2002-06-17 - 8:40 p.m.
Bright earlymorning sunshine during periods of sleep deprivation results in the feeling I’m rolling, I’ve found since my first year. That effect was in full force today after I arrived in Annapolis at 7:40 a.m., with the start time for the dig pushed back an hour to eight while I received only four hours of sleep. The day actually began in the Archaeology Lab at the William Paca Garden, and when I looked out the big glass windows overlooking a subsection of the garden, the flowers of a particular oversized bush were more bright than I’ve seen any color in a long time, and the wood of the buildings was more rich, and the faces of the people more enthusiastic.
Then we discussed the archaeology readings that I didn’t do. Such is my life. Thankfully, the Associate Director was so inept that he could barely lead the discussion. I real future Dr. Harvey. Then we went up to the conference room in the basement of the Paca house for a two-hour lecture on artifact identification from “sweet-pea,” as the mostly-female unit group has dubbed the non-Marxist TA.
At lunch, I separated from the group to deposit a check my mother had sent me into my bank, which had a Historic Annapolis branch in downtown. As I walked through the historic district by the harbor, the sun was at its apex, the American and Maryland flags were flying in a high breeze, the tourists were on the brick sidewalks, the bay was full of yachts, and helicopters from the naval academy were flying in formation overhead. Inside the bank, the décor was 18th century, and when I deposited the check, I checked the balance on the account my mother set up for me. It had an astronomical balance, that I could live off of for a year, and the clerk accidentally checked the account I can’t access first, which had a balance many times that of the first. Mother also just sent me a new Platinum credit card, which she will pay for and earn frequent-flier miles on. More on a later occasion concerning my identity transformation to an upper-middle class rich kid with money to burn, and the circumstances and implications of that. For lunch, we sat by the dock and made fun of rich people on their yachts, and I had a honey, almonds, and Brie sandwich that actually cost only somewhat more than a big mac but was probably a lot more healthy. Not to mention opulent.
Anyway, then it was across the (small Annapolis) bay to our site, where I was assigned the task of digging test pits. One foot wide, two feet deep, every three feet along a line that stretched 45 feet, with hauling and sifting of the dirt, measurements of the hole and color coding of the soil.
When I got back to College Park, I was exhausted and hungry, so I took my roommate up on a previous offer to order Chinese. We ate Chinese food while watching The Simpsons until I couldn’t fit any more food into me.
It wasn’t until I stepped outside the dorm room and the sun fell directly on my again that I was overcome with waves of euphoria. Yet even after one, incredibly perfect and contented day, I feel a stab of something. Not just the feeling that my problems, new and old, will catch up with me again. No, what’s gnawing me is the vague feeling that my past and future unhappiness is inextricably caught up in what’s producing these ecstatic feelings now.
After standing in the middle of the courtyard and letting the euphoria reverberate though me for a few moments, I decided to go for a walk, and did so through the huge University of Maryland campus, which has fields as big as the New College campus. I ended up in the library, where I checked out a book that I once was obsessed with, but had not glanced at for years, and today had a new urge to read again: The Great Gatsby. When I first read it, it was about love. Now, I think, it will be about money.
