A bit weird out of context

So, due to unforeseen circumstances involving a new job across the country, I find it necessary to drop out of the LJ Idol competition. I do plan on participating in the home game at some point, but at the moment weekly writing challenges in between apartment searching, packing, and cleaning are not feasible for me.
Good luck to everyone still involved!

1. Beliefs - Why Paganism?
I'm choosing to interpret this question as "Why did you choose Paganism?"( And the answer to that, most simply, is this: my people are pagan people. )

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Ugh, am sick. Didn't sleep well; judging from my dreams last night, I can safely conclude that apparently my subconscious believes that picking up dog crap is indicative of great passion, and feels strongly that Waffle House was a classy little sidewalk bistro in another life.
(This was a dream where I was not featured at all; it was more like watching a TV show, but better.)

Okay, so. Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite filkers out there. She has a livejournal (cadhla)--you can find her there or at her website. Every so often, she runs rounds of what she calls "Iron Poet," wherein readers give her a three word prompt and she comes back with a poem of some type. This past round, I saw the notice go up in time to prompt her with "Willow, Power, and Midnight".
THIS is what she came back with.
Go. Read. Comment and tell her of her awesomeness.
Meanwhile, I'm going to cuddle Gabe & Fiona (stuffed Fiona, live!Fiona is too far away--and also I don't want to make phoenixsansfyr sick), look for the tag I wrote and thought had posted before Con, and bask in the glow of having this AWESOME thing written for ME.

Because I just finished reading telesilla's "Five Tracks on Rodney McKay's iPod", it got me in the mood to do this little quiz.
*puts iPod on shuffle, presses play*

Ten Songs on Laura's iPod: A Glimpse at Me through My Music

1. All-American Rejects "Dirty Little Secret"
Back in August of '05, I wrote an entire blog entry for this song for my Discovery Seminar class--you can read it here if you're so inclined.
It's on my iPod because it's a fun song, because you can be angry or snide or hurt or happy and still sing this song. It's on my iPod because I'm tired of people doing things that make me angry and hurt, tired of people who use me and then pretend that nothing's wrong. It reminds me of mistakes I've made in the past, mistakes I've avoided, and mistakes I never want to make.
Also, it's fun to scream these lyrics.

2. Darryl Worley "I Just Came Back from a War"
duchesspariah introduced me to this song not too long ago--it reminded her so strongly of Rankar Sirach that she sent it to me on Google Talk (since I'm the one who writes Rankar Sirach). And it's heartbreaking and sad, and a little angry too, and it's just like him. I Just Came Back from a War is the song that goes through his head every single time he sees or thinks about the people he went to other countries to fight and kill and maybe even die for on the news, knowing that his sacrifice doesn't mean anything to them, just because of who he is.
This song is for me, too. When people who haven't seen me for years remark that I've changed, they hardly recognize me, and they aren't just talking about physically. I'm a lot different that the girl I was a few years ago, because I've been through things that are like wars at home, against myself and against other people.

3. Zager & Evans "In the Year 2525"
This song is NOT recent--the album I downloaded it from is called "Radio Hits of the 60's". I heard it on the radio in my dad's car while we were talking about many things, including NPR, global warming, and how much we hate this administration. This is my "I'm a very liberal Democrat and I want to do something to change the world before it's too late" anthem.

4. David Arkenstone "Storm Cry"
Celtic music. I like to listen to this when I read any of my Celtic-themed fantasy books ("The Watchers Trilogy", "Chronicles of the Cheysuli"), or any story with really extensive world building. I don't know why I listen to Celtic for world-building, but this is one of the songs that I listen to when I want to think, when I want to write, when I want to lose myself in words. I do know why I listen to this song for that--it's completely instrumental, so there're no words to distract me from the picture the words in my head are building.
Also, the name of this song is appropriate for me.

5. Panic! at the Disco "Build God, Then We'll Talk"
Fuck, I love the name of this song. Steph bought me the Panic! CD for Giftmas, and a significant majority of the song's titles are tongue-in-cheek or blatantly sarcastic/provoking. If you look back through my entries since Giftmas, this song pops up in my "Music" entry more than any other--partly because I'm on a Panic! kick at the moment, and partly because really, Build God, Then We'll Talk. Is there a better song name out there on the planet for me?
I spent a really long time believing what my parents and teachers told me I was supposed to believe, until I suddenly didn't believe it anymore. And I've admittedly got a bit of a grudge against the Roman Catholic Church in particular and organized religion in general, and I like to argue with people who try to convert me.

6. Miranda Lambert "Mama, I'm All Right"
I've got two moms--Mom, the woman who gave birth to me, and Mommy, the woman I chose and who chose me. Mom doesn't understand me, a lot of the time, and it hurts me (a lot more than I let on) that she doesn't understand what I've been through, why I can't stand for her to treat me like I'm her little girl when she stopped paying attention when I was in junior high. And it's not that I want to hold it against her--I am aware that six years have passed since my junior high graduation, thanks--it's that she completely skipped the phase in my development that had the strongest influence on who I am today. It's like she's trying to force me into a pattern I don't fit, because she missed all the edge pieces and some of the middle pieces of my puzzle.
Mommy... I don't see her a lot. We have been known to not see eye to eye. But Mommy met me for the first time (this time) when I was already 15 years old. There's not such a huge difference in Laura at 15 and Laura at 20, and she's managed to keep up. She doesn't baby me--at all. I'm 20, I should be able to handle it, and she expects me to do so. She doesn't let me hide from anything, because that way lies madness. She's protected me, and she's taken care of me, though.

7. Everclear "White Men in Black Suits"
I am a loser geek, crazy with an evil streak. She is just a girl, she is doing what she can. She is such a pretty girl, happy in an ugly place, watching all the pretty people doing lots of ugly things.
This is my "You know what? I'm a little crazy. And if I can deal with it, then you can't give me any shit over it. It's all I can do to make it out alive, but I'm trying, and succeeding more often than not" general fuck you to the world. So I'm weird, kind of geeky, and I don't fit the image you held of me before (or maybe I fit perfectly into the slot you've made for me). I'm going to live the way I want to live, and you can stay along for the ride or not.

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd "Free Bird"
Why yes, I am from the South, however did you guess? Any playlist of mine would not be complete without Free Bird. It's a boat song, it's a Mr. Z song, it's a ME song. I've got such vivid memories of May of 2000, sitting in my desk by the window in Mr Z's room, my hand flying across the page as I kept pace with the guitar solo during freewriting time. I ended up with two and a half pages the first day he played this song during Journal time, my relatively neat handwriting degenerating into a hastily-dashed scrawl as the music flowed around me and the words came like there was a direct line from my thoughts to my pen. I can't even really articulate what this song means to me, just that there's so much of my life that's tied up with this song and with my memories of it.

9. Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright "Set the Fire to the Third Bar"
Slow, kind of sad, still beautiful. "You're beautiful when you cry" is what this song brings to mind right now. It makes me think of missing people, the people who made me whole not being here anymore, or never being here in the first place. In a distant way, it makes me think of looking for my soulmate: "I touch the place where I'd find your face." This song is gray, on the seldom occasions when I see sounds in color. It's winter bleeding into spring, when you still feel the bite of the wind every time you step outside. When snow and ice and rain are all equally likely on a given day.
This song is February, to me--lousy weather, stupid Valentine's Day, and Imbolc - one of the few bright points of the month for me. It's starting to see the sun through clouds, but knowing the clouds are still there.

10. Heather Alexander "Wind's Four Quarters"
There was a period during my junior year when I listened to this song all the time when I was on the computer downstairs; it's comforting, even though it's nothing like soothing. It's filk, too, so it tells a story at the same time as it's music. More specifically, it's filk written by Mercedes Lackey and sung by Heather Alexander, and it's a Shin'a'in prayer to the Goddess. If it weren't for the fact that it's a prayer to a fictional character, I would almost use it for myself. (Well, that, and I don't actually want my aching heart sheathed in ice, and don't think wishing death on my foes would be a productive avenue of prayer.)


So there you go. You may or may not have learned anything about me from the 10 random songs from my iPod, but I had fun in the process, so it's good enough for me.