(Aus) L has risen. And checked her mail.

(Metody) She's a netpire!

(L[nap]) rarr
(L[nap]) I vant to suck your bandwidth.

I'm trying to get Aus in to see the doctor at the same time as my appointment today at 4:15, because he's caught my sinus problem. This should be a fairly simple thing, right? Wrong.

27 minutes on hold, shuffled through the phone system three times, only to be given to someone's goddamn voice mail. Have I mentioned how much I hate the clinic? Well let me mention it again. Completely incompetent, surly staff members that barely tend to your needs. The doctor is nice, but you only see him for five minutes after waiting three hours if you manage to get through the phone maze to make an appointment to begin with.

I'm also pissed off that they sent us insurance cards we can't use until December first, because we could have gotten coverage in a timely manner, we wouldn't be doing this song-and-dance with the clinic yet-a-fucking-gain.

That thing with the sinuses has gone down into my chest now, so I'm kind of coughing and rumbling in addition to being all nasally congested. The steroids and antibiotics they gave me at the hospital must be helping on some level, because now at least I don't feel the dreadful pressure in my ears and head so much.

In other news, I wrote two stories to kick my nano efforts off yesterday. Here's hoping that I'll be able to do some more writing when I'm done with being pissed off, and/or back from the clinic. (Note: this is not very likely. I just called the doctor back and in addition to all the usual hold garbage, I got a notice that says 'You are seventh in line'. Fucking balls.)

I also spent some time yesterday watching the V marathon on the Sci Fi channel (I refuse to use their new name - when did they start with that lameness?). V was one of my favorites as a teenager, and I'm looking forward to the remake. I really hope they don't ruin it.

Back on the phone with the doctor... fifteen minutes and two shuffles so far. A bit of yelling and DO NOT GIVE ME TO VOICEMAIL later, and I'm finally making what might be progress. Then they put me on hold. Again. Another interminable wait.... then they fucking put me through to the voice mail. Where I told them not to send me. Twice. This is extremely non-helpful.

Hope everyone's having a good one. I'm just handing out candy (hopefully without a side of sinus infection) this year.

I've been pretty sick - went to the ER the other night and they put me on steroids and antibiotics. Have to go to the doctor Monday and get checked up.

I have another freelance job, which is both good and bad. I applied for it on a whim Thursday and it said 'will get back to applicants in two weeks'. Well. I guess they liked my application because they got back to me the very next day... which is a little inconvenient. I was counting on having that two week window to feel better. So now I have to come up with a bio, and a photo of myself, etc to them in three business days. Then I have to submit to a background check and set up my tax form etc. It's for three short blurbs a week, so it's a little more high volume than I'm used to but shorter pieces. They also don't claim exclusive rights, so I can reuse them anywhere else. It's also more of a specific focus than I'm used to - I'll be the 'Atlantic City area indie music columnist.' So at least some of the content I'll be putting into it will be area specific. That means if you're a musician in my area and want to be interviewed for a column or have one of your concerts reviewed, get in touch.

This also means I need to get my shit together with lauracushing.com as in posting the actual content that needs to go up there.

And... tomorrow starts NaNoWrimo. This year I'm going to be doing a series of short stories instead of an actual novel attempt, because let's face it my life is too chaotic to write an entire novel and short stories are more my forte anyhow. With the exception of 2006, I haven't won a year - so maybe I'll manage to do it this year by being somewhat lax on the rules. Though I may mix in completely unrelated stories, my primary focus is going to be heil_hans and vavarner and the various support characters that fit into their world. If you have a suggestion of a story you'd like to see me write, a prompt or anything like that- please let me know in a comment. It'll help!


Being sick of course, I have zero motivation to do any of this. Going to try anyhow.

So you may recall I got a new netbook a while back. At the same time we bought that, we also bought additional memory for it. We were going to upgrade the memory on this and on the old laptop, which we are going to fix up to give to a friend who is having heinous computer issues. So the first problem in our clever plan came when we discovered none of the approximately fifty million screwdrivers we have around here will actually fit the screws on the back of the computers.

Well, fine. We decided to do the sensible thing and order an electronics kit from Amazon. We wait for an interminable amount of time for that to actually arrive until today, when I get a package from Amazon. Exited I open it up... very surprised to find two huge air bubbles and nothing but a packing slip and some very light object at the bottom. This can't possibly be what we ordered, can it? Why no. No it isn't. It is, in fact, a CHEESE SLICER. A steel bladed cheese slicer with a rubber handle, how fancy. How.... not what we ordered at all. Pardon me while I cheese slice the back of my computer to get at the memory inside. Yeah, that'll work.

More fucking delays. Joy.

Oh, and speaking of delays... we got our insurance cards in the mail yesterday. Good news, right? Yeah, except that coverage doesn't actually start until December 1st and their 'helpful' website shows like ten doctors in all of South Jersey who will actually take the insurance. So I have to call around to doctors and see if any of the ones I actually want to go to will take what we have. But hey, I've got a whole five weeks or so to do it in! Five whole weeks of still being sick, unless I want to give in and go to the goddamn clinic again- in which you wait three hours to be seen for five minutes and usually it doesn't do any good anyhow.

My day started off with having to avoid a gaggle of old people who wanted me to accompany them to lunch. The phrase 'Uncle Leon is driving' should never be uttered by anyone. He's 88 and doesn't look when he pulls out into traffic anymore. Then my mom had this 'brilliant' idea and asked to borrow the GPS (or as she calls it, the GSP) so they could find the restaurant they wanted to go to without involving me. Like I'm going to send out my 200+ dollar electronic equipment with three seniors who have no idea how to use it. Yeahhhh... let me get right on that.

After escaping from that, my day removed remarkably. I'm still trying to beat this sinus infection (I have antibiotics on the way, that should help) so I'm mostly just lounging about. Nathan sent me a link to this NPR story about Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, the Postal Service) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt) coming together and making an album based on Jack Kerouac's Big Sur. You can listen to the whole album there - it came out today supposedly. So I've been listening to it - it's quite good. The album is titled One Fast Move Or I'm Gone: Music From Kerouac's Big Sur.

1 med. baking apple
1 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. butter
Cinnamon

Wash and core apple. Pare a thin section of skin from top of apple. Fill center of apple with brown sugar and top with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Cook uncovered in microwave 2 to 2 1/2 minutes at high or until almost tender. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Cook 2 apples 3 to 3 1/2 minutes at high. Cook 3 apples 4 to 4 1/2 minutes at high. Cook 4 apples 5 to 5 1/2 minutes at high.

(recipe from cooks.com)

SO GOOD. Next time it will be even better because I am going to buy an apple corer - it was a little rough getting the core out, and a lot of the yummy stuff leaked out of the bottom of the apple. I also put some raisins into mine. Nom nom

Just wanted to remind folks that charloft is offering NaNoWriMo support again this year. We will be having word count check-in posts, a live Nano chatroom, word wars, inspirational posts and more all through the month of November!

Charloft also operates year 'round, providing a daily character related writing prompt. We're just about to celebrate our first anniversary! Hope you'll come check us out.

Lying in the middle of a desert with a very blue sky overhead - nothing but parched earth under me. Lay down and tore open my chest (it didn't hurt) and thousands of spectral black birds (crows? ravens?) flew out of my chest in a cloud type formation, enough to black out the sky.


I think this might be a sign that my body would like to get read of this congestion now!

James Ellroy is one seriously creepy dude. Watching Murder By The Book and he's on there taking about his mother's murder (and repeating about a million times how he lusted for her and hated her and wanted her dead) and opening the box of murder evidence and SNIFFING HER DRESS.

Yes, the one she died in.

Earlier in the program he's talking about how he used to break into women's houses to see their bedrooms and peep into windows and such.

I mean yes I understand his mother's murder and then being raised by his sleezeball dad warped his brains a little but HOLY CREEPY DUDE.

Today I got kidnapped my mom and Joe to go to the Padre Pio shrine. It's kinda like a mini Catholic Disneyland. There's church music playing through loudspeakers, and this pyramid shaped enclave under which was a bronze statue of Padre Pio. The other statues around were all stone, and they had benches and such so you could sit and reflect or pray.

They had push button candles (no one would let me push the button) and plastic rosaries (was also not allowed to take one of these) . We did however visit the gift shack behind the place (it kinda looks like my shed) where one can purchase everything from holy water, to saint medallions and other such kitsch items. I got a Padre Pio coin for my coin collection.

No one appreciates my plan to sell holy water as blessed by Creepy Jesus (except for maybe Ron, but he suggested questionable ingredients the last time this came up). We have water, a shed and a statue! We could get bottles.

In short:

1) No one ever lets me play with any of the fun things.

2) All my good ideas get shot down.

This is the Live Journal book that I contributed to. Pay was 25 dollar LJ gift certificate , plus 50 dollar Blurb gift certificate to purchase a contributor's copy of the book in whatever format I wanted. I chose the super deluxe hardcover version - which meant I wound up having to pay $1.94 in shipping, but hey. My contribution is a journal entry I did involving an incident that took place in our neighborhood.

Says it will ship on October 8th, so will let you know when it arrives how the book is.

Random trivia: This is my second book contribution - the first being a blurb that appears in a book called It's Never Too Late To Become A Buffy Fan by Kiss Me Jane Productions.

Today we drove to Newark, Delaware in search of CiCi's Pizza Buffet - which yes, pretty much rocks. All the pizza, salad, pasta, and dessert you can eat for six dollars. Yes indeed. We stopped at a nice park in New Castle too - walked by the water and down a pier and everything.

Along the way, we saw what might very well be the most hilarious business name ever - Analtech! We pulled over just to take pictures. As you can see, I made one into an icon.

All the pictures (taken by Aus) can be found up here on Facebook.

Been doing some work on http://lauracushing.com - there's a basic layout up there now at least, if not the actual content. I'm hoping to get back to work, hoping to find some musicians who are in need of our services, build up some contacts again. I've got a few feelers out there, sent out some messages to a few folks look like they might need things done. Here's hoping some of that comes back with work. Between the economy and me having problems (that I know now were related to the blood pressure), all the previous work dried up. So I feel like I'm starting again from square one. That's why it's important to get the portfolio up, let people know who we've worked with and what we did for them and some testimonials and so forth.

Something unpleasant is going on in my lungs. Either it's just from allergy season, or I'm coming down with something which I so do not need right now. Got some allergy stuff, and we'll see if that does anything.

For those who voted in the poll - you will be happy to know that the dead possum was kicked into the road, and animal control was called. "Its not just playing" I assured them, and they came to collect the corpse. Problem solved.

• 00:27 My brother's visiting from Virginia. I spent some quality time today having lunch with him, and petting his cat and dog. #

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So... hypothetical question. A possum dies in your yard for no discernible reason - you just kinda go outside and ZOMG DEAD POSSUM under the tree.

Do you...

Poll #1460880 Dead Possums aren't Much Fun ... or are they?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

Would you....

Because three is looking likely, but four is oh-so-tempting.

I don't know what my little sign would say if I had one to hold up in this video. I've been uninsured most of my adult life. Even where Aus (my husband) has worked at a job where insurance was an option, most of the time it was a completely unfordable and unrealistic option. Now he's at a job where there's an insurance option that will make a little sense. For coverage for him and myself, it will cost about 1/4 of every paycheck he makes. It takes 90 days to kick in, even though he's technically been working for the company for over eight months (temping). During my blood pressure crisis, I waited an average of three hours to be seen in the emergency room and in clinics. The blood work they needed to determine what was wrong with me cost over 2000 dollars. We had to pay 12% on charity care, which still came to almost 250 dollars. They finally found a medication that will work for my blood pressure. It had no generic. The cost is 100 dollars a month (in addition to my existing medications). I am currently trying to wait it out the ninety days rather than go back to the clinic. I haven't been to a dentist in about fifteen years . My teeth are falling apart to the point where I am missing quite a few in the front. I still have a norplant (birth control) in my arm that was put in me after my son was born, and should have come out when he was five. He just had his seventeenth birthday. I have told numerous clinics about it over the years only to hear 'we don't do that here' and no further help on how to have it removed. I suspect it causes or contributes to some of my other health problems. I have ptsd, a herniated disc, nerve damage, and a bad respiratory system. I do not receive proper treatment for any of them. I have needed new glasses for quite some time now.

There are plenty of other stories like mine out there, and I'm sure a lot of you have yours. Why are so many people against something that should be a basic human right? Yet again. We have people fighting violently about this. I don't understand all the craziness over this. I just want some decent, affordable healthcare.

I rode my bike with Ron today - I am up to being able to go around the long way (which is about two blocks?). Still not as good as I could do before getting sick, and I'm tired now - but it's progress!

When we got back, I noticed a little bit of green under the steps of the porch where we store our pots for plants. It turned out to be a plant, growing all by himself under there. We'd thrown the pot down there with the other pots when the plant died last year. Well, this year he decided to resurrect, apparently - surviving on whatever water and light got through to him down there. I brought the plant out and repotted him nicely, and put him on the porch with our other plants. Welcome back to life, little guy.

(These rules are for Charloft RPG , which uses a modified version of Unisystem. Please see the wiki for relevant information.)


Everyone has their own play style, and their own style for running a game as well. Thought maybe I'd jot down some notes about how things work and what I'd like to see when I'm running the adventure. I imagine some of these hold true for our other GMs as well, but your gaming mileage may vary. Other GMs might want to list the rules for their play sessions! It'll be helpful. =)


1. Please get involved with the story. Nothing is more disheartening to a GM than players that are not participating with what is going on around them. Interact with the environment and the NPCs. Make plans. Advance the plot. Players who are actively involving themselves with the story and making an effort to be a part of it will receive more XP than lurkers.

2. Use details and descriptions to add flavor to your actions in combat and elsewhere in the story. A good description of what you are trying to do may swing a hairy situation over to your favor, or add a bonus to your roll. Not giving a description, or giving a poor description when prodded for one, may result in a negative modifier to your roll.

3. If you only attend for part of a session, or are extremely inattentive while gaming (not emergency situations, but say... playing another game while talking to your cat and watching a movie instead of paying any attention to the room) you will receive less XP (possibly NO XP) than those who are actively participating in the game.

4. At any time, if you are stuck for what to do next, try asking for one of the following:

• A perception (per+notice) check to see if your character can notice something helpful in the area.


• A knowledge (int+knowledge) check to see if your character can think of an idea that will be of use.


• A relevant skill check (int+occultism to examine a magical item, say)

The GM is not the only one that can call for a roll on something; you are free to request a roll at any time. You will have your request granted, or be given a reason (ex: Sports skill won't help you here) why you can't roll that particular combination.

5. Occasionally the plot will bite you in the ass. You will receive drama points for these sort of occasions, particularly if you play along and further the story.

6. There are often hidden areas, objects, and side quests. These aren't part fo the main story, but can be pursued at the party's discretion. Sometimes they're a distraction from the main plot - if there's a time crunch, you may want to come back for them. Other times, they can provide something helpful for use in the main story. You never know until you try! Choose wisely.

7. Please remember that IC/OOC are separate. Most folks don't have a problem with this, but just bear it in mind. Try to play your characters according to what they would do in a situation, even if you the player might not necessarily agree with their choices. Character development is its own reward, but there may also be drama points awarded for situations where you follow character and it is difficult to do so.

9. If you need a bathroom/food/leg stretch break, please speak up. The GM is not a mind reader. If you would like to put in an intermission request in, or a request to end a session at a certain time, or schedule a session for a certain time - please do so.

10. No more than two characters per person on the adventure at any time. If you are new to adventuring, or have trouble multi-tasking, make that one character.

11. If you have to leave a session unexpectedly and your character is currently important to the plot or situation at hand, your character may be puppeted by another player. If you know you're about to disappear, you can choose your own stand-in - if not, one will be chosen for you. Stand-ins will generally not use any of your DP (unless it is a life or death situation) and you will still earn XP for that character as if you remained in-session.

12. Please come to the gaming session at the agreed upon time with a completed and checked character sheet. Last minute character changes are a no. You should be prepared to play, with a pre-approved character.

13. Familiarize yourself with the workings of the system. If you have time, read over the rules and have a general understanding of what you will need to roll for which checks. At the bottom of your character sheet, you should list (or have someone list for you if you need help setting it up) common Maneuvers your character will make and what the roll for each is. It saves time.

14. Please try to avoid passive-aggressive and defeatist commentary in flavor text if at all possible. It gets to be a bit of a downer seeing "Like he's going to make this roll" and "He's got about as much chance as I do of getting laid" etc. , not to mention the breaking of IC/OOC. It's fine for the character to be doubtful of his own chances of success in flavor text "He's not sure if he can make this shot, but he's determined to try" or "He's been struggling to learn the arcane symbols..."

15. DP usage should be meaningful. DP = Drama Points. Try to save them for dramatic moments - heroic feats, plot twists and so forth only have meaning if we use them appropriately. Sometimes it's okay to take a hit that isn't going to kill you, or make a less than spectacular shot. If the scenario is getting too hard to face without repeated DP usage, it might be time to find another way to approach things. If it's absolutely too hard no matter what you try - tell the GM and she'll see about toning it down some.

16. XP and DP will be awarded according to the following criteria:

• How much of session character was present for


• How actively character participated


• What skills were used (for banked XP)


• What the character contributed to the story (DP)


• What the character did to further the plot (DP)