I am roaring drunk with the lust of life...

My disability is not as such because I will not let it control me.
I need to cook and clean and function daily.
I will not let it hold me back.
I hike and ride and do everything I did before a doctor put a label on my pain.
Yes, I need to pace myself and recognize my limits, but I push them just a little because I won't be stopped.
I have too much to do in life to give in to a disability.
I have a challenge, yes, but we all do in some ways.
The universe doles out what we can take and it is up to us to grow.
I am drinking in that sunshine and reaching my roots out as far as I can.
Nothing and no one will stop me.

A dear friend from the redwoods, Pam, an amazingly spiritual Chilulua woman told me after 2 months of pondering that I am the mole. I can't see quite where my path is going but I have a drive to get there and I will keep digging and digging until I come out on top.

I sometimes forget my own strength and especially getting comfortable in couple-dom I was not paying as much attention to the fierce independent woman inside of me. Now I am finding a balance between the loving supportive girlfriend and the fiercely independent feminist. Both are elements of myself and can live in harmony, I am enjoying finding the balance. I feel the power of the redwoods here with me, their patience and wisdom and unrelenting will to survive.

When I have the money for large tattoos again I have two pieces that need to happen. My shoulder piece and tribute to Frida Kahlo and how she has been a guiding force for me, mexican flowers, a dove, butterflies, and a few thorns.

Secondly, on my thigh:



The Arco Giant.
My favorite tree in the redwoods happened to be less than 2 miles from my house. The Coast Redwood fascinates me because of its utter will to survive. I could go on for hours about the amazing adaptations it has developed over thousands of years. "Sequoia Sempervirens" translates to "One who lives forever" and they really do. They will not give up. The Arco Giant with all of its reiterations (think if you chopped off a finger and stem cells grew a new one) and over 1,200 years of experience in this world. Enchanting.

http://www.robmathiowetz.com/

Trust me.
Its great.

Post your tribulations, haha.

I need to go. Roadtrip? Who is with me? We have until May 18th to do it. I'm dead serious. This would mean the world to me.

Organized in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth, Frida Kahlo is the first major Kahlo exhibition in the United States in nearly fifteen years. It presents over forty of the artist's most important self-portraits, still lifes, and portraits from the beginning of her career in 1926 until her death in 1954.

The exhibition includes loans from over thirty private and institutional collections in the United States, Mexico, France, and Japan, several of which have never been on public view in the United States. Frida Kahlo also features a selection of nearly one hundred photographs of Kahlo and her husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, by preeminent international photographers of the period, such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Gisèle Freund, Tina Modotti, and Nickolas Muray. Personal snapshots of the artist with family and friends, including such cultural and political luminaries as André Breton and Leon Trotsky, are also on view. These photographs—several of which Kahlo inscribed with dedications, effaced with self-deprecating marks, or kissed, leaving a lipstick trace—pose fascinating questions about an artist who was both the consummate manufacturer of her own image and a captivating and willing photographic subject.



http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/278.html

For those of you who don't already know, there has been a strike scheduled for Friday, March 21st, 2008, during which we hope to have many members of LiveJournal provide LJ with absolutely no content for twenty-four hours. This means no posting and no commenting. If you post elsewhere and have it set up to be posted through a feed on LiveJournal, don't do it. Stay away from LiveJournal for twenty-four hours. That can't be too hard, can it? I know some of you are probably quite active on LiveJournal and will find it hard to stay away for an entire day, just as I will, but this is something that needs to be done, to show the people running LiveJournal that we're watching the changes they are making, that we're paying attention, that we're discontent, and that we want to be heard and taken in to consideration. We are not simply users who can be tossed to the side and ignored. We are the people who make up LiveJournal. Without us, without the content we create, without our words, our voices, our creativity, our participation, there would be no LiveJournal. This is a fact, and it needs to be realized and understood and then taken in to consideration when making decisions regarding the way that LiveJournal is run. The strike is only a few days away, so there isn't all too much time to prepare. While this is unfortunate, it isn't enough to keep this strike from taking place. It will take place, the second it is meant to, and it would be best to have as many people take part as possible. Please, spread the word. Spread it fast. There are only a few days to organize this. If you find that you care about LiveJournal or care about the people you interact with on LiveJournal or simply want it to remain a place where you can entertain yourself without constant censorship and money-hungry practices being thrown in without the consideration of those who use the service, act now. If you don't wish to spread the word, that is fine, but please: refrain from using LiveJournal on Friday, March 21st. Do something else for a change. It's for a good cause. (:

For background on this strike and why it is being held, please read the following posts:
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/394838.html
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395310.html

To find out exactly when the strike begins and ends, depending on where you are located, please see this:
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395125.html

What's this about?

* It's about free and ad-free LiveJournal accounts being abolished for new members, ignoring the advice from the newly-formed Advisory Board.
* It's about LJ staff trying to sneak this decision in under the radar, and when people found out, telling the users it was done 'to make the signup process less confusing'.
* It's about LJ staff failing to apologize for trying to hide the facts from view and for lying about the actual reasons for their actions.
* And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression. This decision was not announced or explained in any way. Users found out for themselves.


Taken from the journal of </a></b></a>m03m