This post is #15 in a series of 50 dedicated to the art and life of writing, in support of the 50 for 50 Project to benefit WriteGirl. If you like it, or if you think it could have been improved by a better writing education for its author, please give generously. And pass it on.

Joy is all well and good in its way, but there are plenty of days when life is just a piece of shit.

The client rejects your proposal. The hard drive crashes. The post you worked on for days languishes unnoticed.

The check bounces, the sentences won't come together, the dog rips out the neighbor's flower bed. The letter comes back unopened. The mammogram comes back with a shadow. The migraine comes back, period.

Or, you know, the bottom drops out of the economy. Again.

Here's the deal, as I see it: we are here to live our damned lives until we are not, with no idea of when "not" is coming. The bus that is 20 minutes late to get you to a job interview could be fifty years early for the cyclist who swerves to avoid hitting a pedestrian and ends up suddenly ending. So it is incumbent upon us to really and truly LIVE those damned days, every last one of them, even the shit ones.

This can be a tough slog. Some days, resignation is all I can muster. But most days, I choose also to laugh at something, even if I'm the only thing handy. I choose to let things be messy and imperfect. (HIGHLY reluctantly, but whatever.) I choose to surround myself with things that comfort and soothe and amuse and bolster.

You have to have a calendar; why not have one by an amazing artist, or three, for that matter, so that whenever you look up to find a date, you're reminded of the beauty in the world?

You have to have walls; why not have art hanging there that inspires you?

You have to have a motto, well, actually, you don't. But if you were casting about for a good one, and you had a slightly black and perverse sense of humor, you could do worse than "Push the cocksucking boulder up the motherfucking hill." It's catchy. It works in march-like, 2/4 time. It has swears.

Which is why, when I approached the legendary Bee Franck to ask whether she would kindly contribute a desktop wallpaper to the 50-for-50 Project to benefit WriteGirl, I suggested she illustrate this sturdy and useful motto. And I guess it must have resonated with her, because immediately, she offered not only to do that, but:

to create a cross-stitch pattern for the crafters (see illustration at the top of this post)
to stitch one up herself with her own two hands
to donate it, framed and shipped, to the cause!

Bee finished it this weekend and now one lucky bidder can be the owner of this magnificent work of inspirational art:

So. Let's recap. Need some personal bolstering in a world falling to pieces? You can...

Contribute $10 and receive Bee Franck's custom "The Boulder" cross-stitch pattern, to make your own
Contribute $15 and receive Bee Franck's "The Boulder" digital wallpaper, along with similar (yet completely different!) works of digital desktop art by some of my favorite artists and designers
Bid on the ONE-OF-A-KIND original, lovingly stitched and framed by Bee herself

(And of course, you can sing along with the song anytime you want for FREE!)

Remember, as bad as the world you're dealing with is right now, the one we're handing off to the next generation is probably going to be worse. Just sayin'! WriteGirl is helping turn amazing high school girls into the strong, confident, awesome women leaders we're all going to need tomorrow. Give what you can to help them and we'll all be better off for it.

Excelsior!

xxx c