Only/Just

The words "only" and "just" are incredibly similar. In fact, each shows up in the others definition. But don't let this fool you. In everyday American use, their connotations can change just about anything. I'll let you into my world...

I frequent Subway for lunch, and on my subs I particularly like to get a dressing. Lots of choices, I love it. Ranch, Mayo, Chipotle, whatever. Yeah, I even capitalize that shit. To be honest, I like just a little bit more dressing than normal, but not enough to sound greedy or excessive with an "extra Ranch" command to the Sandwich Artist. So after many days, weeks, and months of going after the perfect squeeze of sauce, I have not only figured out how to get my sandwich served just the way I like it, but I think I may have revealed something bigger.

When I would ask for "just Mayo," I'd get a quick one-liner squeeze from end to end, and maybe if I was lucky, a couple slight bends in the river. This was frustrating. I wanted more dressing, but didn't want to be that "more" kind of guy. This is Subway. Fast-food. You get what you ask for the first time.

So I started to try something new, something pretty "cool-guy" of me. I'd just say "yeah, Mayo" or simply "Mayo." Fail. Every single time. I'd end up with lettuce, tomatos, or something else unwanted as I wasn't specifying the singularity of my situation and SA's can't wait to to rock your sub. You should know this. I JUST want Mayo, but I don't want "just Mayo." It was awful.

But fear not friends, I have it! I've discovered my new strategy not only in Subway restaurants, but perhaps in social situations at large. "Only."

Q: "I only want Mayo."
A: Two or more "S"-swiggles of sauce from end to end. Every time! Perfection.

Saying "just" was totally demeaning "Mayo." It's like I was assaulting my sandwich as I would a Northside Chicagoan...

"You're just a Cubs fan."
"Just Mayo."

Get it? It's like you're knowingly not asking for much.

Saying "only" gave special, singular importance to "Mayo." The Sandwich Artist was like "Yeah, this guy is into Mayo, but doesn't want to rush things. A couple "s"-swiggles will do."

Try it out. Put it into everyday use. Dating? No problem. "You're my only one" will work 1,000% better than "I'm just with you." Regardless of whether it's intentional or not, someway, somehow, "only" has taken on a specific importance that "just" hasn't. In fact, "just" can even be confusing.

"I'm just 17."

Are you unhappy that you're 17? Did you just turn 17? Have a bunch of older friends? Be more specific, dammit!


"I'm only 17."

Loud and clear.

Fun on the 1

I take the 1 train to and from work. On occasion, the trains have to be put on hold for a period of time. During this time it's a mystery what happens. No one knows. Maybe Hillary does? I'm not sure... maybe they check the specs and ops and grind the gears a bit. Perhaps they mop that one car with the ice cream goo on the floor. In any case, a holding situation is always uncertain, and while it could only last 30 extra seconds, it could also be 10 or more minutes.

Today on my train ride home, upon reaching 96th St. (one stop before mine at 103rd) a hold ensued. When this happens, I'm faced with exactly two dilemmas.

The first dilemma - wait out the hold, or walk the extra seven blocks home. Typically, I wait it out. I have faith that whoever is mopping the floor or arresting the bad guys or shining the rims will finish promptly so we can continue on our way. Even when it takes a few minutes, it's not that awful sitting in an air conditioned train... unless...

Dilemma two - that eager older lady. Eager older lady is waiting at 96th St. on the edge of the tracks, an inch from the subway door as we screech to a halt. She can't wait to get in. No one has ever needed to get into a train as much as eager older lady does right now. Once the train stops and those doors open, get out of this lady's way. All bets are off. She's got some shit to do. Move people!

Now, eager older lady doesn't really get out of the way as people try to exit the train. Instead, she prefers displaying the good old third-base coach motion. The motion a coach gives when signaling for the base-runner to keep running around third base and go home. It never fails. You can almost hear her thinking... "Move your butt little kid, this lady needs to get uptown, now! Fuck you, mom with the stroller! Is my circular pointing motion not clear enough? Need I push your baby for you? Spoiled brat. We walked when we were babies." Eager older lady is now angry older lady.

Angry older lady didn't even know about dilemma one yet, either. Once safely two steps forward onto the train, angry older lady hears the news. This is the worst news she's ever heard, too. Angry older lady has become lady of fury. Lady of fury is now steaming hot. As red as the 1 train logo. She paces back and forth, on and off the train, then back again. "What do I look like? ... Trains are supposed to go... My cats... I've got grandkids.... I'm from Florida... I'm divorced..." lady of fury reasons to herself, victimizing her situation to help elevate her rage to the next level. Now, roughly 34 seconds into the holding pattern, lady of fury picks random train riders to confide in. She picks me. Staring me down, eyes locked with mine. "What is this bullshit?" she asks me. Do I respond, or was that hypothetical? I'm not sure what the bullshit is, really. No one is. I'm just sitting here. I could care less. I'll just look down.

Lady of fury leans out of the train door, now shouting something muffled at whoever is in charge of doing whatever is done on the holds. It sounds vulgar. Lady of fury is a train-hold terrorist, using all tactics to thwart it - oblivious to all around her. Lady of fury turns back into the train, again locking eyes with me. Her rage is absolutely unmatchable. But this time she's quiet. Eerily silent. At one with me. Just staring... fiercely. Lady of fury is trying to mind-ninja her fiery anger into my brain.

I'm walking.

Social Responsibility vs. Charity

A continual struggle within our organization centers around the fact that while our mission can be viewed as rather vague ("...contribute to the development of our communities with an overriding commitment to international understanding and cooperation."), the means by which we reach that end must very clearly be international work exchanges.

Generally speaking, members of our organization are very passionate individuals. Most every member likely has dozens of local, national, and world issues that they'd like to tackle... sometimes all at once. When spending so much of one's time dedicated to an organization, then, it's easy to see why these starry-eyed individuals would try to use that organization as a vessel for tackling such issues. And while at the surface this may seem quite natural and perhaps even brilliant given the visionary nature of our organization's mission, the problems it can cause become apparent once one penetrates that flossy gleam.

As John D. Harper said, "Business[es] should not go galloping off in all directions performing all kinds of good works at the expense of its primary function... We are not in business to compete with the Salvation Army. Charity for its own sake is, I hope, a private concern of each of us; it is not the task we are paid to perform." While our organization is far from Alcoa in nearly every respect, I believe that this 1967 quote from Harper really holds some weight.

Charity is voluntarily helping someone in need. Ideally, each and every one of us ought to be as charitable of people as we can afford to be. Unfortunately, given the non-profit nature of our organization, it is especially important that we remember Bill Cosby when he said "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." Spending our limited time and meager budget on ventures that stray from our direct mission is quite unhealthy, no matter how great the cause. In larger organizations and businesses, this may not be the case. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can donate millions without batting an eye. Face it, that's amazing! In order to achieve our mission, however, we cannot expend our limited resources on anything other than promoting and facilitating international work exchanges.

Responsibility is a word that gets thrown around often. Seriously, what would we do without it? Individuals have responsibilities to their family, friends, New Guinea singing dogs, etc. These are innate responsibilities. If a business wants to exist, they better function in a way that shows social responsibility. Our organization is very socially responsible. I would argue that we function in a way that not only causes no societal harm whatsoever, but I believe that we go even further and actually better those around us through our mission. Going 'above and beyond' is what the public expects of businesses today. Even established businesses are dropping the buzzwords. Wal-Mart is 'sustainable.' Lexus has 'gone green' with their hybrid models. Gone are the days of '61 Corvairs and companies sacrificing public welfare for greater profits (Lexus found a way around that one, though). Anyways, I've digressed.

Using international work exchanges to develop culturally aware and understanding young professionals is what our organization is responsible for. Our individual commitment to really go above and beyond - dedicating hours and days of our time, usually voluntarily - to make these exchanges happen is beneficial to each and every one of us, along with the world at large. However, the world does not hold our organization responsible for being charitable.

That's what all those culturally aware and understanding young professionals are for.

B double-E double-R U N

Some songs remind me of summertime.
Some videos make me smile.

Inspired

I've poured through this several times over the last few weeks. It's an absolute gem.

Steve Job's 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University


This particular quote really speaks to me:

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

Looking at my own life, I am able to see so perfectly what he is saying. Too often I'd been trying to "set up" a situation, so to speak, and rarely if ever does that work. Instead, now I just try to really live. To not turn down that last conversation of the night, to check out a random event just for the hell of it, to really push my comfort zone and most of all just remember that I only live once.

Laugh a Little

These are quotes by my favorite comedian, Demetri Martin. Enjoy... I promise you will.

• “I wonder what the most intelligent thing ever said was that started with the word ‘dude.’ ‘Dude, these are isotopes.’ ‘Dude, we removed your kidney. You’re gonna be fine.’ ‘Dude, I am so stoked to win this Nobel Prize. I just wanna thank Kevin, and Turtle, and all my homies.’”
• “I think that when you get dressed in the morning, sometimes you’re really making a decision about your behavior for the day. Like if you put on flipflops, you’re saying: ‘Hope I don’t get chased today.’ ‘Be nice to people in sneakers.’”
• “I saw a guy at a party wearing a leather jacket and I thought, ‘That is cool.’ But then I saw another guy wearing a leather vest and I thought, ‘That is not cool’. Then I figured it out: ‘Cool’ is all about leather sleeves.”
• “‘Sort of’ is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It’s just a filler. Sort of - it doesn’t really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after ‘I love you’ or ‘You’re going to live’ or ‘It’s a boy.’”"I was in a store and I saw a pocket dictionary and that made me laugh because it’s such…a specific item. I don’t know that many words and I’m going out…and I have pants. Perfect!”
• “When you have a fat friend there are no see-saws. Only catapults.”
• “I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appearing insane. Like, if someone just mailed you an apple you’d be like ‘Huh? What the hell is this?’, but if it’s in a fruit basket you’re like ‘This is nice!.’”
• “I feel stupid when I write the word banana. Its like, how many na’s are on this thing? ‘Cause I’m like ‘Bana … keep going. Bananana … damn.’
• “I like clothes, you know. I dig fabrics. One of my favorite clothing patterns is camouflage. Because when you’re in the woods it makes you blend in. But when you’re not it does just the opposite. It’s like, ‘Hey, there’s an asshole.’ But when you’re in the woods you’re like, ‘Is there an asshole out here?’ They look like trees.”
• “I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that’s 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says ‘go outside.’”
• “I like parties, but I don’t like piñatas because the pinata promotes violence against flamboyant animals. Hey, there’s a donkey with some pizzazz. Let’s kick its ass. What I’m trying to say is, don’t make the same Halloween costume mistake that I did.”
• “People and squirrels are very different. Most people will not argue that. But I find that there is one situation in which they’re very similar. And that is: when I am driving towards them in my car. Then they’re kind of hard to tell apart… Especially if the human is kind of hairy.”
• “Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I’m swimming, sometimes I’m not sure which one it is. I gotta go by the outfit. Pants - uh oh. Bathing suit - okay. Naked - we’ll see. Should I be swimming faster, or am I getting laid?”
• “Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is the same as saying ‘I apologize.’ Except at a funeral.”
• “They say that you can tell man apart from other animals by his ability to reason. I think you could also go by last names. What’s his name? Patches? Patches what? That’s a dog. Don’t waste my time.”
• “Some jokes are short and elegant, like a mathematical proof or a midget in a ballgown.”
• “One of my friends has a stutter and a lot of people think that’s a bad thing, but to me that’s just like starting certain words with a drum roll. That’s not an impediment, that’s suspense! What’s he going to say? Car?? …or Carnival?? …Carburetor!?!? Man…
• “The worst time to have a heart attack is during a game of charades.”
• “About a month ago I got a cactus. A week later, it died. I was really depressed because I was like ‘Damn! I am less nurturing than a desert.’ (Ladies, that’s not true)”
• “I like when good things happen to me, but I wait two weeks to tell anyone because I like to use the word ‘fortnight.’”
• “I like video games, but they’re really violent. I’d like to play a video game where you help the people who were shot in all the other games. It’d be called ‘Really Busy Hospital.’”
• “I think vests are all about protection. You know what I mean? Like a lifevest protects you from drowning and bulletproof vests protect you from getting shot and the sweatervest protects you from pretty girls. ‘Leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m cold just right here?’”
• “I went into a deli and got an egg sandwich and a hot chocolate. And then I went outside and I had to get a cab, so I had to put up one of my hands. But I already started eating my sandwich; I took it out of the bag, I was impatient. So my choice was hold up an egg sandwich or hold up a hot chocolate to get a car. So I chose the hot chocolate. And I put it up there and no cab stopped and I realized it was because I looked like I was toasting traffic. Standing on the street, ‘Here’s to you guys, to everybody heading west, I just wanna say I like what you do… but one of you needs to stop, pick me up.’”
• “I noticed that there are no B batteries. I think that’s to avoid confusion, cause if there were you wouldn’t know if someone was stuttering. ‘Yes, hello I’d like some b-batteries.’ ‘What kind?’ ‘B-batteries.’ ‘What kind?!?’ ‘B-batteries!!!’ and D-batteries that’s hard for foreigners. ‘Yes, I would like de batteries.’”
• “A drunk driver is very dangerous. So is a drunk backseat driver if he’s persuasive. ‘Dude make a left.’ ‘Those are trees…’ ‘Trust me.’
• “I like the beach. I like to get there really early before everyone else shows up and take like thirty bottles with notes in them and throw them into the water. Then I wait for everyone to come to the beach and when someone goes to pick up one of the bottles, I go up behind them because when they open it there’s a note saying ‘I’m standing right behind you.’”
• “I used to play sports. Then I realized you can buy trophies. Now I’m good at everything.”
• “I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. I didn’t want to waste it so I just wrote ‘Jesus’ on it.”
• “I was making pancakes the other day and a fly flew into the kitchen. And that’s when I realized that a spatula is a lot like a fly-swatter. And a crushed fly is a lot like a blueberry. And a roommate is a lot like a fly eater.”
• “I like sports; I like professional football. I like to get to the stadium and see the games live, you know. And I paint my chest before I leave the house. But I don’t have many friends, you know, so I usually just do punctuation and tack on a group already in progress. But sometimes it works out kind of weird because we ended up on TV one time and it said ‘JETS?’”
• “An easy way to sound like a creep is to add the word ‘ladies’ to the end of things you say. It can be harmless too, but it just makes you a creep. ‘Yeah after college I spent two years in the peace corps, ladies?’ The more harmless it is, the more of a creep you become. ‘I broke my arm. I need help, ladies?’”
• “My favorite fruit is grapes. Because with grapes, you always get another chance. ‘Cause, you know, if you have a crappy apple or a peach, you’re stuck with that crappy piece of fruit. But if you have a crappy grape, no problem - just move on to the next. ‘Grapes: The Fruit of Hope.’”
• “I went into a clothes store and a lady came up to me and said “if you need anything, I’m Jill”. I’ve never met anyone with a conditional identity before.”
• “The digital camera is a great invention because it allows us to reminisce. Instantly.”
• My friend Steve likes cats. People are always saying “Oh, Steve’s really a cat person”. No he’s not. If Steve were a cat person it’d be, like, “Hey, Steve never goes in the pool”.
• On same Daily Show episode, when asked about dangers of MySpace: “On the downside, it’s loaded with sexual predators. On the plus side, it’s also loaded with sexual prey.”
• If I ever saw an amputee getting hanged, I’d probably just start calling out letters.
• It was my friend’s birthday and I was mad at him, so I sent him a card. It said happy birthday, but I put quotes around the word “Happy”… sarcastic birthday, douchebag.
• I love women, but I feel like you can’t trust some of them. Some of them are liars, you know? Like I was in the park and I met this girl, she was cute and she had a dog. And I went up to her, we started talking. She told me her dog’s name. Then Í said, “Does he bite?”. She said “No.” And I said, “Oh yeah? Then how does he eat? … Liar.”
• I think it would be cool, if you were writing a ransom note in Microsoft Word, and it popped up, the paperclip and said, “It looks like you’re writing a ransom note… need some help? You should curse more.” The paperclip would be all messed up, you know? I never saw a paperclip with tattoos before.
• Graffiti… I don’t like graffiti, unless it teaches me something, you know? Like “Oh, that’s how Alex feels about Maria. I wouldn’t have known if I had not walked by there, thank you.” Graffiti’s the most passionate literature there is, you know? It’s always like “Bush sucks!”, “U2 Rocks!”. I want to make indifferent graffiti. “Toy Story 2 was okay!” “I like Sheryl as a friend, but I’m not sure about taking things further”, “This is a bridge!”, “That guy’s right!”
• If you have a pear shaped body, you should not wear pear colored clothes, or act juicy.
• I wonder what the word for dots looks like in braille.
• I don’t like when I go in a store and they call me “Boss.” “Hey boss, can I help you, boss?” When they call me boss, I go, “I got some bad news… I’m gonna have to let you go, but first bring me the earnings from the register for today. I’ll give you severance, and give me the rest.”
• I was in a shoe store and the guys call me boss, and I said, “Ya, can i just get those sneakers in a 10?” And uh, he said, “Okay” and then he went down stairs. He came back and he said, “I don’t have a 10, I have a 9.” “Oh great, because while you were downstairs, my toes were severed off. So that works out. Normally it would be stupid for you to tell me a number different than the one I said, ’cause it goes with my body part. But given my very recent accident, you’re right on. I’ll take the 9’s and a pile of band-aids, thank you. You’re re-hired ’cause you’re a genius.
• A quick way to start a conversation is to say something like “What’s your favorite color?” A quick way to end a conversation is to say something like “What’s your favorite color…person?”
• My friend had a burrito. The next day he said, “That burrito did not agree with me.” I was like, “Was the disagreement over whether or not you’d have diarrhea? Let me guess who won.” “I tried to reason with it, I insisted, you know. I was like, ‘I wanna go outside, I like these pants, but the burrito had his way.’”
• I’m excited to be here. I almost didn’t do this show, because I have certain requests in order to do a benefit show. And I said, “I’ll do the show, but I need giant gay icicles behind me or I can’t do it. I work with giant gay icicles or you can forget it.” It worked out, it’s cool, so they make me look cool and a little less gay than the icicles themselves. - melbourne comedy festival
• I heard this lady say “I love kids.” That’s nice, a little weird though. It’s like saying “I like people, for a little while.” “How old are you? 14? Fuck off!” You can say “I love kids” as a general statement, that’s fine. It’s when you get specific that you get in to trouble. “I love twelve-year-olds.”
• I was on the street. This guy waved to me, and he came up to me and said, “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.” And I said, “I am.”