I'm July

Here's what I think:

The continuation of the Ivy League tradition into a high-level, well-paid job is not dissimilar from the transition from high school into an Ivy League college. When you first arrive, you are all nervous and don't know what's going to happen, but within a short amount of time you are so bombarded with fun events and pre-planned social outings that you can't help but meet new people and feel comfortable where you are at. Going through life in an incubation unit is very easy for those who have money or talent.

I'd be curious to know what it is like to actually have a difficult time with most of my life. I've been blessed with a loving family, financial solvency, academic ability, and numerous extraordinary companions that have helped me throughout my life. Sometimes even the absence of problems, in the serious sense, in my own life is enough the provide the salve on the wound of someone else.

I found it a little difficult to come out of college without some sort of a complex. I was surrounded by brilliant kids from all over the world who were working their hardest to become doctors, Ph.D's, lawyers, bankers, or what have you. The world felt dull in comparison. However, it is horrendous of me to undervalue life experience from people who haven't had the same experiences that I have. I don't understand why it is so difficult for me to not do this.

It's weird. I want my wife to be smarter than me, to understand poetry and literature in ways that I never could, and to have the ability to make me look like an intellectual ignoramus (something I am from time to time). While hopefully she won't do this regularly, it is certain that she must have this ability. I need someone smarter than me to teach me humility, and to find intellectual sparks in the ever loneliest of souls.

I'm Pottery.

Good evening.

I write to you from Washington Heights, not the Westin, where my parents are staying. It's just more fun to stay with my brother, because he's as nerdy as I am.

I am doing well. I got to see Kaegan last night, we went to a dive Irish bar called McGee's and I got some Magner's Cider, which was quite delicious. It's good to catch up with friends. I also got to see Matt and Pamela, which was good. My cousin came to NY today, because he is, according to Cosmopolitan, "The Most Eligible Bachelor in North Dakota". Good work Jesse.

I have been working for a professor since coming back to the States, doing database and catalog work for a huge dig in north Jordan. It's called the Dhiban project, and you better believe I'm going to get written up when the project comes out.

Life is really good. I'm friends with my ex-girlfriend again, which is pretty nice. I definitely feel so much better about myself when I have mostly good relationships with my locale. Loose ends where your relationship is left in disarray just bother me, and leave me restless.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going to be in 3 months, but once again that is the beauty of life, and I really shouldn't be fretting. Philadelphia is a great city, but I recently rediscovered New York when I hung out south of Houston a couple days ago. That was really neat, and I would definitely come to love NY if I moved here. San Francisco and other cities seem like options as well, so I'm not trying to move too quickly.

Josh is moving to London, which is a happy and sad thing as the same time for me. I'm very pumped that he is doing what he wants to deep down, which is to have a new experience and be outside of his comfort zone in a new place. However, of course I'm going to miss the heck out of him and really wish he was back here, grooving along with me.

This is a standard post, but I'm not really feeling any sort of revelation right now. That's okay. I don't always need to be discovering great secrets of the world, although its nice to have them pass through me every once in awhile.

I want to:

Read some books this summer
Buy a loop pedal and maybe some other gear
Perform a show with said loop pedal
Find a job
Get healthy and go running often

That's my short to-do-list. We will see what happens in the meantime...

Ahhhhhh

I am home.

Hello Philadelphia.

A more centralized collection of my thoughts

"We all well know, we are gonna reap what we sow, we all well know, what crops are gonna grow"

- Aaron Weiss

It's June 6th, 2009. I have graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (finally), and I am taking a trip to Europe with some of my best friends. I am 22 years old, single, with no job, with a multitude of interests with the widest paths ahead of me. Two of my closest friends are far away (North Dakota & London soon), and I'm about to be "left" in some ways in Philadelphia. It's weird how context matters so much for personality, the way that a different persona surfaces depending on who exists presently in the situation.

What's the ideal world for me? Sometimes I think that that answer is simple: writing music I like and being generous to my friends, family, God, and the world with everything that I have. However there are too many factors to just answer it and go (supposedly). I have the most pragmatic undergraduate degree in existence, which entitles me to far beyond my deserving share of resources, opportunity, and social status.

But who cares? The people I'm closest to would think the exact same of me if I went to a community college, or no college at all. The people I'm closest to are college drop-outs, graphic designers, nursing home attendants, trapped Fargoans, church workers, etc. What do I long for? There is no value is scenes, unless it's a scene of my friends that I'm close to. Pi Lam was so hilarious during my two-year stint there for that very reason. There were all these people that drew social ladders and lines that ended up just being noise, and then there were my true friends, who loved to hang out and have an amazing time.

I've had a good amount of time to think while I'm here. While I've dated many people, it's probable that the only two relationships I could've given myself wholly to I've royally screwed over and have probably lost for good. Yet I can't really look back with significant regret, because I did what I had to, and I was motivated by so much more than some paltry personal decision. It's really frustrating being in Europe, at 22, and seeing nearly every young man with a young woman (or sometimes, in rare cases and countries, another young man), and being happy as all get out. I am admittedly lonely, and still not settling for insignificant relationships and fleeting opportunities that are more based on selfishness than anything else. However, this does not detract from the significant appeal of putting my best leg forward and impressing someone for an evening. It's sad to consider that my self-confidence would temporarily be boosted if I decided that some girl was worth impressing, and then sufficiently impressed her for a day or two while on this journey.

It does not help that I have no central location of worship, and difficulty in my consideration of God. While I do not believe that a bunch of random people somewhere who all believe the same thing should have any effect on my spiritual journey, I must say that it is easier to feel God when you worship weekly, which I have not done for some time.

Joshua Veit, John Bninski and I decided to attend part of a Catholic Mass today that was sung. I believe I have written about my love for Gregorian chant before. It was marvelous, the great hall of the Catedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore echoing with Italian priests and devout Catholics singing. It was a 5:15 PM mass, and despite being a tourist attraction remarkably unattended. There were maybe fifty people in church that evening. The organ sounded and the mass was sung over it. I do not know what part of the mass we walked in on, nor which arrangement of the mass we heard, but it was just immobilizing, the texture of the music causing me to feel small and very mortal and indelicate.

I'm eager to return to Philadelphia. Not just to "get on" with my life, but because I generally hate transitional phases. I long for a community of people that I can invest in and that can invest in me for not just a short period of time. A "last hurrah" has fleeting value for me, because I gain so much from continuity and the exploration of it. I think this is the value I attribute to finding the person that I will be in love with for the rest of my life. I am going to experience so much and understand so much of the world, but of what value is that if it just me? Surely I will tell my friends and family of my exploits, but there's such a ridiculous pull to having a closest friend also be your romantic lover. I could've taken a boat around Venice (I didn't) with my friends here, and it would have remained a platonic endeavor. However if it were she and I, it would most definitely transform into something more significant. Perhaps this significance is personal generation, after years of American culture programming, but who cares? I value this thing, therefore I am not ashamed of admitting desire for it.

I've prayed about this quite a bit, and it appears that more patience is required on my end. This is not an unlikely scenario, so I have resolved to make the best use of my time until she gets here (haha).

However I do not take my situation for granted. I am as free as anyone has ever been, ever. My contemporaries are the 49ers (real ones, not the football team), christopher columbus, Marco Polo, James Cook, etc. I am free to sail any direction I so choose, which is actually a power that is probably vested in me for some sort of reason. But how do I choose?

The first steps of my choice begin in approximately four days. Here we go.