I don’t wanna – do you Richard Armitage?

Yesterday I found myself wondering if Richard Armitage, industrious fellow that he is, ever finds things to do in order to avoid doing the one thing he really should be doing.  This was me the past few days.  The fall semester is over – all except the grading.  I graded two of my five classes on Tuesday (mild applause is fine 😉 ) and should have started the rest on Wednesday when I found that I had the house to myself.

I have the house to myself?!  Surely there is something better than grading to be done?  I thought to myself.  In truth, I will always look for something else to do when it comes to certain tasks…grading is one of them.  I would rather do just about anything rather than grade – ironic in that I keep assigning work that requires me to grade it!  Wednesday I decided to go through the boxes from the  bakers rack in my dining room that has been replaced an Art Deco buffet I found at a thrift store (lovingly refinished by Obscurus for my birthday)

My $40 investment..

While I was going through boxes, sorting, reorganizing, recycling and chucking, I was listening to music from a funk band I followed religiously from bar gig to bar gig (not an easy feat when one is dating a member of a different band!) when I was in college.   A college friend and I discovered that the band has posted a couple of their albums (they were never released on CD as far as I know) on soundcloud.com.  That music is an instant reminder of a time when life was a lot less complicated and unadulterated fun was pretty easy to come by.

Having found a task to divert me from actual work, and music to accompany it, I finished sorting the box of miscellaneous office supplies and dug into a box of books.  Among the textbooks, biographies and Little Golden Books I found, a photo album with pix documenting my first seasons of excavation.  In them I found a few pictures of a somewhat younger, tanner and blonder me in media res. Aha, proof positive that I am in fact an archaeologist!  (If you, by some wild coincidence, happen to recognize this site, and know who the RL me is, please do email me off blog so we can catch up without “blowing my cover”)

Position assumed…some dental pick type work…(note the extremely scientific dustpan to the right of my head)

For every hour spent digging, two are spent drawing and recording…(also a very technically advance plastic kitchen colander)

Ah, right…not me, but my very distracting trench mate. Dig romance – I cried the whole way home from Heathrow to O’Hare!  Parting is such sweet sorrow….

Sometimes the only way to get the job done is to get down in that hole…by the end of the season, that hole was so deep that no one could see me! (Yes, that is a red beach sand bucket)

It always surprises me how such a little thing, like finding some old pictures can have such a profound effect.  I really loved how, in his very welcome holiday letter to fans, Richard Armitage points out a similar idea – wishing those struggling simply, “a sense of peace for the day”.

Source: Guylty

Despite having developed a cold (I’m pretty sure the pharmacy clerk thinks I’m starting a meth lab) and still having a pile of grading to do (powers that be have extended deadline to Monday), I’m feeling pretty upbeat when I was in a bit of a funk.  So thanks Richard Armitage, for helping me “waste” some time that really needed to be wasted…and good luck with that gravy – it’s a personal nemesis of mine!