druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (Default)
After 6 months of unemployment, I might finally have a job again. This would be a temp, possibly temp-to-hire, position back at the moving company I was with before I got laid off. Now that they're fixing some of the financial issues caused by previous mismanagement, they're discovering money to bring someone back to the office part time. If they win some of the big logistics projects they've bid on, the position could become a full time permanent position. The best part is that, since it's still part time, I'd still be eligible for supplemental unemployment insurance, I might be eligible to apply for medicaid (no benefits with a new job AND I don't have any loans in default anymore), and I can start putting aside money to deal with some health stuff (starting with my teeth, I need to go to the dentist urgently and having no money or insurance to see a dentist is starting to show).

Today was absolutely beautiful--the weather was warm, the sun was shining, tomorrow my sisters are visiting on the deck, and even though I got eaten alive by mosquitoes while I was talking to Jay on the phone, it was still gorgeous outside and felt so good to be out of the house even a little bit.

Please let this be the start of a turnaround for my life. Please. Please. Please.
druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (Wicked)
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!
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druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (Default)
2. Beliefs - The Threefold Rule

In essence, the Threefold Rule is the belief that whatever good or harm you do in this life will come back to you three times (either in intensity or quantity). It's often linked to the most frequently quoted stanza of The Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do as thou wilt." ["An" is an archaic word meaning "if," not a shortening of "and."]

My first teacher actually taught my soulsister and I that what we do comes back tenfol, which is a good rule when you're teaching teenagers (who see the world in black and white, for the most part) about ethical use of their abilities--abilities which give them an advantage other people can't always match. If you arrange for the bully to be struck by lightning, that will come back on you ten times worse; it's an effective deterrent.

However, "do no harm" is a bit less than totally practical, especially that as preached by the bunnies, who take "do no harm" to mean "you're not allowed to hurt anybody or anything, ever, for any reason"; who believe that extends to "you can only defend yourself insofar as you don't hurt your attacker." That sort of belief leaves no ro for punishment, which is vital to a healthy community: wrongdoers must be punished, and punishment hurts. It leaves no room for following the discipline of darker gods; my religion isn't all sunshine and rainbows--I worship Brigid, yes, but I also give honor to the Morrigan, and the Lady of Ravens and Wolves is a goddess of death and battle as much as or more than she's a fertility symbol. My guideline is essentially "Do no unnecessary harm." Wrongdoers must be punished and brought to justice, and sometimes justice comes at my hand or gifts. The territory, den, and pack must be defended, and I'm a wolf; sometimes the best defense is to be the last one standing.
druidspell: With enough coffee, I could rule the world. (Coffee)
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. )

*beams*

Tuesday, 14 April 2009 08:59
druidspell: Dreamsheep (Dreamwidth)
So I'm still sick and not feeling awesome, and I got to work a little less than 2 hours early today, but when I checked my email today, I had an email from Dreamwidth Studios telling me that my email address had been pulled from the "set and verified OpenID login email" pool, and now I have a Dreamwidth account!! *grins happily* You can find me at druidspell.dreamwidth.org, although for now nothing's there. *does a happy dance* Yay yay yay yay yay!
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(no subject)

Monday, 13 April 2009 09:45
druidspell: WHOA. He touched the butt. (From Finding Nemo) (Whoa)
Amazon Rank

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.)
druidspell: Never give anyone to the monsters. It's a rule. (Monsters)
I ought to be at work today, right now. However, I threw up at work yesterday, and have thrown up 3 times since I woke up at 8:15. Today is not a good day, by any stretch of the definition. What gets to me most, though, isn't that I'm sick; what gets me is that by calling off, I've put my boss in a bad spot as far as staffing the restaurant goes, and I hate disappointing him.

But since I am stuck here at home, I'm going to type this up.

Fact: I do not have many friends of color--at least not that I've met in person. Over the internet, I try not to make assumptions about things like color (or gender or sexual orientation or anything else). But in meatspace, I don't have many friends with a higher melanin content than me. I don't seek to avoid people; I'm more than willing to make conversation and get to know anyone who's willing to make conversation and get to know me. I grew up in an area with a lot of white people, I went to a small private Catholic school in both grade and high school, and there weren't a lot of PoC in my area for me to know. When I was in sixth grade (the only year she was at my school), Elisabeth was one of my best friends, and was from Paraguay. When I was in fifth grade, I decided I didn't like Brittany--not because of her skin color, but because my best friend chose her over me.
I don't have enough emotional spoons in my possession to waste my hatred on people who haven't personally harmed me and mine, so I've never comprehended things like racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. That doesn't mean that I haven't internalized the -isms and phobias of the people around me, but I work hard to make sure that I don't act or think things that reflect whatever hatreds I've internalized. I AM voting for Senator Obama for president on November 4, and I hope like hell that Biden doesn't end up making decisions for this country--of all the running mates in the WORLD, I don't know why BIDEN of all people, but whatever, hopefully he's going to be able to deflect some of the crazy coming from the McCain camp.

The essential change I mention up in my subject line is this.
I try not to be a bigoted asshat. I try really hard.
But I think there must be something about me that gives the impression that it's okay to be a bigoted asshat around me, and as soon as I find out what that thing is, I'm KILLING IT. Because it is NOT OKAY WITH ME to do things like, for instance, telling me racist jokes and EXPECTING ME TO LAUGH. It is NOT OKAY to try and make me be complicit in your asshattery, and I'm motherfucking TIRED OF IT.

Please feel free to tell me what it is about me that makes people think that it won't bother me to be made complicit in other people's racist/sexist/classist/homophobic attitudes. I need to know, or I can't change it, because I don't want to be the person who attracts the asshats.

*glee*

Thursday, 28 February 2008 17:04
druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (Default)
Okay, so. Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite filkers out there. She has a livejournal ([livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] 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.
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druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (01)
Before I begin, I would just like to thank Stefanie for alerting me to the fact that the University of Minnesota's mascot is the Golden Gopher; [livejournal.com profile] minervacat for writing the wonderfully entertaining story "Steal the Thunder from the Sky" in which the Golden Gophers were mentioned and beloved by Jack O'Neill; [livejournal.com profile] duchesspariah for celebrating with me; and God, for granting the prayers of all the True Blue UK Wildcat fans.


Tubby Smith, the head coach of the University of Kentucky men's basketball team for the last 9 seasons, has accepted the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota. Orlando "Tubby" Smith was the assistant coach under Rick Pitino, and led the Wildcats to an NCAA basketball championship in 1998. The Comeback Cats beat Utah after a double-digit deficit going into halftime. Most of these players were recruited by former UK head coach Rick Pitino.
This was the last championship title we won while under Tubby's coaching.
We have now spent the longest amount of time the program has ever gone without a Final Four appearance. But now, the winds of change, they are a-blowin, and a breath of life is once more blowing through the Cats fans who have despaired at ever getting rid of Ten Loss Tubby.
Free at last, free at last, thank GOD ALMIGHTY, WE ARE FREE AT LAST!!

Ha ha, Gophers. SUCKERS!! Have fun shelling out $2.5 million a year to a man who hasn't brought the winningest team in the nation to the Final Four in the last 9 years.


I pretty much knew he was leaving after our second-round tournament matchup against Kansas. Tubby's m.o. before that game had been to pace up and down the court, yelling at and encouraging his players. He'd strip off his jacket, yank his tie to half-mast, and run frustrated fingers through his hair, in an effort to will his players to win when we were doing poorly, and to keep them going strong when we were ahead. (It didn't work, usually; during the '06-'07 season, the Cats became masters at the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.)
However, when playing Kansas, Tubby sat sedately in his chair. No pacing, no visible frustration, the jacket stayed on and the hair and tie stayed neat. He was either planning to leave, or commit suicide-by-proxy when legions of UK fans killed him for the disgrace of not even trying to coach his players to victory during the NCAA tournament.

But now, he will stop bringing shame to the Wildcat legacy. And it is shame, have no doubt. UK basketball has one of the proudest traditions of winning, of being a national powerhouse, especially in the Southeastern Conference. And having established this tradition, it is not uncalled for that the fans expect our coaches to continue to uphold our tradition of excellence. The fact that Tubby has not held up his end of the bargain he entered into with the fans at the end of the 2005-2006 season ("We'll never have another season like this one"--13 regular season losses in '05-'06; we lost 12 in the 2006-2007 season. Woo. Big improvement there.) is the reason that UK fans will be celebrating Minnesota's new head coach.
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druidspell: Wicked girls saving ourselves (Default)
Because I just finished reading [livejournal.com profile] 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"
[livejournal.com profile] 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.
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