Kimberly Hirsh

I'm Turning 30. Do I Need Adulting Lessons?

There's a whole cottage industry devoted to teaching Millennials basic life skills. Are young adults that hapless, or is being a grown-up really harder now?

www.citylab.com

Pocket suggests things for me to read, and a few weeks ago, it suggested I read this piece about adulting. As I lay in bed, my toddler sleeping peacefully beside me, I thought, “I really need adulting help.” Which in one sense is ridiculous, because I have been doing some adulting basics, like holding a steady job, or paying rent or utilities, for almost 18 years. My adult self is, in fact, an adult.

But then I look at my immensely dirty car, or think about the extreme level of disrepair my home has fallen into over the past six years of home ownership, or remember that W. is the one who does the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning and the yardwork and I think…

Yeah. I could use some help.

…

I had a revelation a couple weeks ago while driving and noticing that my windshield wipers need to be replaced. I’m really good at projects. In one sense, it’s completely correct that my personal brand could be KIMBERLY: SHE GETS THE JOB DONE. If the job has a clear objective and a defined endpoint. I can manage human and material resources to make magic happen.

If, on the other hand, the job is a repetitive task directed at maintenance that will need to be done over and over again (like laundry or dishes or toothbrushing), then I’ll have to work harder to create a system to make sure it happens.

I’m trying to figure out what those systems look like.

Maybe acknowledging that all of life is a process of incrementally improving and coming up with ways to hack your brain is the real adulting.

I’m publicly committing to the 100DaysOfCode Challenge starting today!  #100DaysOfCode

I did my first coding in BASIC as a reader of 3-2-1 Contact Magazine in the late 80s and early 90s. My dad was director of IT at a law school in the early 90s and responded to every complaint I had about not having access to Prodigy or AOL by telling me that the Web was where things were happening, not there. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but in 1995 my mom bought me a book about programming HTML for Netscape and I started building websites, first for local non-profits, then as fan endeavors. Sure, I ventured into the world of WYSIWYG page editors like Geocities, Angelfire, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Dreamweaver, and Homestead. But I always came back to hand coding. By 2001, I had a personal domain and was using HTML, CSS,  and Javascript to develop a whole suite of fansites. I installed and troubleshooted Greymatter for my blog, but all the other pages were handcoded. I learned the basics of PHP so that I could serve dynamic pages and only have to update the content within a page when I wanted to make a change, and have the header, footer, and menus all be consistent throughout a site.

And then came WordPress.

I love WordPress.

But it made me lazy. Kind of.

Using WordPress is, I realize now after helping others with it, its own set of skills; it is not without a learning curve. But it doesn’t require me to know or use much code.

And I miss code.

Plus, WordPress is so much more customizable if you can code; you can create your own themes and plug-ins. Instead of shaking my fist when I want a functionality that’s not there, I’ll be able to build it. And, obviously, getting the skills needed for front end development has many benefits beyond just customizing WordPress.

The web WAS my job until 2015, but since then, all kinds of amazing developments have occurred and become widespread. (CSS Flex! CSS Grid!) I don’t know how to use them, and I want to.

So. To that end, and because I actually find coding relaxing - I once spent several hours of a vacation working through Codecademy courses - I’m committing myself to the #100DaysofCode challenge. I’ll be going through freeCodeCamp’s Responsive Web Design certification, because I’m rusty and want to get back to basics.

If this is something you have always wanted to try, why not start now? Join me!

Brown Point Shoes Arrive, 200 Years After White Ones

Ballet dancers of color have long painted, dyed or covered point shoes in makeup to match their skin. Could this small barrier to inclusion finally be disappearing?

www.nytimes.com

When we would talk about examples of white privilege in our Project READY work, the fact that I can buy dance shoes close to my skin tone was one of my go-tos. It seems like nothing until you realize that dancers are spending hundreds of dollars and hours to modify pink or nude shoes.

I was talking with some fellow co-working moms about matrescence and how it kind of shakes up everything you thought you wanted to do and how to figure out what to do next. I mentioned that I know a lot of books to help with this. (I didn’t mention that I’ve never finished reading any of them… which is kind of symptomatic of the problem they’re designed to address!)

But ANYWAY. I thought a blog post full of them might be helpful to more people than just other parents acting as primary caregivers trying to figure out their next steps, so here they are.

How to Be Everything: A Guide for Those Who (Still) Don’t Know What They Want to Be When They Grow Up by Emilie Wapnick. Also check out her website, Puttylike.

Refuse to Choose! Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams by Barbara Sher

The Firestarter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms and The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte

The Renaissance Soul: How to Make Your Passions Your Life–a Creative and Practical Guide by Margaret Lobenstine

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One by Jenny Blake - this one’s got a tie-in podcast!

Saturday night, W. and I went to the tour of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. If you like Final Fantasy, and it’s coming somewhere near you, you should definitely go. It was a magical evening. It’s a philharmonic with orchestra and choir on stage, and then three giant screens projecting scenes from the games. Arnie Roth conducted and bantered between sets; I think he’s delightful.

And the fans came out. There was that feeling of being among your people that happens at this sort of interest-based gathering. I have never seen so many cool t-shirts and gorgeous hair colors in one place before.

And then there were the cosplayers:

Nico Castillo on Instagram: ?Oh Celes... That is so... you! Traitor and trollop! @utopian_pigeon #distantworlds #finalfantasy #finalfantasyvi #kefka #celeschere??

Nico Castillo on Instagram: ?That tease of an old summoner decided to become a dancer now... Well I told her that I love to be Dancing Mad! @twiliheart #distantworlds??

Which reminded me that, oh yeah, about a year ago I said I was going to get into cosplay…

….

This summer, we went to North Myrtle Beach as a family. We stopped by Ripley’s Aquarium and saw their mermaid show. Leaving it, I thought, “Oh right! I wanted to take up mermaiding.”

….

My ambitions that aren’t obligations escape me, and I need to be able to achieve my obligations in fragments. This is life as a primary caregiving parent: any activity needs to be achievable in small bits of time, and preferably it shouldn’t be a problem if the activity is interrupted.

And let’s be honest: if the activity is interrupted, it might never get finished.

….

I left lemon juice on the counter overnight. I was using it to preserve apples for M.’s snack and lunch today, and I put the apples in the fridge. And my brain was like, “Okay! Done with this task!” I did the same thing with some almond milk last week after making a smoothie.

….

It might sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. I’m obsessed with my kid. I just was in the bathroom at our combo co-working space/Montessori, and the bathroom window looks out onto the play area, and I just watched him chase and pick up balls for a little while.

I love being with him. And in many ways, I’m most myself with him, more than I ever was before.

And in other ways, it’s really important to me to remember all the parts of me that are from before, because they’re all still here, and they need attending to, now and again.

…

I keep coming back to the idea that matrescence is like kintsugi, the Japanese art of using gold to repair ceramics.

[caption id=“attachment_6276” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Rural cooking pot repaired with Kintsugi technique, Georgia, 19th century. Photo by Guggger. CC-BY-SA[/caption]

Having a kid shattered me. I still haven’t processed my birth story, and it’s been two years. I will. When I’m ready. I spent so many hours searching for resources on identity crises in the immediate post-partum period. But having a kid made me like this cooking pot. All the old parts of me are around. And I’m piecing them back together, slowly, with the new parts of me and the new parts of my life making everything more beautiful.

There are new pieces to come, too. I think the simile breaks down here.

….

This is life now. It will be different later.

I did a quick count today of the trends identified by the Center for the Future of Libraries and the titles of every article ever published in Young Adult Library Services.

Results summary of # of articles per topic:

Gamification/gaming 12 Maker Movement 11 Fandom 5 Connected Learning 2 Privacy Shifting 2 Badging 1

All other trends 0

Because I still know some people who are into it and because it’s super fun to play with my kid, I’m back on Pokemon Go. Here’s my code if you want to be friends: 7480 5774 3887

I just took a little time to clear out and clean my corner desk, which was never getting used for work anyway, and dedicate it to all my magic stuff.

A few words about my beliefs: I’m mostly agnostic. With respect to magic, I believe we make our own. Action follows intention, and I find these tools - tarot and oracle cards, crystals, candles, books - useful in setting my intentions. They help me trust my intuition.

I value balance. My professional life is all about truth claims, evidence, and figuring out what counts as empirical research. I need a thing in my life that is the opposite, and this is it.

A few more words, this time about Everyday Magic, my local witch store. It’s hard as the mom of a very little, to go shopping anywhere. Now imagine taking your magpie toddler into a shop full of crystals.

You might let him choose a small one to hold. He’ll immediately put it in his mouth, of course.

It’s fine. You were going to buy it anyway.

Next time, you might let him hold a larger palm stone. He’ll probably drop it. If it’s selenite, it’ll shatter when he does. When this happens, you apologize profusely. At Everyday Magic, they tell you, “It’s okay. Babies happen. He picked a good one to drop.”

Obviously, you offer to buy it. When they don’t make you, you buy a whole one. And also a book entitled Witchy Mama.

Then you have a dream about buying the Moonchild Tarot. But you know it’ll be a long time before Everyday Magic has it in stock. But you know they have the Starchild Tarot, by the same artist, in stock. So you decide to drop by after work - toddler in tow, because he almost always is - and look at their open copy of it and, if you fall in love with it, to buy it.

Your giant baby has a lot of words now, and when you get in the store, he uses all of them to scream about the crystals. He’s clearly outraged that you didn’t hand him one immediately. As you try to look at the cards, he shrieks and you toss off a “Seriously, dude?” that elicits a laugh from the shop’s owner. But of course snide remarks don’t settle babies, so he keeps yelling. You give up on looking at the cards and take him outside because you don’t want to ruin everybody else’s day.

Then you try to reason with him. Then you remember that you have veggie straws. He accepts the veggie straws. You go back inside and move toward the cards again. A shop employee shows you a stone and asks, “Would letting him hold this help stop the crying?”

“YES THANK YOU!” you say. Then, “It won’t shatter if he drops it?” You’re already bracing yourself for the tantrum he is going to throw when he has to give it back, but you really want to look at those cards, so you hand him the rock and get your peruse on.

You pick up the box and get a chill. You open it and start to look through. Yes, this art appeals to you. And then your favorite card, VII The Chariot, is a unicorn, and you’re buying this deck.

You grab an unopened box, take the stroller over to the counter, and miraculously, when you ask the toddler to hand you the stone, he does so completely without incident.

“Thanks for letting him hold it,” you tell the shop employee.

“Oh, he can have it,” the employee responds.

And that’s why you are going to buy all your magic things at Everyday Magic forever, because instead of shaming you for your screaming baby, they gave him a crystal.

Hi Internet friends.

I have been tweaking my website a lot this week and wanted to write a few notes about my IndieWeb progress.

In my early days, I tried to just implement a ton of stuff. Then I had to tweak a bunch of things to get what I wanted. I can be too rigid sometimes, and I think some of my IndieWeb implementation efforts have fallen in this category.

I’m in a life moment where my IndieWeb commitment needs to be eclipsed by, well, most of my other commitments. So here’s where I’m at right now. I’m using the IndieMark list to work through it all. This will get a little technical, so if it’s not interesting, please move on with your day.

1. I do own my own domain, kimberlyhirsh.com.
2. I think it's set up for Web sign-in, but I sometimes struggle with the IndieAuth/Micropub plug-ins.
3. My posts do have permalinks.
4. Also they have h-entry markup.
5. Robots can index my site.
6. I'm pretty sure WordPress outputs my stuff in html.
7. You can defs use the site-specific search in Google to search kimberlyhirsh.com.
8. I have an h-card with contact info and a photo of myself on my homepage.
9. I am currently posting two post types to my site: notes and articles. Both get syndicated to Twitter and Facebook as I deem appropriate.
10. I have linear previous/next navigation between my posts.
11. I have a search UI.
12. URLs are auto linked.
13. I can both send and receive webmentions.
14. I receive backfeed from Twitter. (Facebook eliminated this functionality, sadly.)

What now?

I’m not adding any other post types just yet. For me, the inconvenience of creating replies on my own site and syndicating them outweighs the benefit of owning my replies, as my replies are rarely substantive. Occasionally, replies may inspire a longer article. But for now, I’m going to reply on the silos where I see folks post stuff. (That said: I will try to work out using webmentions to reply to folks replies that get backfed to my site, using my site’s comments. We’ll see.)

Similarly, posting photos here instead of to Instagram, events and RSVPs here instead of to Facebook, and reads here instead of to Goodreads is just not something I want to tackle all at once. So as I figure out which use cases I want to urgently own, then I’ll work that out.

But I will be posting links here instead of directly to Facebook or Twitter, so I may use the read post type for that purpose. Or bookmark. I’m trying to decide how I want to distinguish those uses.

I’m not really clear on how to make web actions happen, even though I have the necessary plug-ins installed.

I want to get back into documenting my own itches and participating more in the IndieWeb community.

But honestly, this is mostly just a post giving myself permission not to own my replies.

I'm probably going to unfollow everybody from Twitter on Monday. Please don't take it personally. I'll then be adding my closest people back, and creating lists so it's easy to find everybody else later. I just need my default feed to be quieter.

I saw @tceles_B_hsup play Dickon in The Secret Garden. He was dreamy. A couple years later we were in a production of Brigadoon together. I played his dad. It’s been 20 yrs. Our kid is almost 2. @tceles_B_hsup is still dreamy.

@CupcakeGoth @Gwenda I actually have a Goodreads shelf called “jilli-recs” and these may have to go on there.

@Gwenda I needed to find out what all of these were, and OF COURSE @CupcakeGoth had my back… cupcake-goth.dreamwidth.org/tag/avon+satan…

Don’t let me forget: next week I want to write up & blog some advanced lit review techniques that I shared with @allisunrae here on Twitter.

Things I like: space, unicorns, space unicorns, cats, space cats on unicorns, goth stuff, cupcakes, books, food smells but not floral smells, ghosts, mermaids, pirates, pirate ghost mermaids (like a mermaid died and became a ghost and then took up piracy)…

…ghost cats, mercats, pirate cats, 80s fantasy movies and cartoons, crystals, some but not all tarot cards, pictures where there’s like a galaxy inside somebody’s uterus or whatever, crafts, zines even though I have only read like one (CROQzine 4eva), fandom, some comedy…

Most music genres that end with “wave,” literal waves from the ocean, the ocean, bioluminescence, coral, the moon, and now we’re back to space.

I bought this dress & wore it to a wedding recently and basically I want this to be my whole aesthetic now.

@MagpieLibrarian I genuinely thought this was deliberate.

Can’t even focus enough today to copy notes from my bullet journal into Google Docs.

Pretty sure I can start counting consuming @acafanmom’s Patreon as work? Yay!

Genuinely refreshing Twitter to keep me awake bc my kid won’t nap and I feel like I’m dying.

When you realize you’re closer to being the Darling Mermaid Darlings than you are to being Chuck or the Pie Maker…

Heeeeey Twitter, anybody up for being my writing buddy and offering feedback on a 153-word abstract for a lit review? Topic is TRPGs in library teen services.

To everyone who follows me in hopes of seeing pictures of @tceles_B_hsup’s kid… Sorry.