As I came into consciousness this morning, I started remembering a dream I'd just had about being part of a bunch of traveling social commentators (hey, I have no idea -- it was a dream!). This group was an odd mixture of lovable misfits and geeks, and as their newest member I had no trouble fitting in. They would go around giving conferences and workshops about topical issues and hold public debates. There was a certain amount of spectacle involved, as they had a little routine worked out. Anyway, the dream seemed to segue quite rapidly from my arrival into the troupe (I had been an audience member who'd asked so many insightful questions that they asked me to join them -- it's nice to feel wanted, if only in a dream!) to having been with them long enough for it to feel like a family. There weren't many other women in the troupe, but one of them was played by Laura Dern (right before bed last night, my husband and I had been casting a ficticious movie and I think her name had come up). Laura and I were best friends, as close as twin sisters, so when she announced to everyone that she was five months pregnant, I wasn't anything but thrilled for her. I remember saying that now I understand what dads must feel when their wives were expecting. (Not that she and I were lovers, but I think the idea was that the entire troupe was going to raise the child, so we'd all be a part of the experience.) Anyway, she said that she could empathize with any mixed feelings that I might have, as she herself had lost a child 10 years ago and she'd been told that she'd never be able to have another baby. This did comfort me, somehow. Shortly after this scene, the troupe traveled to Lebanon to do a show on conflict resolution (hah!). Lebanon looked strangely like my hometown in Southeastern Massachusetts, go figure. Anyway, one night we realized that one of our troupe was missing, so we formed a search party and started looking for him. We were all supposed to stay together as we were searching, but at one point I thought I heard something, so I strayed away from my group to go check it out. As I walked toward the sound, I stepped on a land mine and was blown up into the air. I landed in some tall grass with a thud and couldn't move. I had taken the hit directly between my legs, and even though I wasn't bloody, I knew there was serious internal damage. I couldn't scream, but my friends came running after they heard the blast and started to attend to me. As soon as they came near I passed out from the pain and woke up.

Besides dreaming about having my hoo-hah blown up, I have been relatively okay lately. There must be something to Nietzsche's old adage about "that which does not kill you...", as the more I get hit with, the more resilient I seem to get. Until I get the final diagnosis, I'm doing my best not to think about it. This is not an entirely successful undertaking, but it's kept me from spending my days curled up into a fetal ball sobbing my guts out. I had the second blood draw yesterday, so I should be able to commence with the intense grieving any day now...

Other than that, my insurance claim has gone through already, which is a relief. Between the robbery and last week's news, the month of June has been more or less a complete write-off, work-wise. The insurance money will at least keep the wolves at bay next month. I wish I were more duplicitous because I really could have beefed up the claim. But I am so afraid of invoking any more bad karma, that the best I could do was to up the number of DVDs that were taken by a few digits. And seeing as how we're only getting $10 per, we come out just about even...

Anyway, I'm hanging in there despite everything. I'm sure there will be another round of hell to deal with once I get these latest blood test results, but until then I'm going to do everything I can to distract myself. Joining a troupe of traveling entertainers sounds like just the ticket, in fact...

That's what I call a 'surfacing' dream, where everything that is close to the surface of your life combines into some kind of narrative that is largely literal, but still strange. The mind is a wild place! Personally I think it is really healthy that you are dreaming about all of this crap, I interprete this as your brain trying to process things.

What a strange dream!

I hope that you can successfully distract yourself, that is something which is very hard for me. Heh, that's what blogs are for, i guess ;)

You know, my cousin joined the circus. She fell in love with and married a circus clown, they are very happy and no longer working under the Big Top. So...maybe it isn't such a bad idea.