Had a hideous nightmare that my mother was dying of pharyngeal (sp?) cancer. Took place in a hospice. I was trying to tell her all the things that I wanted to say–you know, the usual, that she’d done a good job and I was proud of her–and it was generally gut wrenching. Since my grandmother died rather unpleasantly of cancer over the course of several days in the hospital when I was twelve, and I was there for most of it, my brain was capable of furnishing this scene with the sort of detail that, if I could pack into a painting, there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

However, this was one of MY dreams, so naturally that tender scene of universal pathos was interrupted by my having to fight off an organized crime ring being run by the hospice director, who had a bunch of redneck orderlies in an aging Mustang, and I was armed only with a toilet plunger, the broken glass from the parking lot, and my vast irritation.

If I ever needed proof that I am inherently just a cheerful person, it’s got to be the fact that my brain can’t even handle a death-of-a-loved-one nightmare without deciding it’s time for a slapstick kung-fu with toilet plunger sequence. (Or this may just prove that I’m insane. Or, as Grampa Simpson would say, “A little from column A…”)

Anyway. Was very glad to wake up. Must call Mom today or something. Brrr.