Standing Up by Sitting Down

Rosa Parks died yesterday at age 92. She is probably much more an icon of my parent's generation, yet I still remember with wide-eyed excitement first learning of her in a childhood social studies class. I remember the shock of learning that not giving up her bus seat to a white man led to her arrest and it opened my eyes to the tumultuous history of the civil rights struggle. As a child I held the naive view that "All men are created equal" was something our country had always believed and followed. Growing up meant surrendering that ideal to the truth that freedom isn't free and that for many, equality was earned through years of hardship and the blood of many great citizens. Reading today about the life of Rosa Parks, I'm awed most by her humility. She never believed that her actions were going to spark a movement as pivotal as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Although history books cast her as the hero of that cause, she would probably be the first to agree that the only reason it was a "success" was not her actions alone but rather the unity of those affected.

It got me reflecting on how often in life we try to implement change with 10% of the people doing 90% of the work. I can't even count how many service organizations operate within this paradigm. It's a model for getting things done, yes, but it's also a model for breeding exhaustion and feelings of futility of a cause. How much more effective could we be if - as in the bus boycotts, sit ins and other protests of the civil rights era - 100% of the people gave their 1% (walking instead of bus riding) and those able could give even more (their very lives for the cause)? Suddenly with this model 100% is the bare minimum of what can be accomplished.

Unfortunately in today's culture we have too many excuses for not serving others. Sure there are times and places to give. My church had an amazing response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Over three giant truck loads of supplies were donated by our community and shipped to a church in Baton Rouge for New Orleans evacuees. I don't want to in any way put down the generosity of those who contributed to the cause, but what would it be like if every week people bought a case of Dasani for strangers without drinkable water? Would we no longer have to hear about yellow fever in Malawi? Or if every month people would clean out their closets and donate unused clothing - could January's news not include a death toll from exposure on Chicago's cold streets?

Again, my heart congratulates and soars for those who gave to relief efforts for Tsunami victims and Hurricane Relief funds. I applaud and thank you but I also implore you: PLEASE keep up the good work.

"Anyone can be great because anyone can serve:

you only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love."

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

All pictures from MSN article linked above.

Here's another cool article about Rosa Parks if anyone's looking to go a little deeper into her life and faith.

Illini Vs. Penn State

Final Score: 10 - 63.

All I can say is OUCH!

Crack Squirrels!

Okay since I'm in the middle of a psychotic scarf down your lunch in less than 15 minutes if you want a chance to eat at all today I figure I deserve a quick break to put up a post. I got this article e-mailed to me from my brother today. It's about squirrels on crack... literally. I want to dedicate it to anyone who:

(a) Looks back at U of I with fond memory of Quad Squirrels

(b) Has ever engaged in "Peanut on a String" Squirrel Fishing

(c) Wanted to be a member of SAGE*

(d) Believed at one time or another that being devoured by squirrels was a punishment for being late to class

(e) Just needed something to laugh about on a Friday

Happy Friday and Happy Squirrel Fishing!

* SAGE is a wannabe club at U of I it's an acronym for Students Against the Gluttony of Squirrels (the E stands for "of Squirrels")

My Kind of English

Okay... two posts in one day (yeah, I'm an addict) but it's a slow day at work cause of some issues with antibody shipping so I thought I'd post this cause it's pretty funny. (I actually meant to post this yesterday but forgot to). Not sure how I live in Chicago Suburbia with 0% Midwestern speech - but does the Upper Midwesterner part prove my Minnesotan roots? You betcha!!

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

15% Upper Midwestern

15% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

The OTHER Chicago Marathon

Cancer is horrendous. I sometimes wonder why I work with such an abominable disease and I can barely explain how discouraging some of my experiments are right now. Sure maybe it's the essence of human nature to ask the pathetically rhetorical question "Why am I here?" but I think this is one of those days where I really do wonder why I do what I do. A friend of mine's relative just got diagnosed with lung cancer and as I look around my lab at work this morning part of me just wants to scream in frustration "WHAT IS THIS ALL FOR?" People are still getting sick and dying at alarmingly high rates. Am I really contributing to progress? Is it foolish of me to think that we will find a cure? Foolish - I dunno. Arrogant - maybe. Idealistic - definitely. But regardless, there's times where I just have to get real and face up to the doubts plaguing my mind. And then I have to doubt my doubts. I wanted to post an e-mail on here that I wrote a while ago. (Appropriately enough I wrote it two years ago to the week.) It's a good reminder for me - and hopefully a good insight for you - of why I love what I do. I suppose my frustrations are due to feeling like I'm actually in the thick of "the marathon". It's long, but a worthy read.

Friday, October 17th, 2003
Wow. Since you're all usually asking me "How's work going?", "Any progress?", "Didja cure cancer yet??", I figured I'd send out a little journal type summary of my work life at present. See, there's times when I just really love my job. No, we didn't cure Neuroblastoma yet but our whole lab group has been going to the AACR (American Association of Cancer Research) Special Topics Conference in Chicago this week on "New Directions in Angiogenesis Research" - and yes, I got my name on the abstract for a poster/reserach paper that's gonna be presented, but that's another story.

To translate out of "Scientese", Angiogenesis is basically the term for growth of new blood vessels - which studies have shown is necessary for tumor growth. [The theory is that for cancer cells to multiply they need to recieve nutrients from the blood and in order to continue to be "fed" as they get larger, new blood vessels need to grow.] One of the head researchers responsible for discovering and proving theories of angiogenesis is a guy from Harvard, Dr. Judah Folkman, who has been speaking at this conference. Anyways, there's a whole complex world of the past thirty years where different people have discovered different protiens and different genes (that are responsible for producing proteins) that either activate or inhibit angiogenesis - they either cause or prevent the growth of new blood vessels and thus, in most cases, cause or prevent the growth of tumors.

The latest and probably most encouraging studies about this stuff involve combining chemotherapy with drugs proven to be angiogenesis inhibitors. One of the presentors this morning shared evidence of a stage three (tumors with really bad prognoses) clinical trial where a drug called Avastin, when administered with chemotherapy, was shown to extend the lifespan of patients with colorectal cancers to an average of five months longer than with chemotherapy alone. It was pretty cool news to see evidence of, but the research got a lot of backlash. "What good is five months?", "Five months more of chemo, that's not such great news!", "Is this really significant?", etc. That's when Dr. Folkman stood up and said something really cool (I wrote it down so I could quote him) - "In 1903 the Wright brothers took the world's first trip in an airplane. It lasted twelve seconds and only went fourteen feet in the air. Everyone said that a flight of this magnitude would never be worth anything. Forty years later Linbergh flew across the Atlantic and sixty years later we flew a man to the moon. This - is a first step." It really put things in perspective. We can't discard progress just because it is small. Even baby steps in the right direction means we're moving forward! And it really makes me think that all the work we're doing really can make a difference. Cancer research is a marathon race, not a sprint.

So, yeah, sorry that got so long, but that's me and my work for now. I'm not going to go into all the details of the project I'm on cause it's pretty technical but I will say that more and more I'm confident that God put me where I'm at for a reason. People might think that there's not much glory in being a paid by the hour research tech but I love what I'm doing (and the people I work with!!) and who knows, todays twelve seconds could be tomorrow's trip to the moon!

Java Time!

Either I was right all along or there's just some truth to the idea that given enough time and money scientists and researchers will spend their lives contradicting each other. After years of getting a bad wrap for it's dehydrative and hyperactive side effects, my good friend coffee has turned from the dark side and is being hailed in a more attractive light. In fact it's now practically considered a health food.
According to a recent article in Forbes the antioxidants in coffee are loaded with health benefits and studies have linked coffee consumption to lowered rates of illnesses such as colon cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Type II diabetes, and heart disease. Of course there's the flip side from the American Dietetic Society saying that diabetics should avoid excess caffeine due to the effects it has on glucose metabolism, but on the whole everyone seems to agree that moderate (2-3 cups / day) consumption of coffee can be a major plus.

Score one for the caffeineaholics!

Crop Walk for World Hunger

This past Sunday Tony and I participated in the Naperville Crop Walk! There were over 600 participants from churches throughout the community. Here's the picture of us with the other volunteers from our church. (We're in the middle of the back row - the flags all say Community Christian Church and our shirts say CROPWALK). Our church alone raised $2365, $210 was from Team Guerrero. :) 25% of the money goes to local food banks like Loaves and Fishes and the Northern Illinois Food Bank and the rest goes to an organization called Church World Services which helps with hunger relief around the world. Most of our group did the 5K walk but Tony and I, along with our friend Jeanene from our small group and another woman we met named Char from the Romeoville campus, went the full 10K route (it's just under 7 miles and we finished in about two hours). Throughout the walk they had signs posted with notes about world hunger and global poverty issues. Some of the most striking facts were that every 30 seconds a child dies of Malaria and that the US spends 33 billion a year on weight loss and diet products but only 10 billion a year on foreign aid. It was a very eye-opening walk and here's a huge thank you to everyone who sponsored us!

TGIF!

Quick bit du jour:
Good thing I ride Metra to work cause I think Amtrak would've asked me to check the bags under my eyes this morning. Two thoughts for the day:

(1) Dang, I love coffee!

(2) Thank God it's Friday! [And I mean that in every literal sense of the phrase possible.]

peace out & enjoy the weekend!

Hats off to this Ohio State fan!

So this is a story I got in an e-mail about an OSU grad but I think all my Illini and MSU friends will get a kick out of it too. (And to any U of M readers... hope you have a good sense of humor).

A recent graduate of The Ohio State University moved to Dearborn, Michigan when she landed a great job with a company located there. After becoming a citizen of Michigan, she felt almost as if she had betrayed her Ohio background and ancestry. She had an apartment with a Michigan address, and she winced whenever she looked at her Michigan driver's license. When it came time to register her vehicle she had an idea. She'd get personalized plates and make things right.

The personalized license plate for her car arrived, and she beamed as she installed them. She was so proud she sent an instant message to her father right away. He too was a proud Ohio State alumnus.

"Daddy," she typed. "I'm so excited! I got new, personalized plates for my Mini today. They're University of Michigan plates!" "WHAT?" he replied. "You have to be joking!"

"Nope, I'm totally serious. Let me send you the image." Her father couldn't stop laughing after he viewed the picture of her car.

(Sorry the picture's a little fuzzy - I'm still learning - but you get the idea.)

Also I wanted to say that my last post was called Genesis because it was the begining. I couldn't think of anything creative to call it so I went with Genesis not to be confused with Geonosis because Genesis is the first book of the Bible where as Geonosis is the planet of freaky termite aliens in Star Wars Episode II.

Genesis

Okay. Let's pretend we're playing Pyramid here:

I say: The second coming of Christ... A good Illini football team... Less reality TV shows.... Christmas... Your next paycheck... Cubs baseball in October... A blog by lisa...

And you say: THINGS I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER FOR!!!!

All I have to say is you asked for it. From here on out let the randsanity begin.

Notes about naming:
Random + Insanity = Randsanity
Blog + Guerrero = Blogger Arrow

By the way I've never really blogged before (Duh!) so if this is majorly not worth reading I apologize. And eventually there will be pictures and hyperlinks and all that goody good stuff. Patience people. It'll happen. Think of this blog as a fine wine, it'll only get better with age.

But to start off my ponderings I noticed the other day that the cryogenic vials we use in the lab to store cells at -70 C and below are made by Nalgene. And we thought they only made water bottles! I mean, seriously folks, is there anything this company can't do? I think whoever started this technology has got to be pretty smart. In fact I'd even go so far as to call him or her a Nal-genius.

LoL#54: Multitasking while Multitasking

So I'm back. I know it's been a long time and for those of you that actually read these, sorry to disappoint. I don't know if I've just been overly busy lately or just uninspired, but work's been a bear so I haven't had much time to spew all my crazy ponderings into an e-mail for y'all. Not that today is much slower, but I tend to have these brief breaks throughout my day (waiting for centrifuges to spin, purification columns to drip, cells to plate, etc....) and I thought maybe I could string a bunch of breaks together to create something of a coherent e-mail. But before I continue I have to go warm up my cell media in the water bath. Be right back....

....Okay where was I.... Oh yeah I wanted to tell you all about my super spiffy trip to Washington D.C.!! It was way cool. Tony just changed jobs and he had a week vacation paid out from his old job so I took some time off and we went to visit his dad in DC. We spent most of the trip museum hopping which was quite convenient since there were no lines and everything was free. I'll give you the play by play of what we saw/did in one sentence but keep in mind this was over four days: Dulles Airport, Natural History Museum, President Bush (in his limo), Sculpture Garden, White House, US Treasury, White House Visitor Center, Washington Monument, Smithsonian Castle, rode the metro, coffee with Barack Obama & Dick Durbin (IL senators), Senate gallery tour, Botanic Gardens, Air & Space Museum, American History Museum, Chinatown, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Korean War Memorial, WWII Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington House, Air & Space Museum Annex, and back to Dulles Airport. It was an awesomely full trip! Now that things are more routine again - actually my centrifuge just beeped. Hold on....

Sorry. I'm purifying SPARC (it's a protein... 'nuff said) today which means every 20 minutes I have to add more PBS to the columns in the centrifuge. I'm also running a proliferation assay which requires a one hour incubation after adding reagents to my cells followed by two plate reader applications. And then I'm treating a different plate of cells with two different growth factors and eight dilutions of SPARC. As well as answering the phone, signing for packages, placing orders, refilling tips, checking on mice, etc. etc. etc. Hence (as you noticed from the title) I dedicate this LoL to all of you considered to be Masters of Multitasking!! But seriously, people, what's the deal with Multitasking anyway??? Doesn't it really just indicate that -

*phone call*

- we're all just overworked? That's what interviewers want these days is a "Multitasker" which basically means they want to hire the person who will do the most things at once. How crazy is that?!?!?? I'm certain that once upon a time it was quite acceptable and perhaps even applauded to compile a "To Do" list and methodically check off the items one by one, yet in this day and age we would call someone like that slow and inefficient. This is the Age of The Multitasker. And note we're not looking for Dualtaskers or Tritaskers, no we want MULTI!! The more the better! In fact even e-mail has thrived because I can send a message to all 43 of you with the click of a single button. But let's not stop there. Consider if you will a grand phenomenon known as The Lunch Meeting. No, you can't take precious time out of your work day to do something as mundane (and hopefully relaxing) as eating lunch. That would be a waste of time! Instead we need to -

*sorry had to show our new medical fellow where the syringes are kept*

- use that precious lunch hour for more business!! And then there's the more overlooked expanders of multitasking. Take for example voice mail. It's no longer good enough just to talk to someone on the phone. We need the capability to take someone ELSE'S call while we're talking. Or even worse is Call Waiting. When you utter that sweet little "Hold Please" aren't you basically just -

*centrifuge again*

- telling the person on the line that you'd rather be talking to someone else? And how about the brilliant invention that is the TiVo? Granted most people have some generic cable company provided DVR system but everyone calls them all TiVo's anyway. And I like how "TiVo" is suddenly an acceptable verb as in "I won't be home to watch Lost tonight, could you TiVo it for me?" That cracks me up. But I digress, the genius of this product is that you can tape one thing and watch something else. Even in something as purely leisurous as TV watching, we've found a way to multitask.

Anyhoo, I have a point here *shocking isn't it?* and I just remembered what it was. See, I was talking to a pastor friend of mine the other day about taking some time out from all the work I've been doing at church. I'm no longer going to be leading a small group of high school students and am transitioning into working more with the service ministry (where Tony and I are both involved) and working to get students involved with service projects. But I was telling him that I've been feeling spread too thin and that in trying to do too many things I wasn't giving my full heart to any of it. He told me very simply "Sometimes you just have to focus on One Thing." I laughed rather cynically considering all that typically goes on in my life and replied "Easier said than done." But rather than accept my attitude he came back with "Better done than regretted." I think I at first took his comment to mean that I should just have one ministry in my life but when I thought about all that I care about in life (family, friends, work, church, self, home, etc etc etc), two things came to mind: God and Finger Eleven.

Let me explain. There's a Finger Eleven song that came out sometime last year and it's called "One Thing" and the lyrics to the chorus are : "If I traded it all, If I gave it all away for one thing... Just for one thing. If I sorted it out, If I knew all about this one thing, Wouldn’t that be something?" And in thinking about those lyrics I realized that God should and needs to be my One Thing. All the rest can be better cared about if that first part is true. What would life look like if instead of trying to do a million things for the church I "traded it all" for making God my priority? How much calmer and less hurried could I be "If I sorted it out" and "If I knew all about" God and His plans for me? As the song says "Wouldn't that be something?" So maybe this is where the truth and the good side of Multitasking comes in. We need to start with our One Thing. With that in focus we can handle everything else that we need to deal with. And maybe that is easier said than done, but I'm certain it's better done than regretted.

Multitaskfully Yours,

lisa :)

p.s. For those newbies on the list, sorry if this failed to amuse you. My last e-mail was all about an annoying air freshener so you can check out the archive for something more entertaining if you like.

p.p.s. Here's the full lyrics of the song for anyone who cares:
Restless tonight cause I wasted the light
Between both these times I drew a really thin line
It’s nothing I planned and not that I can
But you should be mine across that line

If I traded it all, If I gave it all away for one thing...
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out, If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something?

I promise I might not walk on by
Maybe next time but not this time
Even though I know I don’t want to know
Yeah... I guess I know I just hate how it sounds

If I traded it all, If I gave it all away for one thing...
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out, If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something?

LoL#53: Attack of the Killer Uh... Mangos

*******
Disclaimer: I wrote this LoL last month and wasn't going to send it on the sheer fact that I think it's really pointless and stupid, but in cleaning out my e-mail, I found it in my drafts folder and decided that all my LoL's are kinda pointless and stupid and if nothing else some of you might find this one mildly entertaining. If you're bored, that is. Really, really bored.... ;)
*******

I bought an air freshener the other day. A seemingly everyday occurrence, yes? No. Well, at least not for me. That is, it should have been a mundane everyday occurrence, but keep in mind, this is The LoL. Here's the Story:

Now that it's summer Tony and I have been doing the whole patio grilling thing for dinner. I'm as much a fan as anyone of summertime burgers, dogs, and brats (said with a Chicago accent to rhyme with "cats") but there's the slight issue that cooking with charcoal leaves our condo with a resultant Mesquite fragrance known to last longer than the time it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop. This in itself would not be too extreme a problem except that I've also discovered the joys of Italian cooking. Since I never grew up eating much garlic (my mom's allergic) I've only recently learned how delicious it is to cook with and also how the scent of it could rival post-atomic-war-cockroaches in a longevity contest! Long story short, the problem was that our condo was starting to gain the constant scent of the remnants of a char grilled Italian restaurant. The solution seemed easy enough - buy an air freshener. But that's when the real attack began.

It started at Bath & Body Works. If by some freak accident of modern consumerism none of you have ever been in a B&BW store, chances are you still have your sense of smell. (Men are excluded from the "freak accident of modern consumerism" theory, it's a girly store - although I'm guessing plenty of you Xy-ers have shopped there too...) I was in their store last week and counted at least a dozen different fragrances which means that by today they probably have eighteen or twenty. How can one individual be expected to process that much olfactory information at one time??? I'm serious, they are incessant about coming up with more scents. They're probably the only business that's more psychotic about new product invention than the soft drink industry (Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper - does one drink really need five words in it's name?!??!). But regardless, my condo was suffering in it's aromas of burned vesuvio and somehow I thought that Bath & Body Works might solve the problem. It's there that I had my first encounter with the "RealEssence Mango Mandarin Wallflowers Continuous Home Fragrance Starter Kit" (No joke, that's what it's called!)

I plugged it in as soon as I got home.

At first things were nice. Small wafts of fruity scented air caressed my nose when I woke up in the morning... Images of mangoes on a tropical island paradise gently greeted me after work... But then... it got stronger. And Stronger. And Stronger! After a week it had a mind of it's own - I'd open the door to a full on fruity assault! It was out of control! Then I realized how sneaky the packaging had been by sandwiching "Continuous" into a string of cutesy advertising words to fool the unsuspecting buyer into overlooking the fact that once you bring this Gremlin of an air freshener into your house it's going to take over everything! So I did what any sensible person would do - I fought back! (Okay maybe the sensible people would just unplug it but I might not quite fit into the sensible category and besides, what actually happened makes for a better story.)

I cooked! And not just any normal cooking. I cooked Italian. With garlic. Fresh Garlic - minced AND sautéed. (Okay in all fairness, I wasn't actually crazy enough to cook for the sole purpose of trying to wage war against an air freshener, but I had a really good recipe for pasta with clams in a white wine sauce and it specifically called for fresh garlic minced and sautéed.) By the end of the night VICTORY WAS MINE!! Our condo was once again smelling like Italia! Garlic, oregano, olive oil, white wine - THE WORKS!

Little did I suspect Mango Mandarin was not going down without a fight. I don't remember which scent prevailed the following morning, but after work the next day I came home to the worst scent ever! A truce was reached that neither could be stronger so our entire condo smelled very much like... both. Try if you can to imagine Garlic Mango Italian Oranges. I don't know why people even try to describe scents because if I tried to tell you what Garlic Mango Italian Oranges smell like all I can say is, smelled like Garlic Mango Italian Oranges! In a word, it was BAD.

Open windows and the passage of time were all that cleared the warring aromas from their battlefield. Yet I wonder if that epic clash will ever truly be gone from my mind (supposedly sense of smell is most closely associated with memory and I don't see myslef forgetting the atrocity of that olfactory assault anytime soon). You'll all be relieved to know too that now that it's half empty, the RealEssence Mango Mandarin Wallflowers Continuous Home Fragrance Starter Kit is back to it's original light and non-overpowering fresh scent. And I still shop at Bath & Body. I really don't hate them or their products I just needed a randsane inspiration for my dramatic ravings and my explorations into the world of Sunless Tanning are a little too currently emabarassing to rant about just yet. 99% of this is just satiracal farce. So basically that's my disclaimer saying don't take me too seriously.


"RealEssence Mango Mandarin Wallflowers Continuous Home Fragrance Starter Kit"-fully Yours,

lisa :)


p.s. And the 1% that I actually meant to be serious involves my mom's garlic allergy, soft drink companies being obsessed with new products and the desire to always say "brats" like a true Dit-ka and Bears lovin' Chicagoan, (my friend).

LoL #52: Are you breathing?

It's stating the obvious to say that life moves pretty fast but those of us 80's children can immediately finish off that phrase Ferris Bueller style by saying that if we don't stop to look around once in a while it's true that we might miss it. I have to point this out because it has been over two months since my last LoL and I find myself torn between two arguing schools of thought that say "Sit down and write to your friends!" and the opposing "You don't have time for piling the boring details of your life into a schlock-filled e-mail that won't get read anyway!"

Neddless to say the former school won out and here I am back at the rambling again. Here's the downside though, I really don't have time for this. Somehow in the past couple years life sped up on me. I don't know how or why time does this but each year, month, week, day has seemed to pass in half the typically expected time lately! I almost feel like I steped into Steven King's Dark Tower series where "time is a face on the water" and it's constantly changing with every ripple life throws my way but before I go too abstract I want to talk about a song I heard on the radio the other day. The lyrics are poetic yet perfectly profound when they state:

"You can't jump the track
We're like cars on a cable
and life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
No one can find the rewind button now
So just cradle your head in your hands
And breathe. Just breathe."

I don't know if anyone else relates to this but there are no do-overs in life and there's an adequate analogy in the idea of an hourglass glued to the table. You can't flip it. Once the sands fall, that's it. And there is no rewind button. We're the VHS versus Beta generation but our lives don't run like that - in fact it seems often our only choices are play or fast forward. But what I like even more about the song is that it doesn't offer a protest that time slipping away from us is unfair or even a plea to make the most of the moments we have - instead there's just a simple instruction to breathe. Just breathe. It's so simple yet I found myself asking myself "Self, have you been breathing lately??"

I don't mean the literal breathing of course. I would be the nightly news's latest medical freak if I was writing e-mails sans oxygen. As cool as it could be to have Chopper Five come land on my lawn, I'm talking about breathing with my life instead of my lungs. It's the idea of having time out moments to reflect and enjoy each new experience in life. Instead of living the fast paced SSDD (same stuff, different day) lifestyle it's recognizing that no two days will ever be identical and each one has a flavor all its own and it's that variety that's meant to be please us. Some would call it living a life with margin. The same way we print out paper with blank spaces on the borders, we also need blank space in our life, so that things aren't overcrowded and if necessary there's room to add in more.

I like writing these LoL's. I think it's my way to stop and take a breath. To reflect and often laugh at whatever's been happening in my life. Yeah, most days are about the same. But then there's the ones where you make a fool of yourself on the train. (When it's a really busy evening sometimes the only available seats are on the stairwells and usually there's room enough for two people - one on the top part, one towards the bottom - and on one such busy day I approached a gentleman sitting on a lower stair and in my tongue tied no-seats-open flustered state I combined "Can I sit on the top stair?" and "Could I sit above you there?" and the question came out as "Could I sit on top of you there?" He looked pretty embarrassed to have me seemingly request his lap but then chuckled and allowed me access to the top step where I sat down and it occurred to me what exactly I had said.) Regardless of whether it's a routine day or an abnormal one, without breathing they'll all seem the same. Since it's almost St. Patty's day, too, I'll use an Irish-tinted metaphor to wrap up this idea. You'll never find the four leaf clover if all you see is a field of shamrocks.


Breathingfully Yours,

lisa :)

LoL #51: Hits and Mrs!

Hi! Hi!! HI!!!!!

Wow! It's been so long since I've had the time to write one of these I don't even know where to begin! (Actually the Christmas LoL still remains in my Drafts box unfinished and unsent... oops! Uhh.... Happy Belated Holidays!!!) But yeah the season kind of got away from me.... there was this whole wedding thing going on.... :)

[Gushing time: Yeah! I got married! The wedding was awesome - you can check out some of the pics if you want at geocities.com/lisawedding05 There's something really nuts about having gotten married on Dec. 31st too because you know that adjustment that comes with every January when you can't rember what year it is and you still write the old year on your checks? Well imagine that except I got a new year, address, phone number and NAME!!! Talk about mass confusion!! I'm a Guerrero - forever elbakerone but now with a new last name and place to live! Which reminds me for anyone who's missing the new addy it's ***edited for privacy*** new phone number's at the bottom in my sig file. But I'm not going to make any cheesy overly corny statements about the dramatic differences in my life now that I'm married a la "Marraige has taught me a whole new definition of the word love!!!" Puke puke gag and barf! That's so not me. Only thing I will say is that Tony remains a true best friend but now bears the title of husband as well! And I'll also say that Maui rocked my world. Go there. It's awesome. Enough said.]

But yeah now it's back to life *somewhat* as usual. I got majorly sick last weekend (thank you Chicago winter!) but I'm feeling better now except that lately I'm a ticking time bomb of static electricity. I don't know that those facts are at all related but when have I ever needed an excuse for a not so smooth transition? But yeah, about the static thing - it's really awful. I'm like the guy in Office Space who's been cruelly conditioned to hesitate before touching the door handle and have been shocking myself on anything and everything metallic that I contact in the lab, condo, car, bus or train. If there were some way to harness all this electricity I think I could make bigger headlines than the new Ford Escape Hybrid for my contributions towards the elimination of our country's dependance on fossil fuels.

On a totally unrelated note (oh sure act surprised) you all need to go see the movie Hotel Rowanda and you all need to take everyone you know to go see this movie too. It's one of the most powerful films I've seen in years and by ashamedly admitting how ignorant of world events I was in the 90's I'll say it's an eye-opener and deserves every Oscar it's nominated for (especially for acting! Don Cheadle: who knew?!?!???).

I guess I'll keep this breif for now since it's been so long since y'all have heard anything from me and you might have grown unaccustomed to my ramblings. Hope all is great with all of you and that your 2005 is off to a terriffic start!

Guerrerofully Yours,

lisa :)

LoL #50: It's Gold!

Why do they call it Ovaltine? The jar is round, the mug is round, they should call it ROUND-tine!
Or not.

Sorry. That's my random Seinfeld reference for those of you out there that understand why soup is not a meal and what that first line has to do with the subject of this LoL. And for those that are reading this and just going, "Huh???" all I have to say is "No soup for you!". Anyhoo, I made it to LoL#50!! So welcome I guess to the Golden LoL!!! (Actually this is pretty pathetic because had I stayed with this actually being a weekly thing I would be on #104 or something but that's kind of a scary thought so we'll just celebrate the first fifty and take it one rant at a time from here.)

It's Tuesday today and let me just state for the record that Monday gets a pretty bad rap because I highly aver that Tuesday mornings are hellishly worse. At least on the M-day you can roll into it with the thought of "Hey at least I got to sleep in yesterday". And by Wednesday the weekend is at least visible, but Tuesday it seems is without either saving grace.

Especially when you have Tuesdays like today when autumn's darkness does nothing to promote waking and the temperature outside is tragically barely approaching freezing. I've long believed that waking up is a process and not an event and it's days like today when that process takes considerably longer than it has any right to. So now is where you ask yourself, "Self, if lisa had such a hard time waking up, how did she possibly get to work early to write out this randomly pointless LoL?" The answer to that is as simple as it is delicious: Coffee.

I don't know who invented the stuff but it's pure liquid genius. I think I would've liked to have been there when someone started pulling beans off a plant and said "Hey maybe if we grind these suckers up, pour boiling water over 'em, .....add in some of that ground up cane plant ....and a little of that white stuff that came out 'o the cow... Whoooo-eeee! I think we got ourselves a drink!" Or maybe not but at the very least Juan Valdez should've won the Nobel Peace Prize decades ago.

In honor of my tribute to this hot caffeinated concoction I give you - both Good and Bad - The Top Ten Things That Could Never Have Happened Without Coffee: (Disclaimer: Okay so there's nothing accurate or scientifically correct about this list, it's just for amusement and yes, without coffee they all could have come about anyway. There is after all, such a thing as Mountain Dew)

(10) Travel Mugs - Now it might seem rather obvious that without coffee you wouldn't really need travel mugs but seriously, have you ever stopped to consider how many millions of dollars must be spent each year on the design and production of Travel Mugs? I think that - based on the uniqueness of colors, shapes, forms and the constant invention of newer and better temperature tolerant materials, plus the aerodynamics involved in spill proof, tip proof, scald proof, drink proof designs - the travel mug industry must have been birthed as an offshoot of Vogue meets NASA.

(9) Really Bad Commercials - I'm not trying to say that something as cruel as cramming Sarah Jessica Parker and Lenny Kravitz into thirty seconds of audio-visual tormentia is solely the fault of coffee but the execs over at GAP should at least have the courtesy to spare us from the type of psychedelic strutting your stuff in all our clothes will make you super cool propaganda that can drive anyone nuts. Either the producers of this half-minute trash have had way too much coffee and can't quite connect the common sense and action parts of their brains or they need a little bit more coffee to stop and think through such questions as "Why in the world would anyone layer eighteen tank tops when it's the middle of summer???"

(8) Toys 'R Us - Ah yes. The Happiest Place on Earth Where a Kid Can Be a Kid... Or is that the ShowBiz Pizza at DisneyWorld? Either way Chuck E. Cheese never stood a chance against Geoffrey the Giraffe. And Kay Bee? Don't even try! Toys 'R Us has to be the most caffeine and consumer and caffeinated-consumer inspired store ever to anchor the outskirts of the Fox Valley Mall. Toy stores were created with caffeine in mind and even now, I begrudgingly type this knowing that my keyboard can never give proper tribute to the backwards R sandwiched so elegantly between Toys and Us. Just don't go near there around Christmas time....

(7) Infomercials - Anyone who's seen a self-tanning accident with gaudy jewelry trying to sell you the world's most useless kitchen utensil at three in the morning knows exactly what I'm talking about. Coffee is certainly responsible because no decaf individual could possibly get that excited about a free tote bag and insomnia - caused by coffee - is the only reason an audience for these 90 minute flea markets even exists!

(6) Alternative Pop Music - Say what you want about the influence of Ecstasy and Mary Jane on today's rockin' youth I'm going to make a bold claim here that caffeine is responsible at least in part for the hyperactive nature of the rock videos that I've seen recently. I'm talking more about the Blink 182 crowd than the Brittney Backstreet waves of the early 2000's and I'll refrain from commenting on the irony of how a knock-off band like Good Charlotte makes it big with an anthem about not being like everyone else. (??!??!?) But with singers that speak quicker than senatorial spin doctors and can jump around more than a monkey on hot asphalt I honestly think caffeine must come into play somewhere.

(5) A Passing Grade On The Final Exam That You Didn't Study For Until 13 Hours Before The Test Began - That first late night cram session was probably how most of us got hooked on the delectable brew and all I can say is that from my experience, it was the start of a beautiful relationship!

(4) The Taster's Choice couple (and other psycho coffee commercial people) - Okay in all fairness I haven't seen the Taster's Choice couple around for the better part of the last twelve years but we can all look back with some fondness on the insanity of these ads. MAN: Darling, doesn't this coffee remind you of our vacation last summer? WOMAN: Oh yes, honey. You mean when we went to that sidewalk cafe in Paris? MAN: No that's what the Parisian Blend instant coffee reminds us of. This is the Swiss Chalet Roast. WOMAN: Oh you're right. Now that I taste it I definitely recall that hotel of ours in the Alps. MAN: Wasn't that a fun time? That great view of the mountains.... WOMAN: Hiking through the snow.... MAN: Fighting off that bear.... WOMAN: Using our last match to cauterize your massive skull wound.... MAN: Struggling with hypothermia after the search party found us.... WOMAN: And that really great coffee that they served when we were released from the hospital!! MAN & WOMAN: That was a great vacation! *kiss kiss kiss*

(3) My relationship with God - I had to throw in a serious one here because I know that some of the best Bible studies and most amazing things I've learned and taught about God and theology and Christian living have been in coffee shops and that's just cool. God and coffee - what can I say they make a great combo and are, in a nutshell, how I make it through the worst of my work days. ;)

(2) Astrophysics - I was reading this article in a science magazine about quantum physics versus the theory of relativity in trying to explain black holes and the potential for information to ever be released from them (what you thought I only read Dan Brown novels?!??) and it hit me just how deep astrophysics really is. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's one area of science that would vanish entirely - or at least cease to propagate - if not for the existence of caffeine. Not only is caffeine essential to getting your brain to work fast enough to follow the trains of thought from the great physicists of our time, but without caffeine none of us would stay awake long enough to even try.

(1) The LoL - It's long been assumed, stated, irrefutably proven that none of this insanity would ever be coming to you without the unbridled assistance of massive doses of caffeine. So if you like what you read, thank coffee, if you wish for my prolonged periods of incommunication, blame coffee. Regardless, you should drink coffee because you just never know what it will inspire next.

Cofeefully Yours,

lisa :)