Loath to spoil this 90s art girl bedhead with self-care, but I’m gonna.

Does the world need another Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast? Yes, yes it does. When? Soonish. thingsofbronze.com #buffyslays20

Me: I don’t know why anyone would hire me to do anything. I’ve never done anything. My only skill is that I can tell you that somebody else wrote a thing about something.

W: That’s an actual job.

Me: Oh. That’s what a librarian does, isn’t it?

[Note: I know that is not the only thing a librarian does.]

As a woman with chronic illness, both physical and mental, who is a prime target for the wellness industry and a person who has spent a fair amount of money trying to fix myself in the middle of a systemic problem with US health care, I found this piece especially resonant. The points about the accessibility of “wellness” and the role of disparate health outcomes for women of color and low-income women are especially worth noting.

This is an extension of this earlier note.

A common piece of advice for people with intrusive negative self-talk is to think about how you would respond if someone talked the way about a loved one that you do to yourself. Cognitively, this is helpful. But honestly, for me, it sort of just sits in the “thoughts” part of the cognitive behavioral therapy triangle. For whatever reason, it never seems to shift my thoughts or feelings.

But a couple of days ago, I did something that took that concept a step farther: I literally spoke, out loud, to myself in the same voice I use to soothe my toddler. Halfway between my car and the co-working space, I realized I’d left my phone in the car. Anxiety, she was waiting, and jumped on this: “God, Kimberly, why are you so stupid?” But Mom-Me instinctively said - again, out loud, “It’s okay,” in the sweetest way. In the same way I say to M. when he hurts himself, “That looked like it hurt! It probably doesn’t feel very good. I know it hurts right now, but you’re strong and you’re going to be okay.” And that out loud mom voice made all the difference. So what if I left my phone in the car? It wasn’t a high stakes situation. I turned around and went back to the car and got my phone, and didn’t berate myself for having left it there.

If you’re plagued by negative self-talk, imagine the creature you are most motivated to soothe, and try using the actual audible voice you use for that creature on yourself.

In the meantime, in case you need a mom to say it to you:

I know it hurts right now, but you’re strong and you’re going to be okay.

[Backstory: a friend recently expressed a wish to be able to take a moment out from busy, stressful life, as I had done long enough to share a slice of butter cake with my toddler. I replied that caring for someone else requires setting aside misery, for at least a moment. “Be your own toddler,” I urged my friend.]

In my earliest days as a mother, I often found myself perusing the diagnostic criteria for post-partum depression. “I’m not as bad as all that,” I would think, “but I’m also not okay.” It was a huge relief the day I read a blog post that acknowledged that there’s a spectrum of possibilities between diagnosable perinatal mood disorder and unadulterated new mom bliss.

I’ve seen more than one of my friends recently articulate that they aren’t okay but they don’t know how to talk about it. I would speculate that they’re worried people will jump from “That person isn’t okay” to “OH GOD THEY’RE SUICIDAL!” I struggle with this concern myself.

We need to make space for the in-between, and we need to find the people around whom we feel safe expressing when we feel down. I have a few people. If you find yourself feeling this way often, I encourage you to find someone willing to act as a release valve. In my experience, it makes a difference.

Featured Image: Flying or Falling II by John Park

I happened across this piece in Austin Kleon’s newsletter. It beautifully expresses a sentiment that I’ve heard from many of us who were around when the web was first becoming widely available: a desire to return to a time when individuals could publish things and you found them by searching or by word of mouth, not because an algorithm pushed them into a feed. This is not not about comedy, but it’s about a lot more than comedy. It seems more social media sites are adopting algorithms like Facebook’s all the time.

Here’s how I’m responding:

1. Publishing primarily here at KimberlyHirsh.com. Several months ago now I began to explore the IndieWeb movement. I’m still not really doing it fully - not using replies or events yet, for example. But I’ve gotten started and finally found my groove with long posts, status updates, and link-sharing, at least.

2. Using Facebook almost exclusively for its group functionality. Sadly nobody else is doing this with as widespread adoption as Facebook. This is where most of my communities are congregating. But I’ve unfollowed all of my friends and liked pages. If I want to know how a friend who internets mainly via Facebook is doing, I go directly to their timeline.

3. Subscribing directly to content providers in other ways. If I want to see everything, I go with RSS for a full blog feed. If I want more curated content, I go with a newsletter. I use Gmail labels to keep all my newsletters together and deliberately choose when to review them.

4. Observing my own response as I browse social media. If I’m scrolling Twitter or Instagram and I start to feel sad, angry, or bored, I step away. This is more about self-care than defeating algorithms, but it feels related, somehow.

There are scholars doing interesting and important work on this. Here are a few to check out:

Zeynep Tufecki

Safiya Noble

Anna Lauren Hoffman

Hi I’m Kimberly and I will be ignoring real life long enough to binge the new Queer Eye, okay bye.

I’m harboring a serious scholar crush on Shannon Crawford Barniskis right now. Her work connects theory and practice beautifully. Her concept of “librarian as enzyme” is amazing. Look her up.

TFW you need to dig out your CD binder so you can take the official Buffy soundtrack that's been in your car's CD player for two and a half years out only to replace it with Velvet Chain's Buffy EP.