living in the present.

Looking back on the previous post, it seems kind of down and not like me at all.  So I am back to my non-introspective self.  Hello!

Really cool building on ASU's campus. (Coor Hall)

I had a terrific day today.  My classes were really interesting.  We were discussing labor in my Culture of Objects class.  The Marxist idea of invisible labor is compelling, that the products that we consume no longer bear the marks of the labor that made it.  Like my new MacBook, it is beautiful, but I have no idea who made it or how many people worked on it, how many pieces are part of it, the story of its labor is invisible.

As a craftsperson, I find that I am drawn to objects that you can still see or feel the marks of the artist.  Even a mass produced item like a baseball bat, you know that a person stood in front of a lathe while the piece of wood was turned into a bat.  The process is still visible.

thinking about the past...

Me with Susan and Rob sometime in the early 80s.  Note the Elvis Costello button on my jacket.  Also, look at the "Mad Men" green on the wall at my grandmother's house!  This is what I was renovating this summer.

This late summer I have been spending some time thinking about the past and the people that used to inhabit my world.  It has been interesting to reconnect with old classmates and visit the high school.  I am usually not an introspective person, but these past few weeks I have been turned inward.

I went to a private Catholic high school.  It was a regular high school building (no air conditioning) when I went there at the end of the 1970s.  Now it is remodeled, updated.  It seems to be too focused on the athletic side of education, though I did not tour the classrooms, but physically with the new gym facilities it is sports heavy.  I know that it is economically good to have good sports teams.  It is what the community sees as Kapaun, but I hate to think that is all it is or what they are striving for.

I had a good time in high school, but it was never the “best years of my life”, luckily that came later or maybe hasn’t even happened yet.

feeling my age.

My birthday was yesterday.  I don't feel 48 mentally, but sometimes I do, physically.  I found this cool old pencil in the basement here in my grandparent's house.  Remember these?

kansas is a magical place...

My daughter said that.  We were driving up from Winfield to Wichita and outside of Belle Plaine passed a field of sunflowers that were being crop dusted by a bight yellow biplane.  The plane matched the flowers!  She watched out the car window and stated that "Kansas is a magical place all by itself."  I love that!  It is wonderful to experience the place I grew up through her fresh eyes. 

Kansas sunflowers photo courtesy of Lelo of www.lelonopo.com.

After leaving Wichita in 1987, I have viewed my birthplace as a place to escape.  It was a good place to grow up, but it didn't fit who I had become.  It will be interesting to find out how to fit back into this town.

look what I found!

I had a box of buttons that I had never gone through.  One evening I sifted through the entire box.  Besides all the horn buttons and art deco painted buttons, I found all these wonderful victorian shank shoe buttons.  Mostly dark grey and black, but one white and one that is almost purple, also one larger shank button.