I read Ravynn K. Stringfield’s How I Became a Scholar of Black Girl Fantasy and felt energized. I felt energized specifically by how she found role models who were doing the work she wanted to do, how she came to terms with being able to be a scholar AND a writer of other genres.

I attended her class The Scholar’s Guide to Writing & Publishing Creative Nonfiction and she talked about pursuing questions. She talked about that in her essay, too.

And I thought, what questions motivate me?

I went back to my PhD personal statement. The question motivating me there was broad. It was basically “How do Connected Learning in school libraries?” Meme style.

I drafted it in 2014. I have changed a lot in the last 7 years. Connected Learning has changed a lot in the last 7 years.

And I’m still delighted by people loving things and all the amazing learning that comes from that, but… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m interested in that set of questions right now.

I love reading about affinity spaces.

I really loved my dissertation topic.

But now? What now? I wrote my proposal before COVID-19 was well-known.

I defended my dissertation when there seemed to be hope on the horizon: I was freshly fully vaccinated and things were looking up.

I’m despairing about a lot now.

I’m also jazzed about the possibility of taking some time to be a writer.

But a writer of what?

I don’t know.

I’ve been banging my head against WHAT NOW?! as if it’s a puzzle I can solve if I just look at or play with it long enough but I think I’m not there. Doing all the parachute-color-style exercises isn’t what I need right now; it just leads to frustration and exhaustion.

I did a couple Self-Employed PhD sessions with Jennifer Polk back when I was still working on the dissertation. I knew that I could go a lot of possible directions with either traditional or self-employment. I said so. People said “So what’s the problem?” I said “Well I have limited time and energy so I need to pick one to try first.” People said “Well what do you want to do?”

I said:

I WANT TO REST.

I want. To. Rest.

My dissertation has been fully submitted since mid-May. I officially graduated on May 16, I think.

I have been “resting” for 3 months.

But “resting” has meant caring for my son and drumming up client work. It’s meant applying for jobs. It’s meant presenting for both professional and personal endeavors. It’s meant figuring out how to safely get my kid into preschool so I can work. It’s meant agonizing over the fact that while I am incredibly lucky and privileged to be in a position to take time to figure out what’s next, I hate the idea of my husband paying my student loans. Partly because I fear his resentment.

Partly because like… what do I have all these degrees for if all I do is sleep?

Some of what I’ve been doing has been home ownership management. Lots of logistics.

I do not feel rested.

A lot of things happened over the course of my PhD in my family and personal life, in addition to the world being what it has been since 2015. Listing it really bums me out so just trust me that it’s been A LOT and it has taken a toll. And when I look at it all written out, as I did privately for myself last night, I think:

NO WONDER I AM SO TIRED.

So the questions that are driving me, for the foreseeable future, honestly, are:

• What do I HAVE to do to care for myself, my family, and my home?
• What feels good?
• What heals me?
• What energizes me?

Those are all the questions I can handle right now.

Today, in Sesame Street Is the Best Comedy School, Grover and Campers Learn About Trees. Excellent use of the rule of three and a beautiful button.

Who’s your favorite fictional character with an extreme love of school supplies? Mine is Amy Santiago. (I’m super behind on B99 y’all.)

We might need to have a talk about how I don’t want to eat any actual meals, just leftovers of the Fran’s Torte L’Orange that my bonus mother-in-law made me for my belated birthday celebration at her house.

I just processed all the action items from the beginning of the year email the head teacher at my kid’s preschool sent out, capturing them in my bullet journal, and I feel like I deserve a long rest. I haven’t done any of them. Just putting them on a list wore me out.

Read

Chicago Improv Was Dead. Can New Leaders Revive It? - The New York Times nytimes.com

Read: www.nytimes.com

I’ll be watching this with interest. Big organizations like iO & Second City, especially iO, have operated in the past on a model where the community was a product more than the comedy and the performers customers more than the audience. A lot of theaters operate on a similar model, with student tuition funding most of the enterprise and volunteer labor greasing the wheels. I think these components of models will have to change before the theaters can fully address racism, sexism, and harassment.

If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend Amy E. Seham’s book, Whose Improv Is It Anyway?

I use Old Spice Krakengard mostly because the name and graphic amuse me. I always thought it was protecting me from the Kraken but I read the container for the first time & the Kraken is actually protecting me from smelling bad.

I can’t get a good picture of it but right now there is a lone piece of green glitter sitting on top of my biggest, most obvious gall bladder surgery scar and the whole thing feels very me.

I hardly ever cried about my dissertation and I’m really proud of that.

🔖📝 Read

The Loneliness of the Full-Time Writer ‹ Literary Hub lithub.com

Read: lithub.com

Woke up to a house with no light at all and my first thought was not “The power must be out” but instead “I’ve lost my vision.”

I learned a lot from recording my Micro Camp 2021 talk. If you watch it, you’ll notice a pretty big sync problem starting a bit before the 6-minute mark.

Most of the stuff I learned is related to that.

I recorded the video last minute, which I will try not to do in the future. It doesn’t leave time for fixing problems.

I was trying out new recording software, Loom. I don’t know if it was because my computer is old, my wifi was slow during recording, or a combination of the two, but as I understand it, Loom records to the cloud and the lag getting the recording from my computer to their server is probably responsible for the sync error. From now on, I’ll do my recordings locally and back up to the cloud after the recording is done. I don’t think I’ll use Loom with my current computer anymore.

I didn’t watch the video to make sure it worked. I was tired of my own voice (this almost never happens!). If I’d watched it, I’d have noticed the sync problem right away and could have re-recorded with different software. I’ll watch right away next time.

I thought I had submitted the video correctly. I had not. I don’t know if I didn’t click a button, if I closed a window too soon, or what. Next time I’ll watch carefully for confirmation.

I don’t have any very good video editing software on my computer so if I wanted to fix the sync error without re-recording, I couldn’t have. I’ll investigate different recording options before I make another video.

Also, as soon as I can, I’ll get a new laptop because a six-year-old low-end Acer isn’t going to cut it for creating much besides words.

What have you learned recently?

Who is Kimberly Hirsh?

My talk from Micro Camp, “Learning in Public on Your Blog,” is now available on my website!

What are your top 3 movies you turn to when you are sick and/or anxious? Mine are Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (Notes on the lack of ? here if you’re interested.)

🔖 Ravynn K. Stringfield’s How I Became a Scholar of Black Girl Fantasy is an energizing read. Psyched to be in her workshop on creative non-fiction for scholars.

Because fantasy is the genre I read the most and YA is the market segment I read the most, I’ve already read a lot of the books on these lists.

If I come to a book I’ve already read, I will ask myself if I want to re-read it. If the answer is yes, boom, I’ll re-read away.

If the answer is maybe but not right now, I’ll keep moving down the list and ask myself again later.

If the answer is no, I’ll write a quick blog post about what I remember about the book and how I felt when I read it and move on to the next.

Another thing: a lot of these books are in series. If the book is the first book in a series and I enjoy it, I’ll do a check-in with myself to see if I want to take a detour from the list and read more of the series. If I do, I will.

If the book is a later book in a series, I will attempt to read the books that come before it. I like to read books in (publication) order, even if I don’t have to. If I decide not to finish the first book in the series, then I will move on with the list and try the listed book on its own later.

These plans are intended to prevent me getting bored and giving up on the project and to make sure I try as many new-to-me books as possible.

So far today I have taken my kid to the pool for swim lessons & stayed for an extra 3 hrs, scheduled a bathroom floor repair, and emailed a client so I’m basically killing it at all 3 of my jobs (parent, homeowner, consultant). Time for hobbies!

Don’t think of fantasy as mere entertainment, then, but as a way to train for reality. It always has been, after all.

• N.K. Jemisin on the Timeless Power of Fantasy 💬📚

Until I get tired of doing it, I’m going to read my way through Time’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time & then when I finish or am tired of it, I’ll switch to The 100 Best YA Books of All Time until I get tired of that.

New bio: “A good little mommy and always very curious.”

Solidarity to everyone who was awake earlier than they needed to be this morning.

In case you were wondering which website has the best favicon, it’s Jennifer Laughran’s.

My kid is asleep well before 9 pm, what do I do with all this freeeeeedom? (The smart thing would be to go to sleep myself.)

I cannot convey the extent to which the statement “be part of one of the largest events on campus” would put me off an event. Even in the beforetime, but especially now.