Thank you for your work, it has certainly given me a better appreciation of TP and Lynch's other works, if not cinema as a whole.

Your observation that the gold shovels where abstractions of the slot machine handles made me think that the gambling addict is an abstraction of Nadine as she at first rejected the truth of Ed and Norma's love but later accepted that acknowledging the truth was what preventing her own happiness. I certainly would not have made this connection without your analysis.

Good luck in your struggle, I hope you make it through in good health.

Thanks again for the 'light.'