$68 dollars in shipping costs, ouch - but at least all the holiday packages are sent now. Other than Christmas cards, this means I'm all done sending things out woot! Done shopping? Check. Done sending? Check. Tis the season to be prepared this year.

I am cutting down on a lot of my holiday animosity by trying to get things done well ahead of time. I figure a large part of why I don't like the holidays is the stress it causes. That I can do something about, and that's what I'm trying to do here. The other parts I dislike about it are all the commercial hype going on (which I try to just ignore), and that whole holidays associated with death thing. Don't know really what to do about that one, to be honest - I've kinda hated the holidays ever since that one year dad was dying from Thanksgiving almost all the way to easter. Man, did that suck. At least I can identify what causes my issues which I suppose is a good step.

Remember, if you want a card, sign up here with a screened comment or email your address to L@labarc.com.

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.

Yesterday was a very good day - we went to Atlantic City to see The 88 and B52's in concert at House of Blues. We decided to make a day of it, and went to do other things in the city before the show.



First was the Atlantic City aquarium, where I got to feed manta rays and pet all kinds of cute little sea creatures. They are a small aquarium, but have some really nice fishes, amphibians, and reptiles in the space they have. There are two floors of critters and then an observation deck overlooking the ocean on the third floor. Very fun. See more pictures on Facebook - album 1, two, three.


Next we went to Ripley's Believe it or not on the boardwalk. Admission is kind of expensive (15 dollars), but there were a lot of things to see and it was very fun. I got a little book and some sort of Ripley card game that I have to actually take a look at today - didn't have much time yesterday, too busy doing things. They had all kinds of neat things there - even the famous Fiji mermaid! See more pictures on Facebook album 1, album 2, three.

I got a psychic reading - palm reading - on the boardwalk for the hell of it. Man, that thing was actually scary accurate - don't really feel like getting into the details but a combination of good-and-bad things. Then we had some pizza, and took one of those rolling wicker chair taxis over to the House of Blues (which is in Showboat). The guy who took us over was also going to the show, and he sung some B52s songs on the way, and gave us a tour of all the boardwalk musicians we passed - was fun. We saw him later during the show and he came over and said hi - he was a little drunk by then but still funny.
Boardwalk pictures



A little worry at the show as the guest list wasn't down when we arrived, but it came down and then we got our tickets - they gave us balcony seats right over center stage. Really nice seats! First act they had on was actually... a Rockband. Really. They won some Rockband competition to get to open for the B52s. They played a video about the competition before the band took the stage - it was basically a huge commercial for Rockband. Amusing, though, in a way. Then The 88 came on - and wow, they are good live. So much energy! A lot more upbeat than some of the concerts we see too, which was really nice. Good vibes. After The 88's set, we went down to the merch table to hang with Adam while the B52s where on. He gave me a cd and some assorted such, and a poster that he had the rest of his band come sign too. Also got a picture with with him, then with everyone after the show. They're all nice folks. Concert pictures

Today woke up pretty sore from all the running about yesterday, and all three kids gave me squat for mother's day. Brenda at least has a healthy sense of self-preservation and offered to take me out to dinner later in the week. Jeanette, in her usual lack of decorum, spent most of the day screaming about how we should give her things. Steve didn't even show up or call. I got my mom a set of Laurel and Hardy statues and a roomba vacuum (which is still on the way).

Tomorrow the shed should arrive, and then we can start hauling inventory out into it, then starting the book business up again. Go books.

Hoppy Easter from Disturbing Crossroads Bunny!

and happy zombie Jesus day from L, too.

Man, I need to take a break I think from some of the reading and research I've been doing and read something light-hearted for a while tomorrow. Reading personal accounts of living in Nazi Germany is just overwhelming sometimes - it always shocks me, the depths of cruelty that human beings are capable of towards each other. When I embarked on this whole project, I had a vague understanding of what had occurred of course - perhaps more than most people who don't really ever look into these things has. But when you start reading personal accounts and getting into trying to understand the mentality that allowed such madness to happen - it's just overwhelming at times. Still, I think that more of us need to read and understand these sort of things - as uncomfortable as they are, we need to teach more of this in schools so that children will grow up into adults that will not allow these things to happen again.

I think to some extent that I am also suffering my yearly holiday depression. I have tried to stave this off by getting in the spirit - sending out cards and presents, finishing my shopping early and so forth. For a while it worked, but it's starting to fade now that there's nothing left to do leaving behind that whole melancholy that seems to strike around this time. I have traced this before - I understand that it likely stems from the year my father was dying (from november thru to march) - that difficult last holiday season with him where he was cantankerous and things were unpleasant no matter how hard we tried to make them otherwise. I think that was pretty much the end of it for me and holiday enjoyment, at least for a while. I'm trying to pick it back up, but it's just a lot of forcing myself to do things until something clicks for a little while and makes me enjoy it just a bit.

I did manage to finally get a Soundtracking column up, which is good. I want to try and get back into the habit of writing my music column again. No progress on the comic script, partially because I feel really pressured to finish it, which in turn makes me really avoidant of it as a source of stress.

I'm so sending these bitches out this weekend, I swear. So this is your absolute last chance to get in on the holiday card goodness.

Leave your address on this screened post here. You know you want to.



Also, if you want to give me a virtual gift:

fill my stocking

and/or

leave a gift under my tree


Or send a postcard, coin, etc from my holiday wish list

Pictures of me getting ready for my historical society's Christmas party today

Oh please, let the zombie apocalypse come so it will be legal to shoot my effing neighbors.

They have this obnoxious device on their lawn that continuously plays Christmas carols. Over and over and over again. They have it turned up so loud that I can hear it through my closed windows and walls - and the houses are not that close!

It is making me crazy. I want to go over there and unplug that bitch and shove it up someone's ass.


Any questions about why I hate the holiday season?

Mom and Ron took me to the bookstore today to buy me books for Christmas. Also had lunch at Olive Garden - yum!

These are the books I got:

Scheisse! The Real German You Were Never Taught In School

German for Dummies

The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the Systems Behind Them

What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life In Nazi Germany

Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy

Christmas Gift Toy & MySpace Layouts at pYzam.com

Happy Turkey day! Tis the season to start thinking about Christmas... so...



Please visit my Christmas stocking and leave me a gift!


http://seasonstocking.livejournal.com/33895.html


If you are doing the seasonstocking stocking this year, provide me with your links and I will leave you a gift too!


You can also check out my Holiday Wish List


Also, if you haven't yet, give me your address on this screened post and I will send you a Christmas card. I'm trying to get them out early this year.

Amusement from #The_Loft :


Spike: sorry- was away dropping a pie on the floor.

Me: Did the floor need pie?

Spike: It bloody must have!

Aus: For that pumpkin wax smell?

me: or was it an accident involving gravity?

Jim: [Floor]: Dude, it freaking rocked. Thanks.

Spike: Wellllll... I opened the fridge and a half a watermelon jumped out-

Squeak: fuck gravity

Me: Drop some milk down for it! Pie goes good with milk.

Spike: And in my attempt to catch it, let go of the pie box with one hand and it did a flip.
But it all landed intact, just erm... wrong side up. In the box.
So, I scraped it all off and put it back in the pie tin.

Me: What flavor?

Spike: Something called 'harvest pumpkin'

Nathan: floor harvest, you mean. :)

Spike: Which is basically a pumpkin pie with a bit of whipped stuff on top and then whipped cream on top of that

Spike: Well it all landed in the clean box, so it's still getting eaten tomorrow

Aus: Ahhh. So it's just upsidedownpie.

Spike: notice to those eating at Spike's house: The pie is absolutely fine.
It's supposed to look like that.

Finally finished the Christian historical romance... man, so very bad. So very, very bad. The author has a website - http://lindaford.org/ and on it, she gives advice on how to write. If it will make your writing like hers? DO NOT FOLLOW.

One down, one to go. So far this one doesn't open with anyone praying - just a character Faith and her sister Charity (sigh) and a tornado. No wait, four pages in- there's the praying.

"Oh, dear God." Her prayer was as plaintive, as wistful as the wind that carried it. "Please, please show me what to do. Spare me this obligation."

No, God will not spare you from this obligation - any more than He will come down and spare me from having to read this crappy book.

Yesterday I learned going through self-scan at the grocery store with a bunch of food is a bad idea - my back did not appreciate it.

Tomorrow - Thanksgiving, a quiet one with good food, let us hope.

If anyone wants a card from me this year, just leave your name and address as a comment here! Comments are screened for your privacy protection. I know some folks who don't have LJ read my journal, so for you guys just drop me an email at L@labarc.com and I will get you on the list thataway.

Yes, I'm trying to get an early start with the holidays - shocking, isn't it? Hence my OMG Dude icon for this post.

If you would like to send me a card, my mailing address is:

Laura Cushing
po box 141
Newtonville, NJ 08346-0141

1. For more writers and roleplayers to join my writing prompt community, charloft . And participate!

2. A cheap/free/affordable used laptop - only needs to get the internet and play games - for my 79 year old mom. I've been showing her computer stuff and I'd like her to have her own computer to use whenever she likes.

3. Postcards from around the country/world for my postcard collection.

4. Coins from around the world for my coin collection.

5. Christmas cards! I like getting cards.

6. Someone to draw a picture of one of my characters for me, or someone to write me a story involving one of my characters.

7. Crochet supplies (yarn, easy patterns, books on how-to ). I'm still a crochet newbie, but I really like it.

8. A funny or cute Christmas icon for my LJ.

9. WWII history books - European (Germany and/or Occupied France) preferred. Personal accounts more than this-or-that-battle (I have plenty of those already!), especially involving Germany, Holocaust studies, homosexuality in Nazi Germany.

I am particularly looking for The Pink Triangle, The Men in the Pink Triangle, and An Underground Life Got these! Thanks!

10. Paragraph 175 and Bent , any other movies along this line. Got these! Thanks!

11. Books / CDs / other materials on learning the German language.

12. Mix CDs / mp3s. Some bands I like: The Decemberists, Owen, Ozma, Rilo Kiley, The Elected, Bright Eyes, Neva Dinova, The Bravery, The Magnetic Fields - to give you an idea of my tastes.

My mailing address:

Laura Cushing
po box 141
Newtonville, NJ 08346-0141

Go Phillies! I don't really follow sports, but I'm happy they won the world series. I was at the 1980 game when they won last time - I went with my dad and my brothers. It was pretty cool, if I recall, and we had semi-decent seats even. I was ten, so I don't remember a ton of details other than that. It does make me miss my dad somewhat though- he would have been really happy the Phils won again. He was a lifelong lover of baseball - he even played in the minor leagues and coached little league baseball when my brothers were little. Of course, by the time I came around, he was mostly a couch potato when he wasn't working- but I've heard stories.

I picked up some Halloweeen shirts on super clearance at Fashion Bug - got three shirts for two dollars each, woo! One is a sparkly pumpkin, one is sparkly candy corn, and one says 'Feeling Witchy' and has a witch on it.

Any other South Jersey folks doing NaNo this year? They're having a kickoff tomorrow night at Casciano's sweetery on the main drag in Hammonton from 7-9. Anyone going? Baring any bad circumstance, I'll be there! I'll be wearing a Halloween shirt and an 'Ask Me About My Novel' sticker. They're also going to have write-ins at Mays Landing Borders on Saturdays in November, but they start at a yucky time - 10 am! Can anyone write that early? I don't think I can.

I have to go to the pet store and get the betta a heater tomorrow- temperature is getting too cold in his tank and I cannot find the heater from last year. Grr.

One of my friends is hosting a Halloween Scavenger hunt on LJ. Click on the pic to play - looks like it'll be pretty fun!

Found at a crossroads - we had to stop and photograph it. It's about 12 feet tall, and made out of an unknown plastic roll of... something....

Today's the day we adopt some poor unloved candy leftover from yesterday and give it the chance to fulfill its one purpose in life. Aren't we such nice people? See, Aus and I almost always celebrate valentine's day after the fact to get everything you consumers snatch up at full price on the days before on the day after. We still love each other just as much today, don't we?

And now we can love each other with half price yummies.

Yesterday's trip to the IMAX at the Tropicana to see Spiderwick Chronicles was fun. It's really pretty in that section of the casino - they've done it up to look like a Cuban quarter. We had free samples of Godiva Chocolate and other good things as we walked around the stores before the show. We took some pictures we'll post later. The movie was pretty good - but the IMAX broke before we could see the ending. Last fifteen minutes or so were a completely dead screen and the management telling us to be patient.

Good part though is when I complained and told 'em we should have some compensation for this, they refunded the ticket money to the person who paid for 'em (we got them free from Gather, so it wasn't us ;) ) and we got four free tickets to the next IMAX show (Whales and Dolphins).

So a pretty productive day.

I have been tagging old journal entries, and as I look back I realize patterns in my life that I don't think I would have ever observed without keeping a journal for these past seven years.

For example, right about the same time every winter - I get a sinus infection. Within a one week period or so of when I got it the previous year - yep, there it is. Like clockwork.

I also can trace things like my PTSD - which has, predictably, grown worse over the years through similar traumas. That also seems to ebb and flow at certain times of the year. One of the peak times seems to be around the holidays - there's a lot of extra stress around this time of year, and I react very poorly to situations that are loud/noisy/overstimulating.

I also discovered something that I'd forgotten entirely - though my father died in March 2002, he was dying during the holiday season of 2001. When I look back in my journal, I read about what was possibly the last holiday I really enjoyed - Halloween 2001. We took the kids around and dressed in costumes ourselves - myself, Aus, my niece Jolene and her boyfriend at the time. The kids were still young, and enthralled with the holiday and we all had a wonderful time. My father is in Florida, having taken a sudden unplanned trip to see his sister. We are all glad he is gone - because he's been extra grumpy and yelling at everyone lately. Thanksgiving of that year sees us eating dinner out on a holiday for the first time - at a restaurant close to the hospital where my father is lying and suffering of pneumonia. In a few days, we will also learn that he has cancer. We stop to shop for presents after his biopsy a few weeks later. He buys things for the household- a stove, a new kitchen table. No one tells him he is dying, but these are signs that he knows. He doesn't tell us he knows, either. No one speaks of it. We wrap presents, I take him to doctors to have the fluid drained from his belly that swells like he is pregnant. At Christmas dinner, he screams when the turkey isn't done when he's ready to eat and calls myself and my mother bitches. My brother Joe leaves. My brother Ron and I sit outside, and wonder if this is the last Christmas we will have with him, and if this is the memory we will have. The New Year and hospice comes, bringing with them a hospital bed. My father takes up residence in the living room, in the space recently vacated by the Christmas tree. On St. Patrick's day, my niece comes over to make him his favorite ham and cabbage meal. He is too sick to eat it. He is dead less than a week later. Easter is early that year, the baskets are by his funeral collage.

I can trace a lot of my current lack of enthusiasm for holidays to that cycle of events. Things were somewhat better this year - the family came to the house instead of going out as they have every year since my father's death. I didn't go with them ever, preferring instead to just stay at home with Aus. But this year, they pretty much thrust their company upon me - and drug me out into the living room to play Wii with them and so on. And it wasn't entirely unpleasant. In fact, it was quite nice. I got this little stomach flu thing after Christmas - but even that wasn't bad. Instead of going out for our anniversary/New Years, Aus and I stayed home and played games and watched the mummer's day parade. It also helped that I pushed myself to do a holiday special for Soundtracking. With having to write cheerful columns on the history of Christmas carols, Christmas movies, and so forth - I couldn't avoid all the trappings of the season. I listened to carols. I watched movies - and remembered how much I really love some of those (Christmas Carol in its many forms!) I can't say I entirely enjoyed the season as much as I did as a child, but I certainly didn't dislike it as much as I did other years.

I also noticed that I've done a lot of growing as a person in the past seven years. The things I think and write about aren't as entirely self-centered. I read better books. I watch less prime time tv and more documentaries. I am a kinder and less angry at the world.

I wonder if I will still have this journal seven years from now, and how I will look back on this entry?