house and spent a ton of money on special bottles of castile soap in order to protect us all from the evils of sodium laureth sulfate. I researched it thoroughly on the internet.

And then I started thinking about what it would have meant to have the internet when I was mid-Star Wars obsession. Harrison Ford would have definitely had an internet stalker, that's for sure.

Why am I like this? I'll never know. I know I can calm it some when I've been taking my meds...I'm able to resist reading Breaking Dawn for the thirtieth time (well, at least straight out- I can allow myself a page a day or something). But it never really goes away, and in times of stress I revert straight into crazy-land.

When I reached for the chocolate creme oreos this evening, I suddenly felt the urge to continue reading about Jacob and Edward fighting over custody of Bella...and there I am. Oreos. Edward. It all connects somewhere in the rusty, oddly working gears of my brain.