Them belly full, but we hungry.

My head is a noisy mess. 

I've been bouncing back and forth between starving, attempting to eat like a normal person, and pigging out, interspersed with my usual frantic exercising and occasional ex-lax-attack. Like a pinball, only with food and no fun lights or sound effects.

Today, for example, I had a small bowl of Special K cereal for breakfast, a snack of a fiber bar and a small bag of Cheerios at work, and then for lunch I had turkey and lettuce and low-fat mayo on a whole wheat wrap, and I felt okay about it. Until like half an hour after lunch, when I was like OMFG I'M A WHALE. So I went to the gym for an hour and a half and I still have abnormal circulation in my feet (new sneakers). And I haven't eaten anything since lunch. I don't plan on eating anything until breakfast tomorrow. 


I need to go visit my father this weekend. We haven't spoken in several weeks--not since I called to see if the Little Bros could come adventuring with my friends and me. My bff's Christmas present is still at Dad's house, and I really need to get it (because for some asinine reason, you can't ship alcohol to New Jersey). Calling him up is such an emotional hassle. 


Despite now being an adult, I still find myself in the same mental state I was in at the age of five, as far as fathers are concerned. Like many children with absent fathers, I collected father figures. Mostly I collected them off the television. 


Gene Autry was my first father. 

The original singing cowboy. I loved him with all my heart. My nanny recorded episodes off Nick at Nite, or whatever channel it was on, so I could watch the Gene Autry Show over and over and over. I invented a whole world in which I lived with Gene Autry out in the Wild West, and was his only child, and he doted on me and treated me like a princess.


Then there was Bob Ross

He nurtured my artistic spirit. I would set my paper and watercolour sets up on the floor and paint with him nearly every day. And he of course loved my artwork, as a father should, and no doubt he hung it all up on our imaginary refrigerator.


Around age 6, the Undertaker became my father.

Because no one would dare f*ck with the Undertaker's daughter.

And then when Law & Order first came on TV, Detective Lenny Briscoe was my new dad.

When he died a few years ago, I mourned for weeks. I think that was when I first realized that perhaps I had a problem, because it really felt as though I had lost someone very dear to me. 

I think I started having the Willie Nelson Dad Fantasies around the same time Law & Order started, like age 8 or 9.

Who wouldn't want Willie Nelson for a dad? You'd be the coolest kid on the block. 

And then when I was like 11 years old, I saw both Pumpkinhead and Powder for the first time. The show Millennium aired its pilot episode that same year. And thus Lance Henriksen came into my life.

He is my favourite dad. I am still in the process of obsessively collecting all of his movies. I just bought Dead Man (Lance, Michael Wincott, and Johnny Depp, AND it's a Western--you really can't go wrong). 

It's pretty bad. I know I talk about Millennium a fair bit, but seriously I am OBSESSED with that show. I could probably recite all three seasons. I watch at least one episode a day. It's like a security blanket. I watch it at night right before bed, so Lance Henriksen/Dad can tuck me into bed and tell me stories while I go to sleep. 

I think I need a therapist. 

[...on a side note--for all of you in Australia, Lance is going to be at the Armageddon Expo in Sydney next weekend. I will sell my soul to anyone who goes and gets him to a sign a photo for me.]