long distance hang

Jess reading, me knitting.  Both sitting in bed.

Now, correcting my little brother's grammar: THAT'S funny.

Haha. "sweet ellen." I'm reading a lot of sarcasm in that line. Why do I take such sick pleasure in annoying him? I really do.

My favorite brother

turns 25 today! And to celebrate, since I can't be at home, I've uploaded some vintage shots of The Guck-meister.

Here's Condor sitting on the kitchen counter at our house in Burbank (Mom, check out this link! I can't believe how cool Google Maps has gotten!) with a bunch of dirt in all of his orifices. He used to eat the houseplant in the fronch room. It was there, so he ate it. It happens:

Ha. I can't look at that picture without laughing. Look at how it's all matted into his shirt, and he's like, "What."

Here's Con and I showing some love in his old room. (It looks like I have no less than 4 bows in my hair. Thanks, Mom.):


Here he is circa 2007, sharing his shit with our niece Finola:


A rare (because no one cares) Dahlke kid photo that's pre-Ellen and Neil:

things swirling around in my brain right now:

1. Susan is almost 7 hours into her drive. Suckerrrr. Except it's really cool that she's moving so far away, and I'm going to miss her.
2. I need to reply to Didi and Wendy, but I have so much I want to tell them, so I don't know where to begin.
3. I left my phone in Matt's car which simultaneously sucks and is awesome.
4. Whoa. I'm starting school in 3 weeks.
5. I'm SO excited to spend my afternoon reading English Journal (There's an article called "Teaching Ethnography: Reading the World and Developing Student Agency." And how good does, "Walking the Talk: Examining Privilege and Race in a 9th Grade Classroom" sound? So good.)
6. I also continue to be enthralled with How to Interpret Literature. Just about to head into the chapter on Marxist theory. Yessssss.
5. I want to make a poster for my classroom that asks these questions that I found in an EJ interview with Linda Christensen, social justice educator extraordinaire:

key questions:
Who benefits?
Who's marginalized?
Why is a practice fair or unfair? How could it be different?
What kind of society would I like to live in, and how could I get there?

6. Bobbie Fein is so cool and hilarious.
7. How the hell am I going to pull off this move next weekend with no vehicle?
8. Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't want to pack.
9. The Cranberries are so underrated.
10. I wonder when Michael's coming home.
11. I hope my teaching certificate comes in the mail soon. Really soon.
12. I am so happy I started using Google Reader.
13. I'm feeling a major life shift coming on, and I don't really know how to feel about it.
14. I don't know what to do with myself right now.
15. I want someone to tell me what to do with myself right now.
16. How can I justify showing Do the Right Thing in my World Studies classes? Can I?
17. I want to start reading Sherman Alexie's blog, but it's overwhelming. I don't know where to begin.
18. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to quickly inject all of the thinking that happens when you read something into you so that you could "have" all the reading that you want to "have." Except that you don't "have" reading; you read. It has to be a process, and it has to be an effort, otherwise we wouldn't even think it was cool, and we certainly wouldn't want to be injecting ourselves with something uncool. Now would we?
19. I've probably been called "Ms. Burrito" for the last time. Sad. I hope the kids arrive safely back in Texas this weekend.
20. Whenever I'm having a bad day, I think I'll look at this:

everything Google touches turns to gold, I swear

a slideshow of my Cuba photos