Notes on Kimberly Hirsh

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:35:04 -0400

Finished reading: Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:27:21 -0400

Finished reading: Haiku, Ew! Celebrating the Disgusting Side of Nature by Lynn Brunelle 📚

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:24:58 -0400

Finished reading: Stalactite & Stalagmite A Big Tale from a Little Cave by Drew Beckmeyer 📚

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:24:28 -0400

Finished reading: Our Lake by Angie Kang 📚

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:24:03 -0400

Finished reading: Every Monday Mabel - (Caldecott Honor) by Jashar Awan 📚

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:20:52 -0400

Finished reading: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Three: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan 📚

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:13:23 -0400

The sitting president of the United States has zeroed out the budget for the Institute of Museum and Library Services in his next budget, which would effectively eliminate the institute. EveryLibrary has a petition you can sign to let your legislators know you don’t want them to pass that budget.

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:22:07 -0400

🎮🎲 I tried the Tiny Bookshop demo a while back. The part where I didn’t have the books people wanted felt too much like being at work, and I found myself frustrated by the limited genres. Likewise, I looked at the demo copy of A Place for All My Books at Atomic Empire and determined that book organization sims, whether physical or digital, are Not for Kimberly.

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:39:41 -0400

📝 Tiny Weeknotes (idea by @brie@social.lol, introduced to me by @cygnoir@social.lol)

📖 Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas
🎧 Fated Mates, Tarot for the Wild Soul
📺 DS9, Shrinking
🎮 Disney Dreamlight Valley, Pokemon Pokopia
♟️King of Tokyo, MLEM
🧩 Book of nonograms, Puzzmo crossword archive
💪 One Just Dance song a day
💤 Sleep: Not great, Bob
👩🏻‍🏫 Kimberstatus: Stressed by work and family health on both sides of our household

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:45:21 -0400

Where Did I Put That One Video Game Peripheral? The Kimberly Hirsh Story

(It’s my Ring Fit to go with the Nintendo Switch, it’s stored somewhere but not an obvious place so this probably buried in the attic or basement storage space.)

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:39:57 -0400

“… for the purposes of personal action research, the standards used by professional researchers might not be required.” Jennifer Robins, “Action Research Empowers School Librarians,” School Library Research, Volume 18 (2015) 💬📓

No formal proposal needed for a work project.

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:48:28 -0400

🔖 Read My Undiagnosed Chronic Illness Taught Me to Love Sci-Fi by Carli Cutchin (Electric Literature).

I love this essay.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:03:06 -0400

Finished reading: When a Villain Calls by TJ Sky 📚

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 10:12:13 -0400

In the US, you can use Civic Mail to send postcards to your legislators urging them to oppose legislation revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so that school librarians can’t exercise their professional judgment to determine what materials belong in their collections.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:39:21 -0400

Use this ALA tool to encourage your senators to sign the “Dear Appropriator” letters in support of the Library and Services Technology Act, which provides grants to states to support a wide variety of library programs and services.

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:49:44 -0400

When I read prose generated by AI unprompted, I feel like all the training data was techbros saying things irrelevant to my interests. Not everyone’s interests, but definitely mine.

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 18:40:07 -0400

Finished reading: Wild Pitch by Cat Giraldo 📚

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:27:27 -0400

Finished reading: The Devil’s Delilah by Loretta Chase 📚

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:14:12 -0400

Finished reading: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Two: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan 📚

Another one I read with my kid.

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 20:01:43 -0400

💬 “In almost every case, our manner of appearing is our manner of being. The mask is the face.” Susan Sontag, “On Style” in Against Interpretation

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 08:51:59 -0400

🎮 Because I know you were on tenterhooks waiting to hear what Dreamlight Valley Belle’s book preservation advice was: she gave me a tube of super glue.

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 17:57:27 -0400

🎮 My character in Disney Dreamlight Valley: Belle likes reading, so surely she can repair this damaged rare book!
Me, a librarian, in real life: No. No no no. Enjoying reading does not automatically confer preservation expertise.

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 10:22:49 -0400

💬📚🎨 “Perhaps you can put it this way. A man who does a man’s work is a normal human being. A woman who does a man’s work is a kind of superwoman. She must be two selves, one who supplies energy for her part of the world’s work, the other the woman who fulfils the obligations custom has laid upon her.” -CECILIA BEAUX, AMERICAN ARTIST, INTERVIEWED IN THE BOSTON HERALD (1910), quoted in The Club: Where American Women Artists Found Refuge in Belle Époque Paris by Jennifer Dasal.

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 07:38:13 -0400

Finished reading: Sincerely, Your Inconvenient Wife by Julia Wolf 📚

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:56:13 -0400

🔖 Read You Can’t Uncast a Spell by Holli Flanagan (Electric Literature).

I haven’t seen Wicked: For Good. This is an interesting and poignant analysis of the changes it makes from the ending of the stage show.

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 23:41:55 -0400

Finished reading: Dear Grumpy Boss by Julia Wolf 📚

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:07:15 -0400

Romance Novel: has a cat in it
Me: This book is excellent.
📚🐈‍⬛

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:49:00 -0400

Finished reading: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 📚

Well. This was not what I expected. Heathcliff isn’t the ghost, the ghost is barely on page, and Heathcliff and Catherine have minimal time on-page together. Still a compelling read if, like me, you’re comfortable with the 19th century language and writing style.

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:56:39 -0400

I’m reading Wuthering Heights in hopes the Secret Goth Cabal will let me keep my Goth Card and I have to say, this book would make a lot more sense if people didn’t all have the same or similar names.

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 02:11:00 -0400

Finished reading: Viscount Vagabond by Loretta Chase 📚

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:07:00 -0400

Finished reading: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan 📚

Read it aloud to my kid. I read it once about 15 years ago. Super fun.

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 01:54:00 -0400

Finished reading: A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught 📚

Brilliant and old school.

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 07:41:30 -0400

💬📺🖖🏻 “I’ve learned that I am a lot.” S.A.M., Starfleet Academy 1x08, “The Life of the Stars”

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 11:14:16 -0400

🔖 Read Attempting to Garden My Way Out of Sadness by Geetha Iyer (Electric Literature).

This is a gorgeous essay.

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:54:34 -0400

Sometimes I’m trying to read and words won’t go into my head, and it makes me feel like not-myself. 📚

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 05:47:00 -0400

Finished reading: Bet me by Jennifer Crusie 📚

Brilliant. Perfect banter, achingly romantic. I miss the way we talked in 2004.

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:29:21 -0400

🔖🧶Read How Crocheting Is Bringing Me Back To Myself by Emily McGowan (The Good Trade).

This is a beautiful article about crafting not just beloved items, but our very lives.

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 02:02:00 -0400

Finished reading: Soulless by Gail Carriger 📚🎧

Been listening to this audiobook for literal years. It wasn’t as steampunk as I thought it would be. I was pleasantly surprised by how much romance it incorporated.📚

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:48:03 -0400

Finished reading: Texas! Chase by Sandra Brown 📚

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 08:36:26 -0400

📚 Kelly Jensen continues to be a key voice informing readers about censorship in libraries and schools both at Book Riot and in her personal newsletter.

“Government officials now ultimately determine what is on the shelves of public libraries, and therefore our books are on the ballot every time we go vote.” Leila Green Little, plaintiff in Little v. Llano County

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 05:09:41 -0400

🔖 Read The Trump administration is illegally gutting NASA’s largest research library. by Brittany Allen (Literary Hub).

Read the article. Stand up for science every day, but especially March 7.

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 13:19:14 -0400

Finished reading: Texas! Lucky by Sandra Brown 📚

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 05:34:23 -0400

Finished reading: Close Enough to Touch by Victoria Dahl 📚

Excellent contemporary cowboy romance.

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 22:02:47 -0400

📚💬 “She was as uncomfortable with her body as she was serene about her mind.” David Rieff of his mother, Susan Sontag, in the preface of Reborn: Journals & Notebooks 1947—1963

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 17:43:16 -0400

Finished reading: Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens 📚

A classic historical romance. I liked the way this one tests the couple by having them get frustrated because they’re each scared the other will get physically hurt and neither is willing to stop putting themselves at risk to protect the other.

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:28:50 -0400

It takes me about two hours after waking up to reach full brain power.

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:48:41 -0400

It could be worse. There could be a Hellmouth in the school library. 👱🏻‍♀️

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 12:23:10 -0400

Finished reading: Love in 280 Characters or Less by Ravynn K. Stringfield 📚

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 11:09:17 -0400

📚💬 “All of my feelings and emotions spill out into what I wear and my life is deeply influenced by the people and things that I love, so my writing reflects all of that, in all of its complexity.” Ravynn K. Stringfield, Love in 280 Characters or Less

This quote from Sydney Ciara, the main character in Love in 280, feels a little like a mission statement for Dr. Ravynn K. Stringfield’s career. Y’all, this book has so much to say about digital writing, love, relationships that weave together the physical and digital, and what it means to be a Black artist in a world where Black love and joy are under constant threat. It’s so great. Full review coming later.

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:58:03 -0400

Today’s Book Riot Literary Activism newsletter is all about ways we can support Minneapolis through literary activism. I’m giving to this Donors Choose project to buy books for a school library in a historically underfunded school in St. Paul. 📚

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 04:31:34 -0400

Me, watching Starfleet Academy: Oh my gosh Holly Hunter is so tiny! So cute!

The Internet: She’s an inch taller than you, Kimberly.

🖖🏻📺

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:45:05 -0400

Finished reading: Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu 📚

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:13:01 -0400

Finished reading: Check, Please! Book 1: # Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu 📚

This is very cute and I’m glad I was able to read it in book format. I’m curious how the experience was different as a webcomic.

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 12:34:51 -0400

Two things to read:

If every American did 3 of these 5 things, ICE would be stopped in its tracks. by Leona Waller. I started with writing my senators and donating to the North Carolina Justice Center.

As always, Kelly Jensen and Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter is critical reading.

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 17:37:00 -0400

Finished reading: Every Step She Takes by Alison Cochrun 📚

I didn’t sob like with Here We Go Again but I teared up much more frequently. I really love Alison Cochrun’s books.

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:33:06 -0400

🔖📚 Read Arkansas Puts Complete Ban on Incoming Books, Magazines, Other Materials for Incarcerated Individuals.

I just signed decARcerate’s statement calling for the reversal of this ban and you can, too, even if you don’t live in Arkansas.

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 10:10:19 -0400

Me: What IS my business?
The Jacob Marley Inside My Brain: MANKIND SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY BUSINESS!

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:13:08 -0400

Finished reading: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn 📚

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:20:23 -0400

“As Culliope loves to say, gamification alone doesn’t work because school is already a crappy game.” Garrett Munro, “Game-Based Learning, Not Gamification: Play as First Principle” in Adventures in Teaching & Learning with RPGs

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 07:44:29 -0400

Kelly Jensen’s article on the state of librarian mental health is incredibly detailed.

The librarians are not okay.

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:38:18 -0400

Finished reading: Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon 📚

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 02:09:37 -0400

Finished reading: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne 📚

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:19:22 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read Behind the Writing: On Writers and Their Day Jobs by Ed Simon (Literary Hub)

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 03:16:30 -0400

Finished reading: Three Hard Lessons by Nikki Sloane 📚

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 17:38:36 -0400

Finished reading: Natural Born Charmer by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:17:25 -0400

📝 Read Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules! (The Guardian)

This is full of some of the most inspiring writing advice I’ve seen in a long time.

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 08:54:27 -0400

Finished reading: Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie 📚

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 09:58:44 -0400

As always, Austin Kleon’s 100 Things That Made My Year post is a testament to his ability to find the magic in the quotidian. I want to follow his example more.

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:37:16 -0400

Begin As You Mean to Go On: journaling with The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 18:50:27 -0400

Finished reading: Call the Bee Doctor! by Sandra Markle 📚

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 18:09:02 -0400

Finished reading: Match Me If You Can by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 14:10:14 -0400

Internet buddies, tell me about your read later workflow.

I like using Instapaper to read on my Kobo but I don’t know if that will be conducive to getting my highlights back out. Micro.blog can’t archive bookmarks from behind a paywall.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 12:15:48 -0400

I’m just going to waffle back and forth about how much control I want over my website for a while. Thanks for your patience.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 12:09:20 -0400

People of Micro.blog, please hit me up with resources for a beginner to:

Creating themes
Having an index page that is not your blog page

Thank you very!

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 11:46:47 -0400

In grand Kimberly tradition, I am going back on the whole archiving my blog plan, for reasons. Thank you so much for sharing with me where you read my blog!

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 03:50:19 -0400

Finished reading: Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin 📚

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:51:22 -0400

Hi friend! Can you please let me know whether you are seeing this in/on:

A Micro.blog timeline?
Your email inbox?
A Bluesky timeline?
An RSS/other feed reader?
A Mastodon/other Fediverse timeline?

Reply where you see it or e-mail me. Thanks!

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 19:23:03 -0400

Finished reading: I Will by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 09:57:49 -0400

I’m re-evaluating my online presence, so in the new year I will be changing the URL for my micro.blog site to archive.kimberlyhirsh.com and don’t plan to post anything new here until I’ve figured out my next move.

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:59:08 -0400

Finished reading: The Merriest Misters by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:57:46 -0400

📚 Authors of children’s books, I am begging you: PLEASE have a newsletter. It’s hard for librarians to keep up with all your new releases and this would make it easier.

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:28:50 -0400

🔖📚 Read Friendship Is My Writing Process by Ana Hein (Electric Literature).

I love this. I’ve been thinking about writing a lot lately, and this really resonates with me.

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:43:20 -0400

🔖📚 Read Public libraries in TX, LA, and MS are no longer protected by the First Amendment.

This is disheartening as can be and I don’t have the eloquence to explain all the ways it’s terrible.

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 05:59:26 -0400

Finished reading: After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian 📚

Cat Sebastian’s work unfailingly delights me and makes me feel like there’s somebody out there as awkward as me, somebody who feels things as deeply as I do. I’m so glad I read this book.

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 13:33:11 -0400

📚💬 “Farming is not for everyone, but society chooses what kind of farmers to support, and what those farmers get to grow; they’re part of a larger system.” Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 13:16:04 -0400

📚💬 “[The USDA’s] first loyalty has always been to the ag/food industry and to destroying any knowledge that would jeopardize the industry’s profits.” Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 09:44:41 -0400

🍿 Watched A Merry Little Ex-Mas. Excellent cast and Alicia Silverstone made me cry.

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:52:56 -0400

Finished reading: Golemcrafters by Emi Watanabe Cohen 📚

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 14:03:52 -0400

💬📚 “Hyperlexia is an early sign of golemcraft aptitude. Golems are made of words, just as Jews are made of books.” Emi Watanabe Cohen, Golemcrafters

This is a kid’s novel about two half-Japanese, half-Jewish middle schoolers who learn to make golems from their estranged grandfather.

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:55:10 -0400

🍿 Watched A Royal Montana Christmas.

I always love a horse movie and Warren Christie makes a great cowboy. Not much chemistry between the leads here, though. And I wish the horses had gotten more screentime.

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 18:27:46 -0400

Finished reading: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid 📚

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 22:30:23 -0400

Finished reading: Game Changer by Rachel Reid 📚

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 08:56:42 -0400

Finished reading: Run Posy Run by Cate C. Wells 📚

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 14:51:57 -0400

It’s a little embarrassing that it took me watching Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein to understand that Mary Shelley is both Victor AND the creature, not just Victor. (It’s not news that I make too much of her alignment with either of them.) 🍿

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 13:20:22 -0400

🍿 Victor Frankenstein has postpartum depression.

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:41:58 -0400

Finished reading: Dream A Little Dream by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

If your public library, like mine, is having a delay in ordering new books due to the closure of Baker and Taylor, may I suggest checking out an author’s backlist? Susan Elizabeth Phillips would be a great choice.

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 05:29:52 -0400

Finished reading: The Magpie Lord by Kj Charles 📚

KJ Charles’s writing is so reliably delightful.

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:12:04 -0400

🔖 Read W.E.B. Du Bois’s Remarkable Data Visualizations in Jillian Hess’s newsletter, Noted.

It’s thrilling to see how DuBois established practices for both data collection and data visualization that continue to be critical in the social sciences today.

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 22:17:24 -0400

Finished reading: Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase 📚

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 22:02:59 -0400

Hey @manton/ @help , I am having this same problem with creating posts in both Strata and Epilogue on Android.

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 21:46:17 -0400

💬📚 “…I feel like both her confidante and her baby…” Eve Chase, Black Rabbit Hall

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 20:03:36 -0400

Finished reading: A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas 📚

So far I’ve liked each book in this series better than the last.

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 13:00:58 -0400

🔖 Read Monster or victim?: The fascination of Hedda Gabler, the ‘female Hamlet’ who divides opinion by Miriam Balanescu (BBC).

Why not both?

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 17:54:29 -0400

Finished reading: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher 📚

Why is fungus so goth? I don’t know but it is and it’s excellent. A very different take on gothic fungus from Mexican Gothic.

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 02:24:19 -0400

Finished reading: Again The Magic by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 21:54:36 -0400

Finished reading: I Must Say by Martin Short 📚🎧

Martin Short is a delight and listening to him read his memoir is wonderful.

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 07:15:54 -0400

🔖 Read What’s next after the historic No Kings protest? by Daniel Hunter (Waging Non-violence).

Reading about defections gives me hope.

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 06:27:06 -0400

🔖 Read No, you don’t need to optimize your morning routine.

This post from Fenn Priest is a gift. I’m so glad Katy Peplin linked it in her newsletter.

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:49:21 -0400

Finished reading: The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker 📚

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 20:56:14 -0400

Finished reading: Worth Fighting For by Jesse Q. Sutanto 📚

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:06:06 -0400

🔖 Read The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Story.

This is a super interesting read about comparative mythology. I had to borrow The New Yorker from my library in the Libby app to read it.

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 13:03:34 -0400

🔖📚 Read The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist.

Book heist! Fascinating stuff!

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:43:24 -0400

Finished reading: The Death of Jane Lawrence: A Novel by Caitlin Starling 📚

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 07:38:54 -0400

🔖📚 Read A Texas District Has Just Banned Students from Secondary School Libraries.

In New Braunfels ISD, middle and high school libraries will be closed for an indefinite amounts of time while books are reviewed. Read the article for suggestions on how to defend the freedom to read in Texas.

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 04:13:44 -0400

It is once again that time of year when I ponder changing my notebook set up.

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 18:40:48 -0400

Finished reading: A Court of Mist and Fury (a Court of Thorns and Roses, 2) by Sarah J. Maas 📚

Sat, 11 Oct 2025 14:55:16 -0400

🔖📚 Read To Haunt and Be Haunted: On the Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe by Ed Simon (Literary Hub).

I love that Simon is able to draw lines from Poe’s work to his burial, from his burial to his exhumation, to multiple author’s taphephobia to Barthes and the death of the author.

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 21:49:41 -0400

Finished reading: The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang 📚🎧

I love what I know of Esmé Weijun Wang, as a teacher, writer, and fellow traveler through the wilds of chronic illness. She reads the audiobook and her sweet voice lends such warmth to her beautiful essays.

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 09:12:34 -0400

🔖📚 Read New NC law means teachers are providing fewer books for their students to read.

This bill requires schools to publish a complete catalog of all texts available to students. It creates an administrative burden and has a chilling effect on students’ access to materials.

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 23:51:28 -0400

Finished reading: The Cloisters by Katy Hays 📚

This is on the list of key titles for gothic fiction at NoveList Plus. It definitely skews more dark academia than traditional Gothic. More ambition and dangerous thirsd for knowledge than dread and family secrets.

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 10:48:18 -0400

Almost every gothic novel since Rebecca is Rebecca, and Rebecca is Jane Eyre. 📚

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 10:41:51 -0400

Finished reading: All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles 📚

Listen, I already knew KJ Charles was great because I read most of her Society of Gentlemen series and loved it. But after reading this bit of gothic perfection, I want us to become best friends.

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 08:35:43 -0400

📚 This has been a good week in book news for me. Kresley Cole announced a new series spun off of Immortals After Dark and preorders are open for Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows epistolary follow-up.

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 16:56:36 -0400

Finished reading: Worth Any Price by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 08:33:02 -0400

Hey @cleverdevil and @mtt, looks like the On This Day script isn’t working on my blog using the Mythos theme. The single post layout uses the dt-published microformat. What else should I be looking at to try to fix it? Thanks!

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:31:00 -0400

Hello and welcome to the best month. 🎃👻⚰️🧛🏻‍♀️

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 09:09:00 -0400

Finished reading: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett 📚

There are some authors whose writing (and fine, online presence) makes yyou want to be friends with them. For me, Kristen Arnett is one of those writers. Maybe someday.

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:06:20 -0400

📚💬 “Oh, this clown will never run out of bits, because every gag is taken from the endless wellspring of her own self-loathing!” Kristen Arnett, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 06:38:15 -0400

📚💬 “How can I turn this into a bit, I wonder. That’s how my brain always chooses to process trauma or grief or anxiety.” Kristen Arnett, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 23:30:06 -0400

Finished reading: With Teeth by Kristen Arnett 📚

Kristen Arnett’s books are sad, funny, and ultimately hopeful. I don’t often miss the Florida of my early childhood, but when I read her work, I do. I tore through this one in one day.

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 01:09:58 -0400

Finished reading: Home for the Challah Days by Jennifer Wilck 📚

Sweet, like an apple dipped in honey. A Hallmark movie if Hallmark made Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur movies.

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 22:18:45 -0400

Finished reading: When Strangers Marry by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 08:32:54 -0400

Finished reading: The Border of Paradise by Esmé Weijun Wang 📚🎧

Esmé Weijun Wang writes beautiful prose. This book is intense and upsetting; over and over again I found myself sympathizing with a character only to be appalled by then when perspective shifted away from them and to someone else. Read the NPR review before picking this one up.

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:24:27 -0400

Finished reading: Lady Sophia’s Lover by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 19:07:22 -0400

Finished reading: Where Dreams Begin by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Somehow both low-conflict and high-angst.

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:38:32 -0400

Kelly J. Baker and Book Riot continue to do critical reporting on the current administration’s impact on the Institute of Museum and Library Services in today’s piece about Freedom Trucks. 📚

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 10:47:35 -0400

📚 I kind of want to have this quote from Anne Trubek as a poster, cross-stitch, or tattoo:

conceive of reading as pure, unadulterated pleasure. A hobby, a way to shift gears, a way to get away from the damned phone, a thing you can do in bed, an outlet for curiosity. A way to counter loneliness, a way to soothe, free therapy. Conceive of it in any way you can that strips it of whatever pressures, should’s, competitions you may have placed on it.

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 09:06:56 -0400

Me, looking at book festival stuff: I gotta read more. There are so many good books! Ack! How can I read more?

Me: Self, reading begets reading. Don’t worry, you’re doing it right.

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 16:31:52 -0400

Finished reading: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 📚

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 16:15:01 -0400

Finished reading: The Season by Sarah MacLean 📚

I just love Sarah MacLean so much.

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 08:45:34 -0400

🔖📚 Read Duke cut librarians. It never told the faculty they worked with.

This is one example of many where the people with whom library staff collaborate didn’t have the opportunity to advocate for them.

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 17:54:55 -0400

Finished reading: Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath 📚

So great.

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:46:12 -0400

Finished reading: Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath 📚

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 14:37:14 -0400

Today is a great day to tell your representative to support library funding in next year’s budget (FY26). Let’s be sure Congress comes back from recess to find a flood of messages supporting library funding. 📚

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 22:54:44 -0400

💬📚 “How many times could a mother’s heart break? An infinite number. Each time her children were hurt.” Lorraine Heath, Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:48:10 -0400

Finished reading: Passions of a Wicked Earl by Lorraine Heath 📚

Lorraine Heath is just so reliably excellent.

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 07:52:12 -0400

Finished reading: The Invisible Parade by Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio 📚

I’m very obsessed with this Día de Muertos picture book with an Own Voices illustrator. So much of the storytelling is in the images and it’s a gorgeous collaboration. Highly recommend for reading around Día de Muertos or anytime. 💀

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:36:51 -0400

I just renewed my family’s membership to the Friends of the Durham Library. Have you joined your library’s Friends organization? It’s a straightforward way to support an institution that’s losing a lot of structural support right now. 📚

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 22:21:16 -0400

Finished reading: Vanish by Sophie Jordan 📚

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 22:54:51 -0400

Finished reading: Storm Front by Jim Butcher 📚🎧

James Marsters reads the audiobook and he’s great.

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:48:13 -0400

Finished reading: Protecting What’s His by Tessa Bailey 📚

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:22:26 -0400

Finished reading: The Last Wicked Scoundrel by Lorraine Heath 📚

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 08:33:38 -0400

Finished reading: Midnight Pleasures With a Scoundrel by Lorraine Heath 📚

This is an absolutely bananas book. A great ride.

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:13:09 -0400

🔖 Read Why I’m One And Done (And Not Feeling Guilty About It) by Stephanie Fallon (The Good Trade).

My experience is so similar to Fallon’s. Before having M, I thought maybe 2 kids. But he’s very high touch and when people ask, I always say, “I don’t have enough Kimberly for a second kid.”

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:53 -0400

Been watching the Disney original movies in the Zombies series and these are thinly veiled metaphors for prejudice against different groups.

Original Zombies: racism (zombies basically stand in for Black people).
Zombies 2: prejudice against Indigenous people, settler colonialism (werewolves stand in for Indigenous people) Zombies 3: prejudice against immigrants (aliens stand in for immigrants)

I’m curious to see what they do in Zombies 4, which we’ll watch tomorrow.

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 14:27:05 -0400

Finished reading: Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 23:17:42 -0400

Finished reading: Because You’re Mine by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 10:28:42 -0400

You should go vote for my colleague and friend Erin Dawson Linn & her spouse Alder Linn in the America’s Favorite Couple contest. These two’s wedding was probably the most beautiful I’ve ever been to and left me in happy tears and feeling grateful for all the love in my life. I still have the little bottle of olive oil with a heart charm that they gave out as favors on display in my living room. These are two kind, loving people and it would make me so happy to see them win this contest and have more amazing adventures together!

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 08:29:17 -0400

💬📚 “Each [major innovation in industrial farming] has benefited the biggest [farms] and penalized the smallest.” Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 10:02:21 -0400

📚 Leigh Bardugo has a picture book about death and grief that she wrote with John Picacio available for pre-order.

[This book is] for kids like me who spent a lot of time in graveyards reading epitaphs, who didn’t quite feel safe among the living.

This book is for me. 💀🖤

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:17:47 -0400

Finished reading: Somewhere I’ll Find You by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 12:34:08 -0400

They’ve scheduled a 90s Dance Party for our work retreat in a couple weeks. I am tempted to send everyone Rebecca Schuman’s The 90s Are Old Longreads series to read.

Just go ahead now.

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 08:52:49 -0400

Finished reading: The Bladesmith Queen by Sarah MacLean 📚

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 13:31:36 -0400

📚 Hear me out: sun-soaked summer gothic literature. These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean. The Villa by Rachel Hawkins. What else?

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 12:47:36 -0400

Another day, another autoimmune flare, another medical specialist, another round of blaming myself for chronic illness and also telling myself I should not blame myself. The road goes ever on and on…. (Advice not requested.)

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 01:29:00 -0400

🎮 Had a breakthrough in Blue Prince and I’m so excited about it it’s hard to sleep.

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 19:47:20 -0400

📚 Reading Zoraida Córdova’s Labyrinth Lost and realized I had the perfect bookmark for any book by this author.

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:34:38 -0400

Finished reading: Surrender to the Devil by Lorraine Heath 📚

Lorraine Heath is so good at the job.

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 16:08:43 -0400

Finished reading: A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen 📚

This companion-sequel to A Fate Inked in Blood spends the first third or so revisiting the first book but picks up in the middle third and is gripping and full of revelations for the last third. I highly recommend the duology.

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 22:22:06 -0400

Finished reading: These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean 📚

I will follow Sarah MacLean anywhere, from Whitechapel to Narragansett Bay. If you like family narratives with a strong romantic thread, read this book.

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 21:33:57 -0400

Finished reading: Three Simple Rules by Nikki Sloane 📚🎧

Sat, 12 Jul 2025 13:30:30 -0400

“There was something about trains.” 💬📚 Reading Sarah MacLean’s These Summer Storms while actually on a train.

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:52:39 -0400

Finished reading: The Rose & the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh 📚

Another excellent book!

My First Skirt Sketches 🧵

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:35:11 -0400

Here are my first sketches for my Skirt Skills class with Brooks Ann Camper. I did a yoke for each waistline because my tummy hurts often enough that I want a friendly waist for it. I also sketched with real shirts I actually have, tucked in, since I often do tuck in. (Usually with a French tuck, thanks Tan France!) My plan for my skirt is to make something lightweight that I can wear to my job as an elementary school librarian early in the school year, then transition to fall and winter with leggings. Each sketch includes a pattern inspired by fabric available from Spoonflower and a bookish graphic tee that I actually wear to work.

Brooks Ann has a great way to create a custom croquis to draw clothing designs on your own body, which is how I got these sketches that actually look like me.

Sketch 1: Pencil skirt

The pattern inspiration for this skirt is Stack of Books by Kassi Simpson and the shirt is It’s Me Hi I’m the Librarian by Yaquetees.

Sketch 2: A-line skirt

The pattern inspiration for this skirt is Red Crimson Pink Blush Roses by Elda & Oak Design Studio and the shirt is the Book Nerd Floral Unisex T-shirt by Out of Print.

Sketch 3: Tulip skirt

The pattern inspiration for this skirt is Pumpkin King Stripe by Disneybound Dresses and the shirt is the What’s More Punk? t-shirt from the Mt. Pleasant (VA) Library Friends.

Drawing these was super fun and has really inspired me. I’m beginning to understand and imagine so many possibilities for designing my own clothes, especially for cosplay.

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 13:21:51 -0400

I’ve been thinking about going back to a hand-coded website for a while now. I don’t want to lose the functionality I have at my current site, so I’ve created a staging site where I will work on brushing up my coding knowledge. You can follow along at handcoded.kimberlyhirsh.com.

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 20:10:14 -0400

Finished reading: Managed by Kristen Callihan 📚🎧

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:50:34 -0400

📚 In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, Mark Bittman writes 19th century farmers wouldn’t let land lie fallow or rotate crops because it made the most sense to force land to yield the most profit. This led to soil exhaustion. I think the same thing happens when we try to extract maximum labor from people.

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 11:50:00 -0400

🔖 Read We Cannot Give Up on Each Other by Kelly Jensen.

I really needed this today.

The page isn’t turned, and the book isn’t closed. There are chapters still being written, chapters still to be written, and people who are eager to be brought into the story to help make it what we all deserve.

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 19:45:33 -0400

Finished reading: The Wrath & the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh 📚

So great.

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 15:21:09 -0400

I’m taking Brooks Ann Camper’s Skirt Skills Custom Sewing class. Yesterday I put together my notebook for the class.

My goal is to use stuff I already have as much as possible so long as my experience doesn’t suffer for it.

Here are some photos! Notebook cover, pencil box, sketch paper.

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 20:32:32 -0400

🔖🧵 Read Just Make it Already! How to Boost Your Sewing Confidence.

Brooks Ann Camper includes this as a bonus link in the orientation for Skirt Skills, which I’m taking right now. It’s exactly what recovering perfectionists need to heal & works for any creative endeavor.

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 07:47:28 -0400

It’s very Kimberly that I just had a nightmare in which the nightmarish occurrence was that the public library had pushed the YA bookshelves so close together that they were inaccessible. 📚

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 01:04:10 -0400

Finished reading: To Have and to Heist by Sara Desai 📚

Super cute and fun!

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:05:55 -0400

🧵 I made a pillow! Well, I covered a pillow. I used instructions from the Sewing 10 class from Brit + Co. My seams were so wobbly that I actually had to go back and hand sew a gap closed. I used a messy whip stitch to finish it but I’ve hidden the seam on the bottom here.

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 14:07:19 -0400

📚💬 “When no help comes from outside, a lost crop becomes a famine.” Mark Bittman, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 12:54:12 -0400

Finished reading: Once Upon You and Me by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Another delight from Timothy Janovsky. Full review coming soon!

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:39 -0400

Finished reading: Idol by Kristen Callihan 📚🎧

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:24:36 -0400

Finished reading: Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren 📚

A super cute Tangled retelling!

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 11:42:31 -0400

Disabled writer heroes: Leigh Bardugo. Esmé Weijun Wang. Johanna Hedva. I have more but these are the ones top of mind at this moment.

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 15:10:18 -0400

Finished reading: A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera 📚

I love this book. Full review soon!

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 10:46:59 -0400

I’ve been conducting inventory on our 5000ish volume school library and it’s been going well. It’s surprisingly physical work. Today my arms don’t like it and I’m having to take more breaks than I have previously. This is an example of the variable disability of chronic illness. ♿

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 06:11:33 -0400

🔖 Read The real reason Musk retreated by Daniel Hunter (Waging Nonviolence).

This article about the power of collective action really made me feel hopeful.

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 01:37:24 -0400

Finished reading: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey 📚

A fascinating book about what our ghosts say about us.

Fri, 30 May 2025 08:47:27 -0400

📚💬📝 “Tending to your body and mind is a way to tend to your work.” Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice

Fri, 30 May 2025 08:46:27 -0400

📚💬📝 “A disabled life is a life interrupted.” Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Nerve: Unlearning Workshop Ableism to Develop Your Disabled Writing Practice

Fri, 30 May 2025 08:05:28 -0400

Finished reading: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera 📚

Another re-read. I basically cried through the last two chapters.

Thu, 29 May 2025 22:49:07 -0400

📚💬 “In that moment Manuela began counting her blessings to have found friends who not only came to the rescue but who knew there was no problem in life one could not tackle armed with good cheese and champagne.” Adriana Herrera, An Island Princess Starts a Scandal

Wed, 28 May 2025 09:32:50 -0400

📚💬 “Ghost stories, for good or ill, are how cities make sense of themselves: how they narrate the tragedies of their last, weave cautionary tales for the future.“Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Sun, 25 May 2025 14:43:24 -0400

Finished reading: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera 📚

This is a re-read. It’s a testament to Adriana Herrera’s work that even though it’s only six months since I originally read it, I found this riveting and didn’t want to skip or skim at all.

Sun, 25 May 2025 14:23:50 -0400

Mijn Nederlansen vrienden, do people ever put hagelslag on stroopwafel?

Sat, 24 May 2025 22:53:05 -0400

Finished reading: Firelight by Sophie Jordan 📚

Thu, 22 May 2025 12:21:15 -0400

Fandom is something people do on the edges of their obligations, #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 12:20:25 -0400

I’m just going to sit back and enjoy Julia Bullard’s keynote, I Am Giving This Talk Instead of Sleeping, will share links when the #FanLIS2025 videos go live!

Thu, 22 May 2025 11:15:47 -0400

Now Billy Tringali, Maria Alberto and Jeremiah Martinez with Fun, Friends, and Fitness – Why Fans Attend Anime Conventions

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:56:17 -0400

“Students who research a topic related to a personal fandom feel more confident in the research process because they are already positioned as an expert…” #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:52:55 -0400

Next! Amber Sewell with Fandom does belong in the classroom: Designing a study of fandom, student confidence, and intertextual expertise #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:50:12 -0400

Chason-McCarthy discusses critically endangered crafts that fanbinding can revitalize, e.g. foreedge painting, paper marbling, tanning. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:37:31 -0400

Distracted by personal stuff from live-blogging #FanLIS2025, sorry!

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:29:54 -0400

Chason-McCarthy conducted ethnography at Renegade Bindery Discord and TikTok fanbinding community. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:29:17 -0400

Chason-McCarthy draws a connection between fanfiction purges from places like LiveJournal and Tumblr and fanbinding and is also suggesting that book bans in the US in school & public libraries might also be connected to fanbinding. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:28:08 -0400

Beck Chason-McCarthy with Multi-Sited Ethnography of Online Fan Binding communities: implications for LIS fields and Allied Crafts #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 10:02:01 -0400

Nelson is interested in how we can use parafandom to delineate the different intentions behind disinformation and misinformation, and how we can use knowledge tools, classification, tags, etc to identify it. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:45:30 -0400

Everything Nelson is sharing is fascinating but my brain just isn’t processing quickly enough to live-blog it. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:33:20 -0400

Nelson is discussing the relationship between dis/misinformation and parafandom. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:28:33 -0400

Next up Melissa D. Nelson with Almost, beyond, or alongside fandom? An alternative frame for QAnon #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:25:42 -0400

There are increasing mentions and interest in pink kryptonite in both canon and fanfiction. The use of pink kryptonite raises significant questions of consent for Superman. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:17:06 -0400

In some of these fanfic, other characters use pink kryptonite or their own abilities to impact Superman. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:15:07 -0400

Fanfic featuring pink kryptonite tends to also incorporate other obscure elements from Superman/DC. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:13:48 -0400

Ue and Starzomski-Wilson are discussing 3 fanfiction texts, undated but apparently from the 90s, and it’s hard to tell from a particular fanfiction which canonical representation of pink kryptonite it’s responding to. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:12:09 -0400

In a couple of comics, pink kryptonite causes Superman to be attracted to Jimmy Olsen. In a short Justice League cartoon, pink kryptonite turns Superman into a woman. In an episode of Harley Quinn, pink kryptonite is reported to “swap gender.” #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:08:38 -0400

So far Ue and Starzomski-Wilson have identified 4 canonical uses of pink kryptonite. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:07:32 -0400

In canon, pink kryptonite affects sex/gender. Fans writing stories featuring pink kryptonite tend to do a lot of research and apply it consistently with canon.

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:03:26 -0400

Tom Ue and Kristofer Starzomski-Wilson up next with Make It Pink: Superman, Pink Kryptonite, and Fandom #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:01:49 -0400

Dreßler “Not everything is queer just because it appears to be.” #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 09:00:42 -0400

German-speaking fans do identify gaps but tend to fill gaps with heteronormative content even in queer stories. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:59:20 -0400

Dreßler is sharing so much in the findings portion that I can’t keep up! #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:53:55 -0400

Stories Dreßler analyzed tend to apply heteronormative tropes to queer relationships. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:52:14 -0400

Dreßler looked at fanfiction on fanfiction.de, analyzed 40 stories from the Sailor Moon and Naruto fandoms, focusing on gay main characters (as represented in the fic, not necessarily the original text), the most popular stories, and stories that are downloadable and citable. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:42:17 -0400

Next! Saskia Dreßler with How subversive is shipping really? An analysis of heteronormative elements in same-sex relationships focused on German-language anime and manga fan fiction

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:41:25 -0400

What happens when these cafes shut down and their archival records disappear and functions cease? #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:41:02 -0400

These K cafe spaces tend to demonstrate uncompensated feminized fan labor while cafe proprietors tend to be men who may not be fans themselves. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:37:47 -0400

Cafes decorated with standees and posters provide a historical record of the life cycle of a media text. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:36:19 -0400

Fans’ notes and art posted in cafes tend to be dated and signed, creating an informal archive, #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:31:42 -0400

Some cafes deliberately center the fan experiences as part of their marketing while others don’t.

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:29:16 -0400

Das is comparing cafes in Delhi, Kolkata, and Siliguri. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:24:00 -0400

Das’s RQ: “Do fandom-centered cafe systems exhibit characteristics of alternate, informal memory institutions?” as opposed to formal, traditional memory institutions like libraries and archives #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:22:01 -0400

Das is investigating cafes as a method of cross-cultural fandom for Indian fans of Korean entertainment. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:19:24 -0400

First up, Susrita Das with Food, fan art, and preserving a moment in time: a case study of the fandom-themed cafe ecosystem as alternative memory institution. #FanLIS2025

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:17:46 -0400

Ludi Price is introducing the fifth FanLIS Symposium. #FanLIS2025 doesn’t have a particular theme. Ludi asks how are things different in FanLIS now than five years ago? (A note on names and titles: I’m using first names for people I know personally, titles/last names for people I don’t.)

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:15:47 -0400

Super exciting opportunity shared at #FanLIS2025, the British Library and the University of Glasgow are sponsoring a PhD student to explore the publication, collection and preservation activities of online fan communities and fan archives. Great topic at a great university!

Thu, 22 May 2025 08:10:05 -0400

I’m attending the #FanLIS2025 Symposium today and will be live-blogging!

Wed, 21 May 2025 13:47:57 -0400

There’s so much info in this manga session that I can’t really keep up with live-blogging! #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 13:30:40 -0400

Next up at #aisl25, Building Manga Collections Students Will Love with Suzie Bergstrom.

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:47:11 -0400

Deborah works as a trainer for Teaching Books, which includes a Book Resume for each title that librarians can use to justify inclusion of books in their collection, especially helpful responding to book challenges. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:31:45 -0400

Deborah suggests pairing informational texts with graphic novels. For example, kids who love Ben Clanton’s Narwhal and Jelly series might be interested in Candace Fleming’s Narwhal: Unicorn of the Arctic. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:27:40 -0400

Prolific author Kate DiCamillo’s Orris and Timble series has a new book coming soon. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:21:45 -0400

Deborah says there is a trend of middle grade books with parents/adults having mental illness and kids having to keep secrets to keep siblings together. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:20:56 -0400

Deborah shares 2 books about whale falls, providing an environment for an ecosystem after a whale dies. These could be good for lateral reading, having students read one and then the other. [Life After Whale] (https://school.teachingbooks.net/tb.cgi?tid=94746) and Whale Fall. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:12:00 -0400

Looking at highly awarded, favorite authors and illustrators, variety of genres, cultural representation, and fan favorites. #aisl25

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:09:29 -0400

Deborah introduced Kari Lavelle’s Butt Or Face? series.

Wed, 21 May 2025 12:08:24 -0400

Starting off #aisl25 with Deborah Salyer talking about What’s New in Books for Children.

Wed, 21 May 2025 09:37:06 -0400

📚💬 “…surely ghosts will follow wherever there is bad record keeping.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Wed, 21 May 2025 08:08:03 -0400

Today I’m attending my first Association of Independent School Librarians institute, Booked for the Day: Reading, Reflection, and Revitalization. I’m planning to live-blog. Posts should automatically appear on Bluesky & Mastodon.

Sat, 17 May 2025 08:11:45 -0400

📚💬 “Here, then, is a central paradox in the way that ghosts work: to turn the living into ghosts is to empty them out, rob them of something vital; to keep the dead alive as ghosts is to fill them up with memory and history, to keep alive a thing that would otherwise be lost.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, writing about the dissonance between Richmond’s history as the home of slave trade and torture and the fact that all Richmond’s ghosts are white 👻

Fri, 16 May 2025 02:43:00 -0400

Finished reading: Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Córdova 📚

This is such a perfect move of Disney’s The Little Mermaid to contemporary romance. There is so much perfection to be had here, such magic work taking movie moments and making them part of our world. If you’re an Ariel person, you should read it.

Thu, 15 May 2025 23:10:33 -0400

📚💬 “Romantic heroes are the greatest cryptids of all.” Zoraida Córdova, Kiss the Girl 🧜‍♀️

Wed, 14 May 2025 11:46:00 -0400

Finished reading: By the Book by Jasmine Guillory 📚

A sweet Beauty and the Beast retelling.

Wed, 14 May 2025 08:38:05 -0400

North Carolinians, use this tool from EveryLibrary to contact your state senator about H636, a bill that “threatens student rights, undermines local control of school libraries, and risks costly censorship battles across the state.” I’ll try to do a detailed breakdown of the bill soon. 📚

Tue, 13 May 2025 12:36:41 -0400

📚💬 “The contemporary attitude toward Spiritualism as a particularly ridiculous belief stems in no small part from the misogyny with which it was attacked in the second half of the nineteenth century.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Tue, 13 May 2025 12:32:46 -0400

“If Emerson could find God in a forest, why couldn’t a medium find departed loved ones in a darkened room?” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Tue, 13 May 2025 12:00:13 -0400

📚💬 “Ghosts, you could say, flock to women left alone.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Mon, 12 May 2025 13:41:26 -0400

📚💬 “Even though the soles of her feet felt like she was walking on broken glass, she glided across the greenroom and stood face-to-face with her father.” Zoraida Córdova bringing a little Hans Christian Andersen to her Disney-inspired Little Mermaid romance retelling, Kiss the Girl 🧜‍♀️

Mon, 12 May 2025 08:16:08 -0400

📚💬 “Live in a house for any length of time, and you make it your own memory palace.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:43:51 -0400

📚💬 “Uncomfortable truths, buried secrets, disputed accounts: ghost stories side out of the shadowlands, a response to the ambiguous and poorly understood.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:39:34 -0400

📚💬 “Those aspects of a life that are discontinuous, fragmented, or unexpected, are made whole through the ghost story.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:37:28 -0400

📚💬 “A haunted house is a memory palace made real: a physical space that retains memories that might otherwise be forgotten or that might remain only in fragments.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Mon, 12 May 2025 07:28:13 -0400

📚💬 “The past we’re most afraid to speak aloud of in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.” Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places 👻

Fri, 09 May 2025 17:45:57 -0400

Finished reading: If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy 📚

Super cute modern Cinderella retelling.

Tue, 06 May 2025 21:08:03 -0400

Finished reading: Deep Blue (Survival Instincts, #0.5) by Adriana Anders 📚

Tue, 06 May 2025 13:44:09 -0400

💬 “I feel like I’m spending half my work time managing my mental and emotional ability to navigate a situation where I can’t confidently apply what I learn to what I’ll do next.” Kim Werker on Canada-to-US book tariffs feels applicable to a lot of us right now.

Tue, 06 May 2025 08:45:00 -0400

🔖 Read Should You Ditch Fixing Your Weaknesses And Lean Into Your Strengths? by Nicole Aherling (The Good Trade).

My top 3 strengths are either Input, Learner, Communication or Love, Curiosity, Creativity. Either way, I’ve built a life where these strengths lead the way. 💗

Mon, 05 May 2025 17:54:46 -0400

Thank you @cygnoir@social.lol for pointing the way to this beautiful thread about the power of connections we make online. 📚💬 “She strode the earth clad in the invisible armor of their virtual companionship.” ― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Mon, 05 May 2025 04:19:35 -0400

Finished reading: Between the Devil and Desire by Lorraine Heath 📚

Sun, 04 May 2025 16:41:55 -0400

Much like I sometimes try to find Paramount+ on my phone by looking for the Star Trek app, just now I tried to find the Poirot app (which is, in fact, Britbox).

Sat, 03 May 2025 09:09:46 -0400

Please enjoy this extremely Kimberly blackout poem by Austin Kleon.

Fri, 02 May 2025 20:55:54 -0400

Me: Masquerade NYC posted a time, an intersection, and a passcode! But we can’t participate because we don’t live in New York. Spouse: I’m sorry. Me: It’s okay. I’m not gonna move to New York just to play in a Phantom of the Opera Alternate Reality Game. *heroically doesn’t search for an AirBnB*

Fri, 02 May 2025 17:22:48 -0400

Finished reading: In Bed With the Devil by Lorraine Heath 📚

Lorraine Heath is great at her job.

Fri, 02 May 2025 08:23:18 -0400

Am I Nostalgic for the 90s Because They Were Legitimately Great or Only Because I’m Middle-Aged?: The Kimberly Hirsh Story

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:10:53 -0400

Finished reading: Born In Ice by Nora Roberts 📚

This one made me a little weepy.

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:45:15 -0400

Ravynn K. Stringfield writes about the love evident in the rigor of Haniq Abdurraqib’s book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest and what she writes is beautiful.

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:11:24 -0400

Finished reading: Oathbound by Tracy Deonn 📚

Ugh so good, Tracy Deonn is so wonderful and I hate that I have to wait a long time for the next book in the Legendborn Cycle and I also know writers need time to do their work. Probably will do a full series re-read ahead of the next.

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 13:57:23 -0400

Finished reading: Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe 📚

A gorgeous picture book biography.

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:10:58 -0400

I think one of the reasons I loved the early web is that you could exist on it purely as words. As a person whose body has often felt like a hindrance, it felt like magic to be able to communicate in the way that most made sense to me.

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 09:01:23 -0400

📚💬 " ChatGPT has access to every poem ever written, at least in theory, but it can’t feel anything when it generates a poem from a prompt. Is this still poetry?" John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 13:38:25 -0400

🔖 Here’s a project IMLS supported that you won’t see in partisan social media posts about where that 0.003% of the federal budget went: Libraries’ Roles in Disaster Preparedness and Recovery by Denise Lyons (Library Journal)

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 09:17:53 -0400

📚💬 “It’s a near certainty that generative AI can have some positive effects on human writing, but for that to be true, we must hold fast to what makes writing meaningful to humans.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:31:43 -0400

📚💬 “What do we make of a technology that is simultaneously undeniably powerful, has access to all the information in the world, and can produce outputs at a speed unmatchable by humans, but at the same time is also untethered from reality?” John Warner, More Than Words

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:27:51 -0400

📚💬 “The things ChatGPT is ‘smarter’ at… are relatively limited as compared to our human capacities for experience, reflection, analysis, and creativity…” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:20:38 -0400

📚💬 “It’s not that ChatGPT makes stuff up. It has no capacity for discerning something true from something not true. Truth is irrelevant to its operations.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 08:19:17 -0400

📚💬 “Large language models do not ‘write.’ They generate syntax.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 17:29:29 -0400

This is happening and I’m very excited. 📚

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:17:30 -0400

📚💬 “Removing thinking from writing renders an act not writing.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:14:34 -0400

📚💬 “…ChatGPT cannot write. Generating syntax is not the same thing as writing. Writing is an embodied act of thinking and feeling. Writing is communicating with intention.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:12:39 -0400

📚💬 “…segregating people by those who are allowed and empowered to engage with a genuine process of writing from those who outsource it to AI is hardly democratic. It mistakes product for process.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:48:20 -0400

Finished reading: Born in Fire by Nora Roberts 📚

Technically I read this in the binding of the Irish Born trilogy that has all 3 books, but I’m giving myself credit for each individual book as I finish it. La Nora writes such a moving story.

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:19:48 -0400

📚💬 “‘That was it,’ Maggie said with a laugh. ‘I was bright. Brie was sweet.’” Nora Roberts, Born in Fire

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 10:08:35 -0400

📚💬 “All you need for Paris, Maggie, is a romantic heart.” Nora Roberts, Born in Fire

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 14:05:39 -0400

Finished reading: Before She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome 📚

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 14:00:54 -0400

Finished reading: Thank You, Omu! (Caldecott Honor Book) by Oge Mora 📚

A lovely picture book about generosity with super cool cut paper mixed media illustrations!

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 13:57:09 -0400

Finished reading: Shadow’s Heart by Kresley Cole 📚

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 02:30:27 -0400

In How to Tell When We Will Die, Johanna Hedva writes about how they are going to be in pain no matter what, so they choose to go out and have experiences that might cause them more, because they can’t avoid pain. I thought I wasn’t like that, but lying here in pain after spending the day at the zoo with my kid, I realize that’s where I make this choice. I do stuff with my kid even if it will cause me pain, because pain will come anyway. It’s just a matter of degree.

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 14:56:53 -0400

Finished reading: What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long 📚

Oh wow. I love both main characters in this one. The heroine is so tired of being seen as a reliable dog geyser person. The hero is deliberately prickly and mysterious. I love them.

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 13:48:10 -0400

Finished reading: The Secret Garden by Mariah Marsden and Hanna Luechtefeld 📚

The Secret Garden is one of my favorite books from childhood and this is an excellent graphic novel adaptation that captures its magic beautifully.

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 08:30:30 -0400

🔖🍿 Read Why Minecraft Movie Fans Are Getting Rowdy and Going Viral by Lynn Zubernis Ph.D. (Psychology Today)

Found this via Austin Kleon’s newsletter. I love this explanation of how rowdy theater behavior is developmentally appropriate.

And there’s a whole Science of Fandom Column? I am excite.

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 09:26:23 -0400

💬📚 “Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat that will destroy things of value, we should be viewing it as an opportunity to reconsider exactly what we value and why we value those things.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:46:10 -0400

💬📺 “The thing, Hastings? Do you think Poirot concerns himself with mere thingness?” Season 1, Episode 2, “Murder in the Mews,” Agatha Christie’s Poirot

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 17:24:53 -0400

Finished reading: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long 📚

A headstrong lady! Shipboard romance! As always, Julie Anne Long does the job.

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:20:53 -0400

💬📚 “Do you want to look back on a life of items crossed off lists drawn up in response to the demands of others? Or do you want to hang on to, and repeat, and remember, the thrill of discovering things on your own?” Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 23:18:26 -0400

📺 Watched The Residence.

So great! A country house mystery where the country house is the White House. Uzo Aduba is wonderful, as always. Full of fun actors in smaller roles.

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 23:11:13 -0400

🍿Watched A Minecraft Movie.

Super fun if you’re familiar with Minecraft. I loved seeing it in the theater with a bunch of folks who clearly love Minecraft and applauded as each key bit of Minecraft lore was revealed.

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 12:06:20 -0400

Finished reading: How to Tell When We Will Die by Johanna Hedva 📚

This book challenged me. I don’t know the last time I had to look up several new-to-me words in a book, but we’re talking decades. This book was full of essays that resonated deeply with my own experiences and others that were like a window into a completely different world. I’m so glad I read it.

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:43:30 -0400

📚💬 “I want a life capacious enough to contain what I choose to be true about myself and that which I did not but have nevertheless learned to work with, to use, to wield.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 10:16:55 -0400

📚💬 “…kindness is a form of magic we can choose to know how to do. What matters is attending to suffering, no matter why it’s there.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:55:30 -0400

Finished reading: Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson 📚

A great picture book about the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham in 1963, perfect model of how kids can make a difference.

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 11:17:53 -0400

Oh no I’m attending a LEGO Education Info Session and it’s in Teams. I don’t care for Teams.

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 12:29:35 -0400

Finished reading: The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander 📚

A gorgeous picture book poem.

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 23:38:15 -0400

Finished reading: Since the Surrender by Julie Anne Long 📚

Julie Anne Long is really good at the job. Lots of yearning in this one, in the best way.

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 10:17:08 -0400

Thank you @cygnoir@social.lol for sharing this link of how you can be an ally on Transgender Day of Visibility and every day! 🏳️‍⚧️

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 10:15:11 -0400

Looking at my online presence you might believe all I do is read books, but I also play Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters.

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 06:51:05 -0400

Bio update! My bio everywhere now reads:

Three books in a trench coat. Escribitionist. Mom. School librarian. Citizen of Romancelandia. I manage multiple chronic illnesses. I love books and games. 🌈♿

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 07:57:36 -0400

📚💬 “In illness, the now feels like punishment.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 07:38:17 -0400

📚💬 “Maybe the blast radius of disability destroys everything and also makes new worlds. Maybe these are worlds of paradox: both the radical limitation of what you used to be able to do and an explosion of the horizon around what you thought would ever be possible.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 07:28:50 -0400

📚💬 “The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To take seriously each other’s vulnerability and fragility and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it. To protect each other, to enact and practice a community of support. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:58:45 -0400

Finished reading: How to Steal a Galaxy by Beth Revis 📚

Super fun but also upsetting because of the social commentary middle book in a space heist romance trilogy.

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 08:50:47 -0400

📚💬 “…this is the conundrum all sick and disabled people live with. To be pathologized is to be allowed to survive.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:59:36 -0400

📚💬 “When you have chronic illness, life is reduced to a relentless rationing of energy.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:45:55 -0400

Finished reading: Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas 📚

A great graphic novel!

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:10:35 -0400

📚💬 “How can you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:28:18 -0400

📚💬 “How many of us have already met our doom and then had to get out of bed and go on?” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:41:22 -0400

📚💬 “Disability describes a condition that is both more othered from and profoundly closer to one’s body than any other political condition that I can think of.” Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:31:18 -0400

📚💬 " All the ways we cannot do something, all the ways we won’t be able to do something—what sort of political dreams can come from this as a starting place?" Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 08:18:59 -0400

📚💬 " What about stories that are enlivened, vivified, not despite illness and disability but because of them?" Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 03:15:06 -0400

Finished reading: Like No Other Lover by Julie Anne Long 📚

So great. Julie Anne Long is excellent both at the plot level and at the prose level.

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 12:41:57 -0400

🎭 I’m at Beetlejuice The Musical and it’s like the musical theater version of Bats Day at the Fun Park. Everyone is here in their goth finery and it makes me so happy.

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 14:36:33 -0400

Finished reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 📚

As great as everyone says. It’s striking how much chronic illness and grad school prepped me for accepting rather than struggling with the ideas here. This is a perfect book to read when you’re in your 40s.

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 12:05:15 -0400

Please read today’s Book Riot Literary Activism Newsletter and EveryLibrary’s statement on the appointment of Keith E. Sonderling as Acting Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It’s always a hard time for libraries in the US but it’s been an especially rough couple of weeks.

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 10:21:46 -0400

📚💬 “…having large amounts of time but no opportunity to use it collaboratively isn’t just useless but actively unpleasant…” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 10:10:10 -0400

Oliver Burkeman writes about professor Robert Boice’s attempt to get PhD students to work a little bit daily and take weekends off. The students wouldn’t do it and their desire to rush the work actually got in the way of their progress. I found something similar when I did a dissertation boot camp where for the whole day I was working on my dissertation instead of the small increments that I normally did. I was so exhausted after that week of pushing really hard that I had to take a 2-week break which obviously did not advance me as far as you might hope a boot camp would.

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 10:05:50 -0400

📚💬 “…the presence of problems in your life… isn’t an impediment to a meaningful existence, but the very substance of one.” Oliver Burkeman, Forty Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 09:54:07 -0400

📚💬 “…reading Is the sort of activity that largely operates according to its own schedule.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 00:40:39 -0400

Finished reading: The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long 📚

A book with an awesome heroine and a delightful hero. Julie Anne Long is new to me and seems bound to become one of my favorite historic romance authors.

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:17:40 -0400

📚💬 “Results aren’t everything. Indeed, they better not be, because results always come later—and later is always too late.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 09:13:35 -0400

📚💬 " …a good hobby probably should feel a little embarrassing; that’s a sign you’re doing it for its own sake rather than for some socially sanctioned outcome." Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 12:51:01 -0400

📚💬 " In order to most fully inhabit the only life you ever get, you have to refrain from using every spare hour for personal growth." Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 09:16:34 -0400

Sometimes, I’ll think of someone I connected with online and wonder how they’re doing. I’ll miss them and if I don’t have their email address or they don’t have a newsletter or RSS feed, I just won’t know how they are, because social timelines are bad for my mental health right now.

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 09:13:19 -0400

Greetings from our spring break staycation.

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:25:29 -0400

“…what we think of as ‘distractions’ aren’t the ultimate cause of our being distracted. They’re just the places we go to seek relief from the discomfort of confronting limitation.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 13:08:51 -0400

📚💬 “…if you’re procrastinating on something because you’re worried you won’t do a good enough job, you can relax—because judged by the flawless standards of your imagination, you definitely won’t do a good enough job. So you might as well make a start.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:19:28 -0400

EveryLibrary has created a tool you can use to send an email to your legislators and governors urging them to support federal funding for Libraries. Libraries could see downstream impacts from Trump’s Executive Order as soon as this Friday.

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 13:06:59 -0400

📚💬 " The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things." Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 12:22:31 -0400

🔖 Book Riot’s Literary Activism Newsletter explains: Library Funding Targeted in New Trump Executive Order: What It Means & What To Do Now.

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 05:19:09 -0400

I was looking at my On This Day page, reading an old post I wrote that’s especially thoughtful and in-depth about improv, and it struck me that I don’t think that deeply anymore. I miss it.

But I do think that deeply at work, I’m just not blogging about it. May be time to start blogging that stuff.

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 04:56:46 -0400

🔖 Read The clockwork universe: is free will an illusion? by Oliver Burkeman (The Guardian).

I’m trying to find a space where determinism and existentialism co-exist. I just keep coming back to the line from the TV show Angel: “if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do.”

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:14:52 -0400

Finished reading: Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis 📚

The first novella in a series of three. At first I thought it might not be the right moment for me to read this, but I’m glad I stuck with it. The payoff is great.

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 05:21:21 -0400

Finished reading: Dark Russian Angel by Odette Stone 📚

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 20:42:36 -0400

📚💬 “… there’s no reason to believe you’ll ever feel ‘on top of things,’ or make time for everything that matters, simply by getting more done.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 10:02:14 -0400

📚💬 “… once you become convinced that something you’ve been attempting is impossible, it’s a lot harder to keep on berating yourself for failing.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:53:52 -0400

Finished reading: Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell 📚

I really enjoyed this! Sad boys falling in love in space.

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 06:48:28 -0400

📺🍿 How I Met Your Mother co-creator Craig Thomas wrote about the influence the movie A Christmas Story had on the show.

I replied with this:

This has me thinking about the voice-over narration in The Wonder Years, beautifully done by Daniel Stern. A Christmas Story (which for years my dad would put on for its 24-hour marathon) came out in 1983. The Wonder Years ran 1988-1993. What other films and shows use this device? (I think maybe 8-Bit Christmas does?) Are they all doing the same thing with it? What does it do that stories without flashback voiceover don’t? I would read the heck out of a smart pop culture essay about this.

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:18:38 -0400

🔖 Read HTML Is Actually a Programming Language. Fight Me by Tim Carmody (Wired)

Carmody and I came to HTML within a year of each other, both via Netscape, and I love this love letter to my favorite programming language (yes, I love HTML more than BASIC). Count me in as part of HTML’s posse.

Mon, 10 Mar 2025 09:58:13 -0400

Finished reading: Whiteout by Adriana Anders 📚

Like if The Thing, that Antarctica episode of The X-Files, and a Michael Crichton book all had a baby with a romance novel. So, you know, pretty great.

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 06:18:30 -0400

Finished reading: The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath 📚

A wild premise deftly handled.

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 17:05:30 -0400

I’m very psyched that a local romance lover is launching a mobile romance-focused bookstore. She’s launched an Indiegogo to help her get over the finish line. Please consider contributing!

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:33:48 -0400

💬📚📝 “…a story’s as much house or garden as song.” Jane Alison, Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 08:48:10 -0400

Finished reading: Falling Into Bed with a Duke by Lorraine Heath 📚

Lorraine Heath knows the job. Minerva Dodger is a delightful heroine.

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 19:09:10 -0400

Finished reading: Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes 📚

A very useful and straightforward book about romance novel structure.

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:51:43 -0400

Finished reading: The Heroine’s Journey: For Readers, Writers, and Fans of Pop Culture by Gail Carriger 📚

This is a great book about story structure that helped me understand, among other things, why Jean-Luc Picard is my favorite Star Trek captain.

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:07:35 -0400

📚💬📝 “…what are we writers but Machiavellian manipulators of a stranger’s emotions?” Gail Carriger, The Heroine’s Journey

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 14:28:26 -0400

Life is a lot right now. I give you permission to take a harm reduction approach to literally anything you need to. Taking some supplements is better than taking none. Eating unhealthy food is better than not eating. You’re doing your best and I see you.

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:06:01 -0400

Finished reading: A Duke Worth Falling For by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love Sarah MacLean so much.

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 18:52:43 -0400

Finished reading: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa 📚

Cute rom-com with a heroine who has put walls around her heart and has to learn when to open the gate and let someone in.

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 14:02:33 -0400

Finished reading: To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins 📚

Another awesome heroine.

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 19:50:35 -0400

Finished reading: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers 📚

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:26:13 -0400

Finished reading: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott 📚

A classic for a reason.

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:25:29 -0400

💬📚 “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 10:37:07 -0400

💬📚 “Don’t be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 09:01:32 -0400

💬📚 “You wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your soul more than other pursuits.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:01:14 -0400

💬📚 “… everything we need in order to tell our stories in a reasonable and exciting way already exists in each of us.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:56:31 -0400

💬📚 “I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good enough at it, and I don’t think you have time to waste on someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:20:56 -0400

💬📚 “Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 10:42:02 -0400

💬📚 “Take the attitude that what you are thinking and feeling is valuable stuff, and then be naive enough to get it all down on paper.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:57:39 -0400

🔖 Read:

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 05:27:53 -0400

🖖🏻 I’m watching the episode where Worf joins the crew of DS9. When the camera panned up from his feet to his face, I thought, “Oh, it’s my buddy Worf! I want to hug him.”

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:23:05 -0400

Finished reading: Wild Rain by Beverly Jenkins 📚

I loved the heroine in this one. Spring is a tough rancher who has been cut off from her feelings for years, except for the feelings she has for horses.

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 11:56:08 -0400

Finished reading: Rebel by Beverly Jenkins 📚

Ms. Bev knows her business and does it well.

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 11:00:22 -0400

In Romancelandia, Valentine’s Day is, as the French say, un jour férié. In honor of the day, if you give me the title and description of any book you’ve enjoyed, I’ll recommend a romance for you to try.

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:27:06 -0400

🔖 Read The Courts Can’t Stop the Trump-Musk Coup.

Courts are not known for their harm prevention—they’re best used when trying to hold someone accountable for the harm they already caused.

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:53:06 -0400

🎮 Playing the first Final Fantasy pixel remaster and it makes me so happy. The music especially. I have played this video game more than any other. It’s very soothing.

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 10:08:18 -0400

📚💬 “We can’t hide in romance. We have to find strength in it.” Adriana Herrera in today’s episode of Fated Mates

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 01:23:21 -0400

🎮 Downloading the Final Fantasy I - VI pixel remasters. Very excited!

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 18:30:28 -0400

Today’s Progress: Completed the freeCodeCamp certification project, “Learn Typography by Building a Nutrition Label.”

Thoughts: This actually helped me understand justifying content using flexbox as much as it helped me understand typography.

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 18:54:19 -0400

🍿 Watched Saturday Night.

A delight, specially crafted for sketch comedy nerds like myself.

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:04:34 -0400

Finished reading: After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez 📚

So great. It made me cry. Jeremiah, the hero book, is a phenomenal example of an engaged scholar.

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:58:45 -0400

Today’s Coding Progress: Completed the freeCodeCamp certification project, “Learn CSS Flexbox by Building a Photo Gallery.”

Thoughts: This is where my conceptual understanding of CSS starts to fall apart. I’m definitely going to dig deeper into this topic before I move on at freeCodeCamp.

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:38:53 -0400

Later-coding update from Monday:

Today’s Progress: Completed the freeCodeCamp certification project, “Learn the CSS Box Model by Building a Rothko Painting.”

Thoughts: The basics of the box model were already quite familiar, but I really appreciated the reminder that we now have CSS properties (and have for a very long time) for things like making drop shadows, blurring, rounding corners, and rotating. Again, these are not new properties, but my internal sense of CSS is based on CSS 2.0 circa 2002, so these are useful reminders.

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:28:27 -0400

It’s just a terrible time for timelines. I’m mostly hanging out in my email inbox and Discord these days.

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 07:33:28 -0400

🔖 Read The history of anti-authoritarian struggle is a history worth repeating by Sarah Freeman-Woolpert (Waging Nonviolence).

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 16:43:11 -0400

📚 Happy book birthday to Adriana Herrera and A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke!

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:47:58 -0400

I played Spyro the Dragon (Reignited Trilogy version) and had fun but 3D games mostly give me motion sickness so now I feel gross. Uninstalled and will try Kirby Super Star tomorrow. 🎮

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 21:36:54 -0400

🔖 Read The Logic of Destruction by Timothy Snyder.

Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them.

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 13:26:37 -0400

🔖 Read How to organize under authoritarian creep in a closing civil society.

This is my playbook moving forward.

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 08:30:34 -0400

🔖 Read Trump’s education department says book bans are a ‘hoax.’ Teachers disagree..

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 01:05:16 -0400

Finished reading: Rule of the Aurora King by Nisha J. Tuli 📚

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 17:45:56 -0400

🍿 Watched Dog Man.

Exactly what it says on the tin. If you enjoy the Dog Man graphic novels, you’ll enjoy the movie, and if you don’t, you won’t.

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:49:34 -0400

Today’s Coding Progress: Completed the freeCodeCamp projects, “Learn CSS Colors by Building a Set of Colored Markers.”

Thoughts: CSS is already breaking my brain here. Using it to style empty containers chafes against my feeling that it should be for styling content, not styling blank space. I thought this was a thing of me not being smart or with-it enough to understand this use of CSS, but now I think it’s a conceptual problem. From this conceptual problem flow all kinds of struggles with understanding properties and the arguments they take. This is definitely a place where a reference will come in handy. So I think I’ll hunt down some writing about using CSS this way and a resource that will be a good reference.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 18:17:02 -0400

Little coding update! Completed the freeCodeCamp projects “Learn HTML by Building a Cat Photo App”, “Learn Basic CSS by Building a Cafe Menu.” This is all familiar stuff, but I always appreciate the reminder to use semantic tags like section & the refresh of how forms work.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 10:02:48 -0400

🔖 Read Primark launches clothing range designed for people with disabilities.

I love this. I hope we see it spread to other retailers.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 09:16:18 -0400

It’s hard to feel much like writing these days. I’m going to be building some hand-coded projects and learning more hand-coding stuff, so I’ll be blogging about that process.

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 07:29:00 -0400

Bless Miss O’Kistic for this timeless tweet.

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 22:39:19 -0400

Finished reading: A Seditious Affair by KJ Charles 📚

A Tory pursuing seditionists for the Home Office and a radical pamphleteer fall in love in Regency England and it’s just as perfect as you’d expect. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 15:22:15 -0400

Finished reading: A Fashionable Indulgence by KJ Charles 📚

Just excellent.

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 08:49:00 -0400

Help me out, Internet. I saw someone talking about a cross-posting service a while back, maybe @pratik@writing.exchange? What is that service called? Thanks!

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 08:40:00 -0400

Me just now: I think my boots don’t look as cool with the laces looser on the foot and tighter on the ankle.

Also me: Kimberly, you are a middle-aged school librarian. You don’t need to look cool.

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 18:07:00 -0400

Stepping away from timelines and replies for a little while, but still planning to share resources and blog. If you want to be sure I see what you have to say, every post on my website has a Reply by email button.

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:48:54 -0400

Sharing more resources to help you defend libraries. Kelly Jensen works so hard on the Book Riot Literary Activism newsletter. It is the best place I know of to get news about censorship. Sign up here.

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 23:32:46 -0400

🔖 Read Please Don’t Use Generative AI To Mimic Historical Figures.

This is all kinds of a bad idea. The BlueSky thread linked in the post shares a conversation that makes me think the LLM wasn’t trained on Anne Frank’s writing, given its ignorance of the ethnic part of Jewish identity.

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:28:07 -0400

📚💬 “Kill the protestors, arrest the leaders, gaol the journalists. It’s what they do. It’s what tyrants do.” K. J. Charles, A Fashionable Indulgence

Just… In case you were wondering whether romance tackles serious issues.

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:24:43 -0400

Information is my love language!

GLSEN is my go-to resource for LGBTQ+ issues in K-12 education.

The Trevor Project is a suicide prevention and crisis intervention program for LGBTQ+ young people.

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

♥️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤎🩷🤍🩵

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 09:20:15 -0400

Your mind is valuable.

Your attention is an important part of your mind.

Stop treating it like slop.

- Simon Woods

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 21:36:28 -0400

Finished reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 📚

This was a good book to read today, full of helpful ideas. Reading notes coming soon. Highly recommend.

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 14:48:11 -0400

Not everything I post on my personal site is getting pushed through to social media. If you want to learn how you can see all of it, I have a /follow page.

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 09:32:38 -0400

🔖 Read Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.

I first read this in high school and was long overdue for a re-read. If you’ve never read it, I urge you to read it today and let it prompt you to consider what is just and what work remains.

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 01:15:08 -0400

Finished reading: The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh by KJ Charles 📚

A fun short story. A hot 🔥🔥🔥.

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 14:38:37 -0400

Bit of venting (no advice needed): it’s frustrating to have multi chronic illnesses because a good day for one condition can be a bad day for another.

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:27:35 -0400

Finished reading: Priest by Sierra Simone 📚

Y’all, this is both explicit and taboo. Content warning for suicide (one of the MC’s siblings, before the book takes place but the MC finding her is mentioned). A VERY hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥.

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:16:04 -0400

💬📚📝 “For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are the ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:14:51 -0400

💬📚📝 “…we no longer need Chicken Little to tell us the sky is falling, because it already has. The issue now is how to take care of one another.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:13:09 -0400

💬📚📝 “…a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:06:14 -0400

💬📚📝 “The core, ethical concepts in which you most passionately believe are the language in which you are writing.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 21:15:35 -0400

I really needed my past self’s advice to stop trying to optimize myself.

Thanks, me.

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 17:22:50 -0400

Finished reading: Dark Lover by J.R. Ward 📚

Listened to the audiobook. This one is very much of its time (2005).

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:16:02 -0400

Finished reading: How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days by Kerrelyn Sparks 📚

The pacing in this is wild, and by wild I mean slow. But it was interesting enough to keep me reading.

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 18:22:12 -0400

🍿 Watched This Is My Life.

Nora Ephron’s film directorial debut. I love a story about a mother and her kids.

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:54:33 -0400

🔖 Read 799 Books: The Story of The Stanford L. Warren Library.

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:41:38 -0400

🔖 Read For Durham Artist Gabriel Eng-Goetz, Community Is the Greatest Muse.

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 07:40:06 -0400

🔖 Read Wake County Employs SROs in 80 Schools; Some Parents and Civil Rights Advocates Say Their Presence Harms and Criminalizes Students .

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 11:16:08 -0400

My very kind and generous household family gave me time and space to rest during the pain phase of my migraine yesterday. I’m now in the postdrome phase and everything feels very weird. I wouldn’t be sad to get another 12 hours of sleep.

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 04:30:13 -0400

The first week of the New Year left me exhausted from peopling. And I came into the second week exhausted from an unusual work schedule. I have to dedicate some time to rest and taking care of my home over the next week.

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 11:25:46 -0400

My aesthetic isn’t dark Twee, actually. It’s more goth bookstore girl. Like if Rory Gilmore were Wednesday Addams rather than just being insufferable. See also, darkest academia.

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 21:34:56 -0400

Finished reading: Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat 📚

This book is well-written and compelling. It’s also intense and full of potentially triggering moments. I recommend perusing the full Does the Dog Die? page for it before reading.

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 17:23:04 -0400

People of Micro.blog please welcome my friends from all of us enjoying books and talking about it online, @lgmhamm and @cedickie. Two of our new Micro.one neighbors!

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 17:56:14 -0400

🍿 Watched Wicked Part I.

I had a great time! I am a person who took a while to warm up to Wicked the show. The movie does a lot to move it in the direction of something I strongly enjoy.

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 19:27:48 -0400

Finished reading: The Serpent and the Wolf by Rebecca Robinson 📚

I loved this! A woman who has to learn to let love in, a man who is patient enough to wait for her to do so, a coven of friends, political machinations, and magic. Chef kiss! 🔥🔥🔥

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 09:27:10 -0400

Austin Kleon’s list of 100 things that made his year always delights me. I aspire to notice more things like he does.

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 08:24:59 -0400

💬📚 “A new notebook is not about starting over—it’s about leveling up.” - Ryder Carroll, The Bullet Journal Method

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 18:04:00 -0400

My timeline is conspiring to get me planning, via @cygnoir@social.lol and @cheribaker@writing.exchange. (But I may delay until tomorrow, I am so tired.)

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 17:29:01 -0400

🔖 Read The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction by Elizabeth Minkel (Fansplaining).

If you care about fandom, fanfiction, bad actors, and the pull-to-publish pipeline, this is a great read.

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 23:59:51 -0400

Finished reading: Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli 📚

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 08:45:49 -0400

Hi Internet friends. I hope your December 25 goes swimmingly!

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:59:41 -0400

🎮 Finished The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom last night. Super fun! I love puzzles, I love getting to be Zelda without her having to be disguised, and I love that the world is still making new games I can play now that 3D games seem to give me motion sickness.

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:37:51 -0400

I’m coining a new aesthetic: Dark Twee. Think Jessica Day meets Lydia Deetz. A goth children’s librarian. More to come.

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:57:39 -0400

Finished reading: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen 📚

Viking fantasy romance/romantasy. Not exactly a cliffhanger but not NOT a cliffhanger, either. Highly recommend. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 23:05:18 -0400

I am very resentful of my body’s need for sleep.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:01:34 -0400

💬📚📝 “…in order to be a writer, you have to be reverent.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 10:55:15 -0400

💬📚📝 “Writing is about communicating what’s going on. Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Timeless.

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 09:11:56 -0400

I’m planning to make 2025 a Year of Making, for reasons. (The reasons are that making stuff is good for my mental health.)

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 15:21:10 -0400

Finished reading: Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon 📚

I really enjoyed this, mostly for the fantasy and emotional stuff. Love a nerdy heroine and a bull-headed hero (literally, in this case). The uniquely minotaurish monster romance bits were not the main source of its appeal for me. Definitely a very hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥. Not for the faint of heart.

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 10:35:44 -0400

📚 2024 has been a good year for queer sommelier romances.

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 09:46:30 -0400

🔖 Read The open social web is the future of the internet. Here’s why I’m excited. by Ben Werdmuller.

This is a great articulation of what’s good.

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:35:30 -0400

I am very behind on Lower Decks and I kinda need to just hide from the Internet until I catch up.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 09:46:09 -0400

💬📚📝 “All you can give us is what life is about from your point of view. You are not going to be able to give us the plans to the submarine. Life is not a submarine. There are no plans.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 09:43:38 -0400

💬📚📝 “The development of relationship creates plot.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 07:41:26 -0400

I’ve been writing in 750 Words for a few days. I’m feeling motivated to make notes on our travels from 2023. Eventually, maybe I’ll pull some pearls out of there and polish them up to continue my belated travel blog series.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 12:53:55 -0400

Finished reading: Swordcrossed by Freya Marske 📚

Lovely! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 17:27:58 -0400

📺📚📓 Read The Great Experiment: race and authorship in Shonda Rhimes’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story by Claudia Calhoun (Adaptation).

This is an eminently readable and beautifully argued journal article.

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 01:25:00 -0400

Finished reading: A Touch of Stone and Snow by Milla Vane 📚

I might love this even more than A Heart of Blood and Ashes. A mild 🔥🔥🔥🔥.

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 09:47:53 -0400

💬📚 “When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.” Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 09:41:49 -0400

💬📚 “I’m a student, not a guru.” Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:04:19 -0400

🍿 I’ve watched still more made-for-TV holiday movies:

Jingle Bell Run
Meet Me Next Christmas
Hot Frosty

Hot Frosty taught me that no matter how built a dude is, no matter how kind he is, if he’s a himbo, I will not find him attractive.

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 15:57:53 -0400

Finished reading: A Heart of Blood and Ashes by Milla Vane 📚

So, so good. I’m so happy to have found my fantasy romance sweet spot. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 07:35:32 -0400

🍿 Watched Christmas on the Ranch.

I like this but he asks her to give up her life in New York and move to his ranch in Ohio before they even kiss. Bold.

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 10:05:37 -0400

Is this still a migraine or am I in the postdrome phase? The Kimberly Hirsh story

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 09:42:06 -0400

I love my job and my family, and yet I find myself resenting that I have to do anything today besides sit around reading A Heart of Blood and Ashes. 📚

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:59:32 -0400

Finished reading: The Beast of Blackmoor by Milla Vane 📚

Milla Vane asks, “What if grimdark, but romance?” and I answer, “Yes please!” So great. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 13:38:34 -0400

Finished reading: Killer Underwear Invasion! How to Spot Fake News, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories by Elise Gravel 📚

This is a great book, aimed at kids. I’m definitely going to order it for our library. I might try to write a full review later.

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:02:02 -0400

Chronically ill stationery nerd life: you can’t find the pill sorter you thought was on your nightstand, but at least while you were searching for it, you found your date stamp.

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:34:41 -0400

Finished reading: Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

Most of this book is set in the Smoky Mountains near Asheville and I just kept thinking about all the aftermath of Hurricane Helene up there. This book was published in 1997.

🔥🔥🔥

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 11:29:59 -0400

It took over a week, but my little web lab(yrinth) is live. (Previously mentioned here.)

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 08:00:07 -0400

My word for 2025 is MORE. I want to do more next year. Details forthcoming.

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 07:54:10 -0400

After all that thinking about traveler’s journals and field journals, I think I’m going to end up sticking with an official Bullet Journal or Leuchtterm A5. It’s been 10 years since I started living in a single notebook and it’s really working for me. So some years I buy a second one; that’s okay.

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 09:51:43 -0400

Finished reading: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera 📚

I love Adriana Herrera’s Las Leonas series so much. This is a very hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥. Paris, Scotland, an awesome woman running a business and taking care of her sister. Top notch. Highly recommend.

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 09:41:50 -0400

Hello friends! If you’re seeing this on BlueSky, that’s because my website automatically syndicates there. Your replies get piped back into me via Micro.blog but I only see likes when I actually log in to BlueSky, which I only do every couple of days. Happy you found me there! 💛

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:14:55 -0400

Finished reading: Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet 📚

White wrote the first novels I remember reading: Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan. This children’s biography had me tearing up several times. Highly recommend.

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 15:01:18 -0400

💬📚 “Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.” E. B. White quoted in Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 14:58:53 -0400

💬📚 “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth…. Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net.” E. B. White, quotes in Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 12:55:36 -0400

Finding myself holding dear to my heart stories where people fight evil in community: Sailor Moon, Buffy Seasons 1-4 & 7.

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 09:34:24 -0400

I have scheduled a sleep study. I think I’m done for the day. I have been productive, right? (I’m also taking the kiddo to the pediatrician this afternoon.)

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 08:36:30 -0400

Bought a new domain and hosting package to have a spot to put random web projects, as one does.

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 12:26:27 -0400

Currently reading: Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life by Joanna Ebenstein 📚

Sat, 09 Nov 2024 12:25:06 -0400

📚💬 “By learning to live with our fear of death, we also learn to live with our fear of that which we cannot control, to sit with the mystery at the heart of life and still appreciate, and with great joy, the life we have been given.” Joanna Ebenstein, Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 08:27:42 -0400

🔖 Read 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won.

This is helpful.

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 11:58:58 -0400

It is November 7. I am wearing sandals.

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 09:15:39 -0400

🔖 Read Please publish more (on your website) by Colin Devroe.

Micro.blog is the best way I’ve found to do this. (Full disclosure: I contract for M.b sometimes.)

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 11:52:14 -0400

ThredUp: It’s sweater weather. Weather forecast: It’s going to be 79° F. Me: So like… Short-sleeved sweaters?

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 08:46:36 -0400

On November 9, 2016, I took my one month old baby to the New Parents Group at my doula’s office. Parents and babies sat together and unpacked and grieved election results. Today, I will go to work as a school librarian and hold children in the light.

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 14:29:02 -0400

Finished reading: Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips 📚

🔥🔥🔥

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 18:35:44 -0400

Finished reading: Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase 📚

The. Best. 🔥🔥🔥

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 10:12:41 -0400

The Cure might not be goth, but I am, and I’m excited about their new album.

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 11:23:35 -0400

Lukewarm take: Moominpappa is a terrible parent.

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 13:08:03 -0400

🍿 I have watched more Hallmark and Hallmark-style autumnal movies:

October Kiss
Haunted Wedding
You Cast a Spell on Me

The most fun thing with these is recognizing people who had recurring roles on shows you love.

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 14:06:00 -0400

💬📝 “The best writing is often done by persons who are snatching time from something else.” E. B. White

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 01:24:22 -0400

Finished reading: Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase 📚

So good. Loretta Chase knows the job. 🔥🔥🔥

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:47:38 -0400

I have voted. I have given to two giving circles aimed at moving state legislatures in the direction I want them to go. I am finding that even micro.blog is not doing great for my peace of mind in light of the US election. So I’m going to take a break from timelines.

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 14:48:06 -0400

That feeling when you’re cited in the book you’re reading to tell you how to do your job better.

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 06:22:37 -0400

Finished reading: The Truth About Him by M. O’Keefe 📚

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 06:21:55 -0400

Finished reading: Everything I Left Unsaid by M. O’Keefe 📚

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 11:37:24 -0400

Unglamorous voting selfie!

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 20:01:39 -0400

Finished reading: You Had Me at Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Of course Timothy Janovsky can write a book that has incredible mental illness & neurodiversity rep, is adorable, and scorches, all at the same time. A very hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥, almost 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥.

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 10:44:57 -0400

🔖 Read Spinning your wheels by Annie Mueller.

This is a great read. Sometimes the only way out is through, and the only way through is patience, and that can feel really hard.

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 08:47:50 -0400

Fan Studies Network North America 2024 starts tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite conferences. Between work and parenting, I don’t know how much I’ll actually get to, but I hope I at least get to some of it!

Mon, 14 Oct 2024 21:48:48 -0400

💬📚 “His brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s, so he’s largely stopped expecting understanding from others.” Timothy Janovsky, You Had Me at Happy Hour

We love a romance between two neurosparkly kings.

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 18:24:09 -0400

I love the idea of week notes or month notes but honestly the rhythm of my life is such that neither one quite works for me. I might play with life notes, sharing stuff whenever but trying to share more.

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 18:23:02 -0400

🍿 Also watched They Live. A very different flavor of Carpenter. Two great tastes that taste great together!

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 16:10:24 -0400

🍿 Watched John Carpenter’s The Thing. I love practical effects so much.

Sat, 12 Oct 2024 22:53:53 -0400

Finished reading: The Pairing by Casey McQuiston 📚

I love it. I’m a sucker for a second-chance romance. Casey McQuiston always does a great job. This book made me want to eat and travel and love with my whole heart. 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:59:14 -0400

My website should be automatically cross-posting to Threads now. Hi Threads friends! (Hi everyone else, too.)

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 08:51:50 -0400

📚 The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen looks like exactly the kind of thing many of my Internet friends and acquaintances would love.

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 08:38:13 -0400

Finished reading: The Villa by Rachel Hawkins 📚

This is a modern gothic. I bounced off of it in print but audio worked beautifully for me, as there are different perspectives and time periods, plus documentary-style bits. Highly recommend.

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 08:59:07 -0400

Finished reading: The Lion’s Daughter by Loretta Chase 📚

An older book by a luminary of the genre. I love when romance includes a lot of adventure and boy does this ever. 🔥🔥🔥

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 17:40:13 -0400

Notebook update: buying only elastic to use with the cover we have in the house is a no-go. The cover isn’t strong enough; it really is meant to slip on a notebook. Back to considering the Lochby.

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 11:17:54 -0400

🔖 Read

Motherhood Is Antarctica: On the Underexplored Landscape of Postpartum Loneliness lithub.com
Literary Hub https://lithub.com/motherhood-is-antarctica-on-the-underexplored-landscape-of-postpartum-loneliness/

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 07:01:46 -0400

💬 “On your personal site, getting it wrong is not a bug, it’s a feature.” Matthias Ott, Own Your Web – Issue 1: Your Superpower

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 04:52:10 -0400

🔖 Read The IndieWeb is for developers.

This is a great set of points.

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 04:46:46 -0400

I love my child and it cracks me up that he has managed to come into my room and take up the whole king-size bed so that both W. and I have retreated to his room. (I came back in our room and just moved to W.’s side of the bed.)

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:55:49 -0400

📺 Watched the DS9 episode, “Destiny,” and I feel like the Bajorans could really benefit from reading Oedipus Rex as an object lesson in the futility in attempting to avert prophecies.

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 18:51:34 -0400

🔖 Read Chaos Layouts and Other Tales from Electric Worlds by Melon.

I love this so much. I want to be on Melon’s web. I think to make myself a space there but also keep using Micro.blog for my home will require me to enhance my technical chops.

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 10:15:53 -0400

Finished reading: If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens 📚

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:47:53 -0400

For anyone following along, here’s the resolution of my notebook question. We have a gorgeous side load leather notebook cover in our house already. I’ve got to figure out what size notebook it uses. Then I’m going to buy traveler’s notebook elastic for it.

📚 Book Review: Hungry Bones by Louise Hung

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 11:25:27 -0400

Hungry Bones by Louise Hung is a spooky middle grade novel about a 13 year old girl who learns there’s a ghost in her new house. Here’s the publisher’s description:

A chilling middle grade novel about a girl haunted by a hungry ghost.

Molly Teng sees things no one else can.> By touching the belongings of people who have died, she gets brief glimpses into the lives they lived. Sometimes the “zaps” are funny or random, but often they leave her feeling sad, drained, and lonely.

The last thing Jade remembers from life is dying. That was over one hundred years ago. Ever since then she’s been trapped in the same house watching people move in and out. She’s a ‘hungry ghost’ reliant on the livings’ food scraps to survive. To most people she is only a shadow, a ghost story, a superstition.

Molly is not most people. When she moves into Jade’s house, nothing will ever be the same—for either of them. After over a century alone, Jade might finally have someone who can help her uncover the secrets of her past, and maybe even find a way out of the house—before her hunger destroys them both.

I requested this book from NetGalley for two reasons. First, I’m familiar with Louise Hung from her work with The Order of the Good Death, as producer of Ask a Mortician, and as one of the hosts of Death in the Afternoon. I was excited to see she’d written a book. Second, the kids at work always want more scary books and I thought it would be good to see if we might want to order this one. (Spoiler: We will.)

What I loved

My favorite thing about this book is what makes it so unique and a story unique to Louise Hung: it is steeped in Chinese beliefs about ghosts, the experience of being Chinese American, and the way shared culture can help us build found family. Molly’s mom, Dot, has hauled her all over the country in an attempt to protect Molly from social consequences of her spooky abilities. But often this has meant Molly has been the only Chinese kid at school, and almost always it means she’s not in one place long enough to make friends. When they move to Buckeye Creek, Texas, Molly expects it will be the same. But it’s not the same, because this time instead of just seeing zaps of dead people’s lives, Molly meets a ghost who, like her, is Chinese American. Jade has been haunting this house for well over 100 years, and Molly is the first person who’s lived in it that looks like her. This understandably means so much to Jade. Together, they work to figure out how to help Jade learn about her past and help Molly settle into a place she doesn’t want to be her future.

Molly and her mom befriend Hazel and Rose Loh, sisters who own a Chinese barbecue restaurant. The restaurant is situated in International Village, a strip mall where most of the businesses are owned by immigrants from all over the world or their descendants. The connection with the Loh sisters expands Molly’s circle and helps her see that maybe Buckeye Creek will be different from all the places she’s lived before.

One of the key roles the Loh sisters play in Molly’s life is as mentors who share with her the history of Chinese migrants that is usually left out of America’s dominant westward expansion narrative. As many as 20,000 Chinese migrants worked to build America’s First Transcontinental Railroad, working in poor conditions for low pay and often dying due to the dangerous nature of the work. The Loh sisters tell Molly that not long after the railroad was finished, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese migrants from immigrating to the United States and limiting the movement of Chinese migrants and Chinese American people who were already in the U.S.All of this history comes in through the narration of individuals’ experiences, so that rather than feeling like a history lecture it’s grounded in empathy. (See the Publisher’s Weekly review of Hungry Bones for more on this.)

The Loh sisters’ restaurant is also the site of the strongest incident in the book that demonstrates how this history of racism against Chinese people echoes into today and gives Molly an opportunity to shine as she stands up for her found family.

Louise wrote a post for Teen Librarian Toolbox about her experiences being “the Asian kid” and writing her story then and now. I highly recommend it. She also wrote a piece for The Order of the Good Death about hungry ghosts, the Chinese spiritual belief at the foundation of the supernatural elements in Hungry Bones.

What I wanted more of

The pacing at the start of the book took a little while for me to settle into, and I would have been happy for it to be scarier sooner. That said, I think the atmospheric build as written works if you know that’s what you’re walking into. The book is mostly spooky and only slightly scary; Jade herself is not a scary ghost, but the hungry monster within her can be truly terrifying.

What I need to warn you about

As you may have guessed from the part where I talked about what I loved, the book does not shy away from depicting racism, including horrible treatment of Chinese American domestic workers. It also depicts illness (I think tuberculosis?) in some detail.

As I said, I’ll be ordering this for our school library. I expect it to have a long hold list once one kid gets ahold of it and starts telling others about it.

Bonus: If you join the Order of the Good Death at the Tier Two Member level, you can participate in Mortal Media Club. Louise will be speaking on October 24th. The event is titled “Hungry Ghost Month: When it’s Time to Feed Your Dead.” (I’m a member but that’s my only vested interest in the organization.)

Book: Hungry Bones
Author: Louise Hung
Publisher: Scholastic
Publication Date: October 1, 2024
Pages: 336
Age Range: Middle Grade
Source of Book: ARC via NetGalley

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 08:32:15 -0400

Analog people of Micro.blog (and Mastodon and Bluesky and the open web I guess?), talk to me about those notebook setups where you have a cover and then more than one notebook inside it. What are your favorite products? @cygnoir @annahavron Who else?

Mon, 30 Sep 2024 07:28:04 -0400

I don’t use Fb a lot, but I do check out my On This Day, which today gave me this gem:

“Emilie Wapnick says you can be struggling AND thriving, and I am, all the time."

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 13:09:36 -0400

Finished reading: Operation: Cover-Up by Tate Godwin 📚

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 20:23:11 -0400

📺 Just finished watching the latest season of Hilda. My heart is so full. 🥹

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 13:02:35 -0400

Finished reading: Hungry Bones by Louise Hung 📚

Full review coming soon!

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 10:21:22 -0400

This is Midnight and this copy of WTF Is Tarot? And How Do I Do It? by Bakara Wintner is his now.

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 07:52:58 -0400

📚 Read Even Books Have Ancestors or That Time I Was a Fourth Grade Publishing Mogul by Louise Hung (Teen Librarian Toolbox).

I’m reading Louise’s debut novel Hungry Bones right now. I love this piece.

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 04:15:28 -0400

Finished reading: Knockout by Sarah MacLean 📚

Another extra hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥.

Bless Sarah MacLean for giving us a short, round, dark-haired, brilliant, weird heroine who fears she’s too much and a man who can never get enough of her.

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 22:43:16 -0400

I spent almost 4 hours each weekend day sitting at the hospital with my mom, who has colitis of mysterious origin. Today, I had tea with a friend and then crawled inside my little crab shell. I wore pajamas in public and spent a lot of the day playing Disney Dreamlight Valley.

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 19:45:27 -0400

📚 The ebook of Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them by Jillian Venters is on sale at Amazon and B&N! I love this book and have it in both print and e. Highly recommend.

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 11:33:06 -0400

Confession time: when I started the new job, I uninstalled Inoreader from my phone and I haven’t been keeping up with my RSS feeds since. My brain is so full these days that I find the reader overwhelming. When I read, it’s mostly books. Sorry bloggers!

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 07:28:33 -0400

Three years ago I named my aesthetic “witchy sparkle romantigothabilly academia” which still holds but I’d like to add “children’s librarian” to the mix.

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 19:55:17 -0400

Finished reading: Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean 📚

Whoo. This is a hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥 on the romance.io scale. Romance is unmatched and so is Sarah MacLean.

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:44:31 -0400

📚💬 “…the deeply rooted culture of the Jews of Eastern Europe was utterly destroyed between 1939 and 1945.” Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews by Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:39:31 -0400

🎭 Just saw Clue and found it delightful. If it’s coming to where you are, definitely check it out.

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 20:26:38 -0400

Today: a cascade of tough stuff. My hypothyroid symptoms are still mysterious, I forgot my work key, my work plans got waylaid, I cleaned up a nasty literal mess, my mom is in extra poor health, and children were extra wild. My resilience is low right now. But I have a good migraine treatment plan.

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 07:18:17 -0400

Changed my bio so it only reads “escribitionist.”

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 22:50:48 -0400

Finished reading: Bombshell by Sarah MacLean 📚

Sarah MacLean is just so good. This is like… A 3.5 on the romance.io scale? The language is slightly (but only slightly) euphemistic; it’s pretty clear exactly what’s happening where.

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 10:01:52 -0400

Listen I don’t repost a lot from or on social, but Muppet History is out here doing good work and making me feel seen.

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 04:19:00 -0400

Apparently my mid-life crisis is mostly watching Derry Girls and thinking, “Yes! That’s exactly what it felt like to be a teen girl in the mid-to-late 90s” while wishing everyone understood that a combination of En Vogue and Enya is the perfect soundtrack. 📺🎵

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 07:14:14 -0400

TV : Jim Henson :: The Web : Me

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 22:13:38 -0400

Finished reading: Love, Come to Me by Lisa Kleypas 📚

This has a steam rating of 🔥🔥🔥.

A very early Kleypas. Be warned: the hero is a Confederate veteran. Apparently, he opposed slavery but fought for the Confederacy anyway.

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 10:38:03 -0400

Hi. I’m Kimberly and caring for my chronically ill body is a lot of work.

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 11:55:11 -0400

Yay, my doctor ordered antibody tests and a thyroid ultrasound. It’s such a treasure to have a doctor who trusts you when you describe your symptoms.

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:32:02 -0400

Finished reading: When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman 📚

Full review forthcoming.

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 19:24:47 -0400

Got lab results today, my thyroid numbers look great but I feel very specifically like a Kimberly whose thyroid is not functioning properly & my other labs look like those of same Kimberly so maybe hashitoxicosis? Talking to my doctor Monday.

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 09:54:27 -0400

🔖 Read The Comfort of Drawing Batman by Austin Kleon.

Austin Kleon’s newsletter is the one that I let come to my inbox even after I’ve switched all the rest to RSS. You should read the preview of this and if you like it, do the 7-day trial so you can read the whole thing.

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:31:49 -0400

Finished reading: When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein 📚

Super cute, very hot. 🔥🔥🔥🔥 on the romance.io scale.

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 14:40:37 -0400

I just feel like we need to be more specific than saying things like “In the 1900s” or “In the mid-1900s.” Could we not give a decade? If I see “mid-1900s” I’m all, “1905? 1906” not “1966.”

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 20:25:36 -0400

Photo dump of the school library ready for the first day of school.

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 07:26:50 -0400

Finished reading: This Will Be Fun by E B Asher 📚

Full review forthcoming.

Sun, 11 Aug 2024 15:24:46 -0400

Finished reading: Indigo by Beverly Jenkins 📚

This is so good. I learned more about abolitionism from this romance novel in a more engaging way than any history class I’ve taken would be able to achieve. Highly recommend.

Sat, 10 Aug 2024 10:51:22 -0400

It has been an exhausting week, in a good way. I’m so thrilled to be working with excellent colleagues who are themselves thrilled to have me there.

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 14:23:12 -0400

Finished reading: Hers for the Weekend by Helena Greer 📚

Loved it! This releases August 27. Expect a full review soon!

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 16:43:02 -0400

Finished reading: Gentle Rogue by Johanna Lindsey 📚

Sat, 03 Aug 2024 08:10:35 -0400

I don’t want my 7-year-old to really understand Interview with the Vampire, obviously, but I did tell him that Taylor Swift is in a feud with an imaginary vampire.

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:55:58 -0400

Finished reading: The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler 📚

Read this to prepare for collaborating with teachers at work who want support finding books to work into our literacy curriculum. It’s especially interesting as someone who started her teaching career in the era of No Child Left Behind.

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 09:49:41 -0400

🔖🍔🥤 Read The Enduring Mystery of Cook Out.

A Cook Out Junior Tray with a cheeseburger (mayo only), double fries, and Coke was the first meal I had after giving birth, and it was the best meal I’ve ever eaten. (I can’t remember if I also got a shake.)

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 21:30:08 -0400

Finished reading: Tender Rebel by Johanna Lindsey 📚

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 11:14:15 -0400

It’s me, hi, I’m the one watching the Olympic opening ceremonies 5 days late. It’s me.

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 03:44:31 -0400

💀🪦 I wish I could have gone to Funeral Services Education Camp.

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 11:32:32 -0400

Finished reading: Love Only Once by Johanna Lindsey 📚

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 11:30:29 -0400

Hey friends, I am starting a new half-time job as a school librarian in August, so I’ll be taking a break from curating Micro.blog while I get settled in there. I’ll still be using Micro.blog for my personal site like always.

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 17:30:48 -0400

I’ve been reading the staff handbook for my new school library job and my dress is supposed to meet or exceed the standards expected of students. Based on what I saw last year as a parent, I should be fine wearing glittery poofy dresses or cosplaying as Taylor Swift.

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 12:15:32 -0400

San Diego Comic-Con starts tomorrow. Here are a couple resources that help me feel like I’m part of it.

this video of Loki interrupting the Thor: The Dark World panel at SDCC 2013.
this archived Geek & Sundry article: How to Have a Great, Geeky Weekend When You’re Not Going to SDCC.

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 15:50:46 -0400

Finished reading: Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean 📚

If you want to see Sarah MacLean do a magic trick and turn the villain of two books into the hero of the third, read the Bareknuckle Bastards series.

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 07:27:42 -0400

🔖📚 Read Sherlock Holmes self-insert fanfic written by a 7th grader in 1903.

I love this so much.

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 05:00:28 -0400

Updated my bio:

Middle-aged magical girl. Mom. Once and future school librarian. Contract curator for Micro.blog. Citizen of Romancelandia. I manage multiple chronic illnesses. I love books and games. 🌈♿

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 10:03:02 -0400

🔖 Read Frida Kahlo’s life of chronic pain by Carol A. Courtney (OUPblog).

Looking for examples of chronically ill and disabled creatives to be models for myself. Frida Kahlo is such a great one.

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:53:29 -0400

I was reading Austin Kleon’s newsletter and feeling jealous of how he seems to do so much and see so much. I realized that I spend so much of my time in physical pain; if I didn’t, I’d do more other stuff. So now I want to figure out how to modify other stuff so I can do it with the body I have.

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:21:58 -0400

🔖 Read Welcome to Your Cronehood by Catherine Newman (Cup of Jo).

I am not psyched about menopause. I’ve already lived a lot of my life for me rather than other people, so I feel ahead of the curve there.

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 06:49:41 -0400

🔖🗺️ Read How Paris Hopes the Summer Olympics Will Transform the City—for Good by Lindsey Tramuta (Condé Nast Traveler).

This is a fascinating article. Paris’s commitment to hosting the most sustainable Olympics ever and transforming an underresourced area for the long-term is inspiring.

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 17:46:26 -0400

🎮 I got Metroid: Samus Returns. I’m really enjoying it. I know there will be parts that are super difficult, but I am happy to use walkthroughs or whatever. I’m also finding that I don’t mind having to repeatedly try a fight in this game as much as I sometimes do, so that’s nice.

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 05:52:24 -0400

🔖📚 100 of the Greatest Posters of Celebrities Urging You to Read by James Folta (Lit Hub)

This is the kind of content carefully calibrated to please me, specifically.

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:50:54 -0400

Hey y’all! The Connected Learning Lab published the work from my postdoc today! Two new reports for library staff and leaders compiling valuable insights and recommendations to foster teen engagement through Connected Learning. Learn more about the project and find reports and checklists here.

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 17:23:38 -0400

Finished reading: Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean 📚

Sarah MacLean is just the best.

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 19:51:44 -0400

Some years on my birthday, I share who I want to be in the following year.

This year, in addition to the stuff from earlier years, I want to add:

I want to be someone who gives the same attention to writing that she has to other creative hobbies.

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 11:40:50 -0400

🎮 Finished Metroid: Zero Mission.

This is a remake of the original NES Metroid with a lengthy epilogue. I mostly enjoy Metroidvanias for the exploration.

I think my thumbs need a rest after this. It might be time to play an RPG or puzzle game. But eventually, I’ll move on to Super Metroid.

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:46:24 -0400

I’ve been doing French on Duolingo for a bit over a year (and Dutch before that) and this morning I realized I can translate a not insubstantial amount of Threw It On The Ground into French.

Je suis un adulte!

Mon pere n’est pas un téléphone! Duh!

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 18:13:19 -0400

Hey friends of Micro.blog.

I am a contractor working mostly on M.b curation for about 5 hours a week. So if you perceive I’m not doing as much as Jean did, you’re right!
I also haven’t been around for about a week because of a big family medical emergency. Everyone’s okay now.

💗

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 23:16:41 -0400

Finished reading: Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love this one. The hero is so dreamy.

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 16:26:33 -0400

“I luxiriated in books.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:41:32 -0400

📚💬 “All I ever wanted was to belong, to wear that hat of belonging.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:38:50 -0400

📚💬 “Seeing yourself in print is such an amazing concept: you can get so much attention without having to show up anywhere.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:37:20 -0400

📚💬 “I understood immediately the thrill of seeing oneself in print. It provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:33:57 -0400

📚💬 “One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 07:05:02 -0400

🔖📚 Read Notes on Romance Novels as “Camp”.

Andrea, author of the Shelf Love newsletter, does an amazing job of arguing for romance novels as Camp.

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:04:21 -0400

Finished reading: The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean 📚

This one made me cry. I just really love a second chance.

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:45:27 -0400

Finished reading: A Scot in the Dark by Sarah MacLean 📚

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:45:18 -0400

Finished reading: The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean 📚

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 12:59:46 -0400

Me: What if I eat yogurt and granola for every meal today?

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 08:39:45 -0400

That thing where you’ve just spent a couple days immersed in something over which you have no control, so you very carefully align all the Nintendo games on the shelf.

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:43:30 -0400

Want to read: The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives by Adam Smyth 📚

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 10:03:37 -0400

📚🔖 Read The Literary Power of Hobbits: How JRR Tolkien Shaped Modern Fantasy by Verlyn Flieger (Literary Hub)

Dr. Flieger says:

Tolkien created modern fantasy via fae-ery, the creations of secondary worlds.
The inclusion of hobbits in Middle Earth grounds Tolkien ’s fantasy.

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 09:58:07 -0400

🔖 Read Ten Years Out of Academia by Anne Helen Petersen.

I’m 3 years out from my doctoral defense and 6 months out from holding an academic job. I told an internet friend:

Right now it feels like librarian is the identity that was always really mine and academic was borrowed.

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 20:19:15 -0400

Finished reading: The Price of Pleasure by Kresley Cole 📚

This one made me smile at the end.

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 07:58:23 -0400

🎉 It’s Juneteenth! The National Museum of African-American History and Culture interviewed the museum’s curators about Juneteenth and shared what they had to say in three posts:

🤎🖤

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 20:51:32 -0400

Finished reading: The Captain of All Pleasures by Kresley Cole 📚

I do love a sailor heroine.

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 17:36:01 -0400

Hey Internet in general and Micro.blog specifically! I was on vacation and away from much of the Internet from 6/8 - 6/15. Is there anything I missed that you think I should know about?

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 10:39:30 -0400

Finished reading: If You Desire by Kresley Cole 📚

Somehow forgot to post this when I finished it. It was my favorite of the MacCarrick Brothers trilogy.

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 22:08:53 -0400

Finished reading: If You Deceive by Kresley Cole 📚

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 15:53:40 -0400

Finished reading: If You Dare by Kresley Cole 📚

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 08:44:25 -0400

Want to read: Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success by Christine M. Larson 📚

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 04:15:11 -0400

Finished reading: The Devil of Downtown by Joanna Shupe 📚

Another excellent Gilded Age historical romance.

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 16:13:49 -0400

🔖📺 Read The Donald Trump I Saw on The Apprentice.

For 20 years, I couldn’t say what I watched the former president do on the set of the show that changed everything. Now I can.

Woof. I don’t think stories like this will move the needle for Trump supporters, because I don’t really think anything will move the needle for Trump supporters.

But I kind of hope they turn some non-voters into voters.

Fri, 31 May 2024 18:20:48 -0400

Finished reading: Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun 📚

This made me bawl. I love a childhood best friends to enemies to lovers story, and this one is about English teachers and their mentor English teacher and love through decades.

Fri, 31 May 2024 09:08:24 -0400

Oh the irony of being unable to go to the pharmacy to pick up your (my) migraine meds because you (I) have a migraine. (Please do not recommend migraine treatments at this time, thank you.)

Thu, 30 May 2024 13:33:28 -0400

Today:

woke up way too early
read about Romance Writers of America filing for bankruptcy and the absurd way they’re trying to blame it on Courtney Milan 🔖📚
had my first mammogram (later than I ought) (they used cute stickers to mark my sebaceous cysts)
caught up on Season 3 of Bridgerton 📺

Wed, 29 May 2024 11:57:09 -0400

🎮 Played Assemble with Care.

I’m really feeling wholesome games lately, especially those with a warm pastel color palette and soothing music. In this game, you fix people’s stuff and inspire them to fix their relationships.

On sale on Steam for $3.19 through June 11, iOS & Android for $3.99.

Tue, 28 May 2024 13:38:22 -0400

Finished reading: The Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe 📚

I loved it. A delightful heroine, a debutante with dreams of owning a women-only casino. The bitter casino owner she’s chosen to mentor her. Excellent stuff.

Tue, 28 May 2024 12:33:47 -0400

Midnight is very sleepy.

Tue, 28 May 2024 01:23:05 -0400

Finished reading: The Essential X-Men Volume 3 by Chris Claremont 📚

Read as single issues and only the Uncanny X-Men books, not the annuals, but this is the easiest way to track reading the comics.

Sat, 25 May 2024 15:33:32 -0400

That feeling when you went to the pool with children and you only had snacks for lunch and your knee hurts and you’re ready for bed at 3:30. Hashtag relatable. Am I right?

Sat, 25 May 2024 01:09:00 -0400

Finished reading: The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe 📚

Gilded Age New York, a hotshot lawyer, and a responsible eldest daughter who finds her responsibility chafing. What’s not to love?

Thu, 23 May 2024 13:22:05 -0400

Whoops, I was too busy actually paying attention to FanLIS to take notes. Also, it turns out virtual conferences are much less exhausting when you’re not liveblogging them.

Thu, 23 May 2024 08:04:30 -0400

I’m attending FanLIS this morning. This is my favorite little academic space: the intersection of fan studies and library & information science. I probably won’t be live-posting but I’ll take some notes to share.

Wed, 22 May 2024 12:58:37 -0400

Finished reading: The Essential X-Men Volume 2 by Chris Claremont 📚

Again, read as single issues in Marvel Unlimited, but this is the best way to track. It’s a powerhouse of a run with both Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past in it.

Wed, 22 May 2024 07:50:40 -0400

Finished reading: Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover by Sarah MacLean 📚

This has my favorite of Sarah MacLean’s heroes. Give me a guy who is clever and made his own way over a titled rogue any day. (But I like to read about titled rogues, too.)

Mon, 20 May 2024 17:45:14 -0400

📚 Reading The Dark Phoenix Saga (not for the first time) and I had forgotten how heavily this whole deal, especially Scott talking to Dark Phoenix about love, influenced Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Dark Willow storyline.

Mon, 20 May 2024 07:10:29 -0400

🔖📚 Read Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker Made an Irreverent, Charming Kids’ Book by Stephen Bell (Harper’s Bazaar).

I’m super curious to see the book. The article only contains one sample page. It’s gorgeous and I look forward to seeing more.

Sun, 19 May 2024 21:34:24 -0400

🍿 Watched UHF on the big screen today, when I’d only watched it at home before. Early on I seemed to be the only person laughing but maybe people were feeling shy or something because they laughed more as the movie went on. It’s a funny movie every time.

Sun, 19 May 2024 20:51:58 -0400

Finished reading: Essential X-Men - Volume 1

I read these as single issues in Marvel Unlimited, but this is the easiest way to track them.

Sat, 18 May 2024 11:07:03 -0400

Currently reading: The Best There is at what He Does: Examining Chris Claremont’s X-Men by Jason Powell 📚

Started watching X-Men 97 📺 which reminded me that I love the X-Men, so now I’m reading this and reading the comics mentioned alongside. Super fun.

Fri, 17 May 2024 07:19:01 -0400

Want to read: A Web of Our Own Making by Antón Barba-Kay 📚

Thu, 16 May 2024 21:16:23 -0400

My kid told me, “A cross between a piglet and a pug is a puglet.” When I replied, “Good night,” meaning to indicate that it was time to sleep and not to talk, he said, “I just wanted to give you that very valuable information.” I love him the most.

Thu, 16 May 2024 20:51:58 -0400

Finished reading: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love every Sarah MacLean heroine.

Tue, 14 May 2024 18:31:10 -0400

Finished reading: One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean 📚

Lady Phillipa Marbury is a refreshing take on a bluestocking.

Tue, 14 May 2024 12:34:45 -0400

Hello world, I am full of hormonally-induced ill feeling including headache, nausea, and cramps. Until further notice, I hate everything except my family and friends, romance novels, Pepsi with real sugar, and Star Trek.

Tue, 14 May 2024 08:46:58 -0400

📚🔖 Here is the actual study with the evidence of the correlation between fiction reading and cognition.

Tue, 14 May 2024 08:11:58 -0400

🔖📚 Read If You Read a Lot of Fiction, Scientists Have Very Good News About Your Brain.

It’s always good to look at the actual studies behind news articles like this, but the evidence that reading fiction is associated with improved cognition suggests the importance of libraries, I think.

Mon, 13 May 2024 14:24:03 -0400

Just a little reproductive system education, because I’ve met many adults who have uteruses and don’t know this: the menstrual cycle refers to the entire span of time from the first day of one period to the day before the first day of the next. Not just when you’re shedding uterine lining.

Mon, 13 May 2024 09:24:32 -0400

🔖 Read a pair of pieces about art and mothering:

The ‘Impossible Life’ of Equal Devotion to Art and Mothering by Jessica Grose (NYT Gift Link)

“Is This The Best Use of My Time?” Sara Fredman in conversation with Catherine Ricketts, author of The Mother Artist.

Sat, 11 May 2024 21:55:42 -0400

Finished reading: A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean 📚

I do love a good 19th Century casino. Thank goodness for the romance-guaranteed happily ever after, because there was a lot of this book that made me sad when the two main characters had huge misunderstandings.

Fri, 10 May 2024 15:54:01 -0400

Thanks to everyone for your kind words over on Manton’s post about my joining the Micro.blog team!

I want to be clear that I’m not taking over for Jean as community manager. I’m the first of I hope many people who will contribute to curation and community work.

Thu, 09 May 2024 19:28:34 -0400

Finished reading: Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean 📚

Yes, I finished this less than 36 hours after I finished the last one.

Thu, 09 May 2024 11:33:39 -0400

Between chronic illness and acute illness it feels like I have so little time when I can be doing things besides resting.

Thu, 09 May 2024 08:20:52 -0400

🔖📚 Read How Pregnancy Forever Transforms the Body and the Mind by Lucy Jones (Literary Hub).

Thu, 09 May 2024 04:04:19 -0400

First pool visit of the season yesterday. If I could do everything in water, I would. 🧜🏻‍♀️

Wed, 08 May 2024 09:20:27 -0400

Finished reading: Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean 📚

I love the heroine in this so much. Big eldest daughter, have-to-hold-it-together energy, and I’m so happy the hero is ready and willing to act as a partner and show her that just because she can do everything alone, that doesn’t mean she should have to.

Mon, 06 May 2024 17:27:54 -0400

🔖📚 Read What Eve L. Ewing’s Career Trajectory Tells Us About Black Women’s Place in Mainstream Superhero Comics by Ravynn K. Stringfield.

Dr. Stringfield does an awesome job illuminating how Eve L. Ewing’s comics career highlights structural inequality in the comics industry

Mon, 06 May 2024 09:05:01 -0400

🔖📚 Read A Daughter Becomes a Mother: On Inhabiting Both Roles in Fiction and in Life by Heidi Reimer (Literary Hub).

Sun, 05 May 2024 10:12:36 -0400

Finished reading: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean 📚

My first MacLeaniverse adventure and, of course, I loved it.

Fri, 03 May 2024 22:47:09 -0400

Finished reading: The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo 📚

So great. I loved it so much. More later.

Thu, 02 May 2024 09:01:11 -0400

Me: goes to Target Ah, it’s so nice to be out in the world.

Thu, 02 May 2024 02:57:55 -0400

🔖 Read The films that gave us unrealistic expectations about what makes a ‘home’.

…I too had one of those houses I had always dreamed of. But it wasn’t by design… It was by living my life and creating a home that served the needs of that life.

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 12:33:19 -0400

Now that the offer letter is signed and everybody at the school has been notified, I’m happy to share that next year I’ll be the librarian at my son’s elementary school!

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 05:19:37 -0400

🔖📚 Read Tackling Ballet’s History of Anti-Blackness as a White Woman.

The infinitely kinder cousin of ignorance is curiosity.

A great short piece that’s about cultural humility as much as anything.

Mon, 29 Apr 2024 09:09:41 -0400

🔖📚 Read My Son’s Love Life Is None of My Business, Except It Is by Yukiko Tominaga (Electric Literature).

This is a lovely piece about love and dealing with our children growing up.

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 12:34:45 -0400

Finished reading: The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Whew! Timothy Janovsky wasn’t kidding when he said this was his steamiest book yet! Grief and heartbreak serve as the flashpoint for this sizzling romance set against a Supermarket Sweep-style game show.

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 10:13:34 -0400

Y’all got me ready for “I cry a lot but I’m so productive” but I was not prepared for the resonant truth of “I’m so depressed I act like it’s my birthday every day.” 🎵

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 21:17:06 -0400

Finished reading: You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian 📚

Full review coming soon but y’all, this is so great. It’s out May 7. Olivia Waite says if you only read one romance this spring, it should be this one, and she’s right.

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:04:06 -0400

New bio!

Mom. PhD. Once and future school librarian. Freelance academic. Citizen of Romancelandia. I manage multiple chronic illnesses. I love books and games. 🌈♿

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 13:33:25 -0400

🔖 Read The Messy Places Are Where the Learning Happens: On Being a Beginner by Michelle Boyd (Digits and Threads)

A great reminder to deliberately be a beginner sometimes.

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:20:08 -0400

Finished reading: The Witch Queen of Halloween by Kresley Cole 📚

This is a super fun romance novella, inspired by horror movies. Might become an annual Halloween re-read for me.

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 12:48:36 -0400

Finished reading: The Player by Kresley Cole 📚

A con artist falling in love with her tech billionaire mark? Sign me up.

Sat, 20 Apr 2024 09:04:01 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read Mothering and Writing Are Both Undervalued Labor, so How Do Women Do Both? .

An excellent excerpt from the book The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity.

Fri, 19 Apr 2024 20:25:29 -0400

📚💬

“…publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Fri, 19 Apr 2024 10:55:32 -0400

📚💬

“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Fri, 19 Apr 2024 10:34:18 -0400

🔖📝 Read An Oasis in the Desert: Why Libraries Are the Best Places to Write.

I love to write in a library carrel. More than once I’ve considered getting one for our home office. I wonder if my favorite local library branch has them. I haven’t noticed. Next time I’m there, I’ll check.

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:09:21 -0400

Finished reading: The Master by Kresley Cole 📚

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 10:11:38 -0400

Over here fantasizing about spending my own money on ModCloth and eShakti dresses, as well as having a place to wear them. 👗

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 00:09:27 -0400

Finished reading: The Professional by Kresley Cole 📚

I finished this in just a couple of days. Definitely read the info on the author’s website before picking this one up.

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:42:36 -0400

One of the cool things about kids is that some are obsessed with stuff like Pokémon and some are obsessed with stuff like cats, while still others are obsessed with ancient Rome and yet others are obsessed with sea shanties. And some love more than one of these or something else entirely.

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 03:21:30 -0400

Finished reading: Munro by Kresley Cole 📚

The heroine in this one is a time-traveling Transylvanian knife-throwing carnie so, you know, she’s awesome.

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 16:35:30 -0400

🔖🧶 Read This Is Your Brain on Fibre by Michelle Woodvine (Digits & Threads).

A great article that explores a lot of the reasons fiber crafting is good for our mental health.

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:50:31 -0400

Finished reading: Wicked Abyss by Kresley Cole 📚

This is a banger of a Beauty and the Beast retelling, with an ending I radically prefer to the Disney version. Highly recommend.

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 08:45:46 -0400

🔖 Read You are having a midlife crisis. It’s fine.

This is an interesting pairing with The Cut’s The Case for Marrying an Older Man.

The former points out that a woman partying at midlife is not, in fact, a revolution. Which pairs fascinatingly with the latter’s framing of being a young artist supported by a partner as a brilliant life hack. I’m curious what the author of the latter’s midlife crisis will look like.

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 11:13:27 -0400

Finished reading: Shadow’s Seduction by Kresley Cole 📚

It took me a long time to get into this one and it’s not as strong as a lot of the other Immortals After Dark books, but I still ended up liking it.

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 05:04:03 -0400

Finished reading: Shadow’s Claim by Kresley Cole 📚

I really liked this one, the way the main characters interact with each other is both sweet and hot. I’ve only got 4 books left before I’m caught up on the Immortals After Dark series.

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 10:45:24 -0400

Don’t buy any plants today, y’all.

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 05:46:24 -0400

Finished reading: Sweet Ruin by Kresley Cole 📚

“She’d thought there was no greater connection than destiny decreeing them joined. But there was—the choice they’d made to love each other.”

Loved it.

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 11:53:31 -0400

Happy First Contact Day, y’all! Only 39 years until warp flight & meeting Vulcans! 🖖🏻

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 11:15:01 -0400

Nap first or eat first? The Kimberly Hirsh story

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 14:27:23 -0400

Finished reading: Dark Skye by Kresley Cole 📚

Other people seem to hate this one but I like it pretty well. Lanthe and Thronos’s story is epic, spanning years and continents. Lives ruined. Blood shed. Worth a try if you’re making your way through Immortals After Dark.

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 11:17:32 -0400

📚 When I’m catching up on a long-running series, I sometimes forget that there are people who, for example, couldn’t read 19 Immortals After Dark books in a row and, in fact, had to wait a year or more for the next one to come out, and that I, too, can wait.

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 14:36:25 -0400

Did you know that April is School Library Month? It’s true! Did you know that I’m trained as and have worked as a school librarian? Also true!

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 15:20:54 -0400

Finished reading: Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas 📚

A lovely historical about an author and a publisher who fall in lust and then love. Her body is described as voluptuous, bountiful, abundant, generous. It’s clear that these are attractive things for her to be. Quite spicy. Content warning: miscarriage.

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:48:35 -0400

Finished reading: The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang 📚

A lovely romance novel with an autistic heroine. I highlighted a lot.

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 23:55:54 -0400

Finished reading: Matilda by Roald Dahl 📚

We went to see Matilda the Musical and I loved it. I’d watched the Netflix movie of the musical and years ago the movie with Mara Wilson, but I’d never actually read the book. It’s a lovely book but I think the musical is even better.

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 21:46:38 -0400

Finished reading: MacRieve by Kresley Cole 📚

This one is beautifully done as always. There’s a traumatic backstory of childhood sexual abuse for the hero and the way it impacts his relationship with the protagonist broke my heart. But of course there’s a happy ending because romance. ♥️

Tue, 19 Mar 2024 09:17:20 -0400

🔖 Read Why I Celebrate The Spring Equinox As The Real “New Year”.

I really love this. I want to live more in line with the seasons. Spring is a great time to make the changes so many people want to make in the new year: eat more produce, move around more.

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 20:58:38 -0400

Finished reading: Lothaire by Kresley Cole 📚

Of course if you’re reading Immortals After Dark you must read this one. You simply must.

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:36:46 -0400

🍿 Watched Yes Day.

This is a super fun family movie! I love it in no small part because of Jennifer Garner and Jenna Ortega but also it’s just super fun.

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 18:11:29 -0400

I’m celebrating (?) the Ides of March a day late with an Italian Night Club sandwich from Jimmy John’s and Roman Raspberry Talenti Sorbetto.

(True facts: the Ides falls on the 15th only in March, May, July, and October. The rest of the year it’s on the 13th.)

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:10:45 -0400

Finished reading: Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre 📚

Read this billionaire romance because it’s the next Fated Mates read along. It’s very well done & deflates the billionaire fantasy without taking all of the fun out of it. Definitely check the content warnings before reading.

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:08:13 -0400

I know there are things to do in life besides play Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, but I don’t care to do them. 🎮

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 05:55:16 -0400

Finished reading: Dreams of a Dark Warrior by Kresley Cole 📚

This one took me a little while to get into but once I was in, I couldn’t put it down.

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:06:30 -0400

To quote @cheribaker@writing.exchange:

Don’t wish us Happy International Women’s Day. Instead, help to vote out the ghouls who deny women’s agency and treat us like walking wombs. Ask your male friends to do the same.

That would make me a happy international woman indeed. 😎

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 23:39:22 -0400

Finished reading: Demon From the Dark by Kresley Cole 📚

I really enjoyed this one and tore through it. Give me a sad, traumatized couple of people who find a new family in each other and I’m happy. 😍

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 08:19:22 -0400

New glasses, same as the old glasses except they actually fit.

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 23:22:06 -0400

Finished reading: Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole 📚

I really liked, maybe even loved this one. The back half is all adventure, super cinematic.

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:44:17 -0400

🔖 Read The “Disney adult” industrial complex by Amelia Tait (The New Statesman via The Rec Center)

The grown-up Disney superfan has become a much-mocked phenomenon online. But creating these consumers was always part of the corporation’s plan.

I’m a second-generation Disney adult deliberately mixing other culture into my kid’s life. I appreciate this critique written by a fellow Disney adult.

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 19:00:50 -0400

Finished reading: “Untouchable” in Deep Kiss of Winter by Kresley Cole 📚

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 07:49:19 -0400

🔖 Blogging is the medium of incomplete stories

I love this. I often feel that blogging is the most natural medium for my writing, which makes sense as I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. Maybe this incompleteness is part of why.

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 12:44:13 -0400

Finished reading: You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop by John Scalzi 📚

This was a re-read. A bit of a time capsule from the web of 2005-2007, a web I greatly miss.

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 10:14:00 -0400

🎮 Okay people of the Internet. I’m about to start Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. See you in a couple hundred hours.

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 09:42:54 -0400

🔖 Read The Memex Method

Virtually every sentence that contains the word “brand” is [BS]…

Cory Doctorow on the value of a blog as a commonplace book.

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:06:49 -0400

🎮 Finished Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3. Classics all, only accessible for me due to the rewind feature in Nintendo Switch Online’s NES software. With my limited hand-eye coordination, age, and time constraints, this is the only way I was ever going to play these.

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 10:37:11 -0400

“Books always heal the hands they come through.” Leonie Dawson, 40 Days to a Finished Book (If you purchase the course through this link, I will receive a commission.)

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:05:25 -0400

📝 I’m doing a writing project currently and I set a goal of 10000 words but ran out of planned stuff to say at 5000, so today I added this to the document:

Because I’m not sure how to get the next 5000 words of this book out of me and because I don’t want to read anything I’ve written until I hit my 10000 words, my goal now is to just freewrite 250 words about [the project’s topic] every day. Then maybe in that 5000 words there will be something that fits with the other 5000 words that I can use when all 10000 words are outside of me and I’ve stepped away for a bit and can come back with an editor’s eye.

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:05:14 -0400

🔖 Read What Is Mental Load? (And Why Is It Important?) by Randi Donahue (The Good Trade).

It feels a propos that I read this sitting in the dentist’s office a couple yards away from where my kid is getting sealant on his 6-year molars.

I’m lucky to have a partner who carries a lot of this load, but list-making and note-taking also help me immensely.

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 07:14:49 -0400

📝 I wanted to respond to Lars-Christian’s post asking what the point of daily writing is. Here’s what I said:

I wanted to let you know you’re not alone. With big creative projects, so many of us hit a point where it stops feeling worthwhile.

As Austin Kleon says, problems of output are problems of input. If you feel stuck, maybe reading something new would help.

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 23:13:05 -0400

Finished reading: Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole 📚

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 23:13:04 -0400

Finished reading: Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole 📚

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 14:18:20 -0400

Finished reading: Dark Desires After Dusk by Kresley Cole 📚

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ I tore through this one so fast. I think it might partly be because the heroine is a PhD candidate.

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 11:25:50 -0400

Finished reading: Dark Needs at Night’s Edge by Kresley Cole 📚

My favorite Immortals After Dark book so far. A burlesque dancer becomes a ballerina, ends up a ghost, and falls in love with a vampire who is trapped in the New Orleans Gothic manor that she haunts. 🌹👻🩰

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 13:47:58 -0400

Finished reading: Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night by Kresley Cole 📚

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ as always. Werewolves continue to not be my thing but I love witches.

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:16:08 -0400

Finished reading: No Rest For The Wicked by Kresley Cole 📚

Listen, all these Immortals After Dark books are 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️, okay? That’s just what’s up. I like this one better than the one that came before it, definitely more my vibe.

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 20:23:54 -0400

I added “Citizen of Romancelandia.” to my bio everywhere.

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 10:34:54 -0400

📚🗨️ “This union was supposed to be for eternity—it followed that their courtship would be extended.” - Kresley Cole, No Rest for the Wicked

See, that’s why W and I were together for 10 years before we got engaged. ("‘Til death do us part" is for quitters.)

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 08:11:05 -0400

Hello, Internet! I hope you have a great day today.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 15:14:32 -0400

📚 This is your reminder that The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond is out today!

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 07:32:59 -0400

I’m currently doing Leonie Dawson’s 40 Days to a Finished Book ecourse and I love this that she said:

It’s a collage of words.

You don’t have to start at the beginning and write until you get to the end.

(If you use the link above to buy the course, I may get a commission.)

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 11:22:52 -0400

Finished reading: A Hunger Like No other by Kresley Cole 📚

Incredibly high spice level, all the chili pepper emoji 🌶️! A Valkyrie/vampire hybrid and a werewolf (there wolf) fall in love. I’m reading this as I listen along to the first season of Fated Mates.

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 11:19:47 -0400

Finished reading: The Truth About Dragons by Julie Leung 📚

A 2024 Caldecott Honor winner.

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 11:18:59 -0400

Finished reading: Two New Years by Richard Ho 📚

Winner of the 2024 Sydney Taylor book award.

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 19:04:37 -0400

Finished reading: Nacho y Lolita/Nacho and Lolita by Pam Muñoz Ryan 📚

Pam Muñoz Ryan won the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. This was where NoveList Plus recommended starting with her work.

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 19:02:51 -0400

Finished reading: Fox Has a Problem by Corey R. Tabor 📚

Reading my way through this year’s American Library Association Youth Media Award winners. This won the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for the most distinguished beginning reader book. It’s super cute.

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 19:00:06 -0400

Now I’m thinking about Odo’s maintenance of his humanoid form and how it can be read as an analog for neurodivergent masking. Like, he’s really trying to give back what he’s getting but it’s hard, okay? Faces are difficult. 🖖🏻

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 15:33:58 -0400

🖖🏻 Odo is DS9!Data. (And I know, Data is TNG!Spock.)

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:40:49 -0400

Finished reading: Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas 📚

A sizzling historical that has two refreshing leads: she’s a writer, not a bluestocking. He is a gambling club owner, not a duke.

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 13:06:38 -0400

What are you obsessed with right now? For me it’s the podcast Fated Mates, all things romance book-adjacent, and Parisian vibes.

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 12:59:26 -0400

The personal brand paradox wepresent.wetransfer.com
WePresent https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/personal-brand-paradox-debbie-millman

When a person aspires to be a brand, they forfeit everything that is truly glorious about being human.

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 11:20:52 -0400

Parents who are freelancers/self-employed, what do you do when your kid is home sick? Do you just sort of give up on getting work done?

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 04:30:51 -0400

🎮 Finished Link’s Awakening.

Super fun!

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 11:38:12 -0400

📺🎄 Watched Christmas Flow, mostly for the Parisian locations.

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 20:39:25 -0400

📺 Watched Emily in Paris. All of it, fairly quickly.

Gorgeous views of Paris and fun to see how much of the French I understood but I don’t find Emily herself particularly winning (she’s like a caricature of what Boomers think Millennials are like).

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 20:25:46 -0400

Finished reading: Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas 📚

Classic 90s pre-Victorian historical, medium spice level.

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 11:00:04 -0400

📺 Watching Emily in Paris, mostly for the gorgeous locations and Sylvie’s fashion. Emily’s relationships with men stress me out.

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 09:14:19 -0400

I just shared in a fibromyalgia Facebook group what it takes for me to get decent sleep. Thought I’d share here as well:

300mg gabapentin (prescription)
250mg GABA
10mg melatonin
50mg CBD oil
900mg oral magnesium
400mg topical magnesium

All selected with my doctor.

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 22:38:25 -0400

Finished reading: The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun 📚

Lovely! What if the dude who was producing The Bachelor fell in love with the bachelor? This book is all kinds of sweet and affirming, with great queer, neurodivergence, race, and mental illness rep.

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 22:00:40 -0400

My kid has started randomly singing “Bela Lugosi’s dead” (like, that one phrase) so I can retire now. My adorable babybat.

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 17:53:11 -0400

🍿 Watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Can’t believe I’ve never seen this before. Surprised to find that Sean Penn was my favorite part of the film, but then, Jeff Spicoli is a spiritual big brother to Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esquire, so it makes sense.

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 12:39:34 -0400

🗨️📚 “Take the time to take time because nobody else will do it for you.” Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Margaret, and Sophie Mas, How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 10:04:29 -0400

I went upstairs to get my glasses. I came downstairs with two books and no glasses. This is peak Kimberly. (I’m nearsighted so I don’t need the glasses to read.)

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 19:35:25 -0400

Finished reading: New Adult by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Like if 13 Going on 30 was instead 23 Going on 30. Timothy Janovsky’s characters make me so happy, they’re so heart-full. Also lots of good stuff about keeping comedy in its proper place in your life rather than letting it become an all-consuming obsession.

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 15:43:18 -0400

People of the Internet who wear scents from small businesses, what do you do when your signature scent is discontinued? I have a bottle of Whisper Sisters Goth Club ‘89 and when it runs out, I won’t be able to get a new one.

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 05:12:11 -0400

Finished reading: A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Caña 📚

A lovely, slightly spicy romance. This one resonates a lot because one of the main characters is an oldest sibling who feels responsible for everything.

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 23:31:49 -0400

Finished reading: A Proposal They Can’t Refuse by Natalie Caña 📚

Super sweet and a little steamy romance.

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 21:24:38 -0400

I was in Baltimore for just over 24 hours for a conference but I did find time for just a bit of goth literary tourism.

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 14:58:36 -0400

Sorry to have missed the Micro.blog analog meetup! My sense of timing is a bit discombobulated due to conference travel and changes to it. See y’all next month!

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 08:05:16 -0400

Want to read: Grove Hollow Metamorphosis: A 1980s Gothic Paranormal Romance Novel by Shelby Nicole McFadden 📚

Probably going to buy this one but I’ve told myself I have to finish one of the books I own before I may.

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 07:46:35 -0400

Finished reading: In the Case of Heartbreak by Courtney Kae 📚

Highest of recommendations here. This book is a cute romance but it’s also healing to read.

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 21:33:59 -0400

📚🗨️

You are not a burden… You are a blessing.

Just Courtney Kae still wrecking me with In the Case of Heartbreak, that’s all.

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:57:13 -0400

📚🗨️

Your feelings are valid and important no matter how they make me feel… you aren’t responsible for my response.

Read this in Courtney Kae’s In the Case of Heartbreak last night and then wept uncontrollably for a while. Is this what a trauma response feels like?

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 07:34:13 -0400

🗨️

Get a group of people around you that you love, and that love you… Give them an idea that has enough empty space in it that they can make it their own. When you get it back, it’ll be better than you ever thought possible.

Jim Henson, quoted in this article about Miss Piggy’s creator’s home

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 20:44:16 -0400

Ah hiding in the bathroom to get a little quiet, my old friend.

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:41:00 -0400

Kinda sad today’s idea gardens post from Austin Kleon is one of the paid ones because I want everyone to be able to check it out. For similar vibes, try his blog’s gardening tag and Mo Willems’s idea gardens Instagram post.

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 20:27:13 -0400

Finished reading: Love Requires Chocolate by Ravynn K. Stringfield 📚

Full review coming later, but I loved this confection of a YA romance from Ravynn K. Stringfield, my creative nonfiction for academics teacher. A Francophile Black American girl falling in love with Paris and a cute Parisian. Highly recommend.

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 21:24:12 -0400

Finished reading: The Frame-Up by Gwenda Bond 📚

I thought this was going to be a romance book with a heist, but I was mistaken. It’s a heist book with a romance! It’s beautifully done. Full review coming soon. The Frame-Up releases February 13. Pre-order it now!

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 15:32:05 -0400

Friends of the Internet, timelines move too fast for where my head is at right now. I’m not abandoning them but I hope you know that if something big comes up and I don’t weight in, it’s 99% likely it’s because I didn’t see it, not because I’m staying silent on purpose.

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 23:52:57 -0400

🍿 Watched Heartburn.

This one is written by Nora Ephron & directed by Mike Nichols, and it’s mostly very sad.

But the cries it made me cry were mostly happy cries because Meryl Streep’s character clearly loved her kids so much and I love my kid so much, too.

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 04:32:08 -0400

🍿 Watched The Intern.

Another Nancy Meyers film. I really liked this. It made me cry. I think it was a little tricky because it seemed both to critique and support Anne Hathaway’s character’s intensity as an overnight CEO, but I guess that’s a good approach, not moralistic.

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:32:15 -0400

🍿 Watched It’s Complicated. Happy to have watched. It seemed to me mostly to be about how a manbaby doesn’t want to contribute to his new family and tries to get his ex-wife to take care of him now that she’s an empty nester and won’t need his help. Spoiler: it doesn’t work.

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 08:46:38 -0400

If you like analog tools, you probably want to sign up for @cygnoir’s analog meetup.

Tue, 09 Jan 2024 08:05:53 -0400

🔖 I’m genuinely thrilled for the Gen Zers and others who have the energy for a weekly everything shower, but this chronically ill Xennial is pretty sure it would use up all of her spoons.

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 20:52:16 -0400

🎮 Finished The Legend of Zelda (NES).

A classic, of course. I’ve never been able to get very far before, but I played it with Nintendo Switch Online and made liberal use of suspend points (aka save states) and walkthroughs. I had fun and finished both quests.

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 16:30:46 -0400

Finished reading: Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Another delightful romance given to us by Timothy Janovsky, whose little details feel so calculated to please me. This time: The Great Movie Ride (RIP) figures in a key scene.

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 16:24:57 -0400

High pain day today.

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 18:58:27 -0400

🔖📺 Watched Pokemon Concierge and read Pokémon Concierge’s Psyduck Is for the Millennial Pokémon Fans.

I’m a Xennial: Pokemon was more for the kids I babysat than for me, though I did get into the card game my freshman year of college.

Psyduck has long been my Pokemon soul mate, with her constant headaches and love of water. And this article articulates why Psyduck appeals to me even more in Pokemon Concierge.

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 09:19:01 -0400

I like @ayjay’s idea of reflecting on what you’ve read weekly or monthly.

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 05:05:18 -0400

🔖 Read The Web Renaissance Takes Off by Anil Dash.

Sign me up.

(I’m trying to make a web-related pun here about Lucrezia Borgia, but it’s just not happening.)

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 21:11:07 -0400

Finished reading: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert 📚

I’m late to this party but happy to finally be here. As sweet and hot as the romance here is, it’s the portrayal of fibromyalgia that makes my heart sing.

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 17:03:56 -0400

Gonna be updating my about page soon. If you were going to choose something to include on my about page, what would it be?

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 09:11:09 -0400

🔖 Read Ambient Co-Presence by Maggie Appleton.

This sounds really nice. My favorite locale for physical ambient co-presence is a university library, which I use a Winter Whale sound video to replicate at home. I use a few co& working sessions via a Mighty Networks or Zoom to do this, too. I wonder what the role of services like Focusmate or Flow.club is here.

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 09:53:36 -0400

🔖 Austin Kleon’s list of 100 things that made his year is excellent, as always.

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 18:48:53 -0400

Leigh Bardugo encourages people on New Year’s Day to Begin As You Mean to Go On, meaning to spend 15 minutes doing something you want to do more of this year.

So I spent 15 minutes journaling with Esmé Weijun Wang’s Rawness of Remembering journaling course.

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 10:02:48 -0400

🔖 Read 2024: The Year of the Personal Website by Matthias Ott.

How about, from now on, we make every year the year of the personal website – and make the internet human, creative, personal, and weird again?

I’m down.

Mon, 01 Jan 2024 09:44:07 -0400

Responding to this post on gift-giving:

For me, the sweet spot for a gift is when you can use it to show that you’ve paid attention to what the person needs or cares about. Not because you want to be smug or feel good about yourself, but because as the receiver of a gift, it feels good to be seen.

Most years, I only give gifts to family, which certainly makes this easier. In recent years, I also pick an annual formula, for example, everyone gets a book or everyone gets a T-shirt.

This year, everyone got a donation to something they care about plus a token to unwrap.

My brother got patronage of Defunctland and a Defunctland brochure.
My sister got a symbolic adoption of a red panda through the World Wildlife Fund and a DVD of the Spirited Away stage show.
My brother-in-law got a donation to the Order of the Good Death and an occult-themed cocktail recipe book.
My mother got a donation to the American Cancer Society and a T-shirt with a meme she likes on it.
My father got a manatee adoption from the Save the Manatee club and a Jeopardy! card game.

Each of these gifts says:

I noticed something that’s important to you.
I noticed something you enjoy.

There’s no perfect formula for gift giving, but I find using it as an opportunity to say “I see you” is a useful principle.

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 14:36:42 -0400

🍿 Watched Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story.

A fascinating documentary about a fascinating person.

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 12:11:29 -0400

Finished reading: For Never & Always by Helena Greer 📚

I love it so much. Finished it in under 48 hours. Helena Greer has given us a lovely place in Carrigan’s Christmasland and a host of delightful people to populate it. I keep seeing different bits of myself in each of her characters and it makes me happy. Highly recommend.

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:33:58 -0400

It is not humanly possible for Helena Greer to write fast enough to meet my desire for Carrigan’s content. It’s generous of her to give us a book a year. Yet I’d read however many she wrote as quickly as I could.

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 18:53:31 -0400

Me: I started this book last night and read only one chapter before bed. Now I’m on page 214.
W: Sounds like my wife.
📚

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 18:36:54 -0400

Finished reading: How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow 📚

Lovely and sweet. Made me cry when the main character’s mom really shows up for her. Also kinda makes me want to travel to DC.

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 18:17:30 -0400

📚🗨️ “I want to live my life being irrationally hopeful. Loving people and fish and cities with my whole heart.” Jake Maia Arlow, How to Excavate a Heart

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:47:57 -0400

Yesterday my mom, who in April 2022 was told she would probably never walk again, walked (with a walker and people around to spot her) up my front steps, into my house, and over to the couch. This is the result of months of hard work and physical therapy. ♥️

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 01:31:45 -0400

🍿 Watched Hats Off to Christmas.

This is the most paradigmatic Hallmark Christmas movie. It has everything:

a struggling small business
a suit guy
who is going back to his small hometown after life in the big city
a wheelchair-riding moppet
who miraculously recovers from the injury that made him need a wheelchair
a woman being stupid because of a conversation she eavesdropped on
who is a young widow
two chaste kisses
a happy ending

Is it a good movie? No. But is it a laughably bad movie? No. Haylie Duff is incredibly winning and the reason I kept watching. Her chemistry with her costar is non-existent but she’s so cute, I didn’t care.

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 21:40:39 -0400

Finished reading: Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun 📚

This one was so lovely it made me cry. I can’t even sum up. Go read the description if it sounds good to you, try it out. Highly recommend.

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 18:19:23 -0400

🗨️📚 “the emptiness was the absence of myself.” Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 22:27:31 -0400

I made this Funko Pop of myself using this Microsoft Designer prompt and I love her so much.

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 05:33:51 -0400

My little family is in the production of A Christmas Carol honoring the retirement of the director of the theater where W & I met. At rehearsal last night I looked at a particular spot on the floor of the theater & thought, “That’s where I fell in love with W.”

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:44:24 -0400

Bringing back The PhD Story’s predictive text New Year’s Resolution:

My resolution for 2024 is to be a good time.

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 19:21:32 -0400

Finished reading: You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky 📚

Oh my goodness I love it. Matthew Prince starts out as a spoiled party boy but Janovsky slowly pulled the onion layers back until I loved him. And his love interest Hector is wonderful. Highly recommend.

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 22:18:19 -0400

📚 Listening to Patrick Stewart read A Christmas Carol and it’s just feels like having Jean-Luc Picard read it to you. 😍

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:45:57 -0400

Finished reading: In the Event of Love by Courtney Kae 📚

A lovely place-based friends-to-lovers second chance. As often happens, the third act breakup made me want to yell at the main character but the book had me happy-teary by the end.

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 00:06:13 -0400

Finished reading: Eight Kisses by Mindy Klasky 📚

Eight Hanukkah romance stories. I read one each night. My favorites are the one with the Frisky Bean coffee shop and the one with empty nesters reconnecting.

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 11:41:06 -0400

📚🗨️

When people who don’t have fibromyalgia ask me how it feels, I tell them to imagine the last time they had a bad flu, then to picture going shopping, cooking, or exercising while feeling like that.

Ginevra Liptan, The FibroManual

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:05:58 -0400

Me: My heel hurts.

My doctor: Have you tried using that ointment I told to use for pain on it?

Me: I will now.

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 08:02:10 -0400

🔖📚 Read How To Get Started Reading Romance Novels by Stephanie Fallon (The Good Trade).

This is an excellent guide. Also? If you have unkind things to say about romance as a genre, please say them somewhere else. They’re not welcome in my replies.

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 15:12:12 -0400

Me: I’m going to take a 20 minute nap (sets alarm)

Narrator: She took a 90 minute nap. She did not hear the alarm.

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 11:26:13 -0400

I have 3 one -month gift subscriptions to Jami Attenberg’s Craft Talk to give away. Let me know if you want one.

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 10:31:50 -0400

I just don’t feel like writing a year-in-review post, y’all. So I might not.

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 21:40:08 -0400

🍿 Watched Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

My kid’s first time seeing both. Home Alone is, of course, a classic. Home Alone 2 isn’t a revelation but is super fun.

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 18:20:51 -0400

🕎🖖🏻 I would like to thank s-h-a-s-e on Tumblr for this Hanukkah gift of Sarek, Amanda, and Spock celebrating.

In the words of Adam Sandler:

You don’t need Deck the Halls or Jingle Bells Rock ‘cuz you can spin the dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock—both Jewish!

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:11:51 -0400

Book Character, Age 25: Seeing her has me feeling seventeen again.

Me, Age 42: Please. You’re only 25. You’re barely not 17.

2006 Me, Age 25: (shaking her fist at 2023 Me) Stop being so ageist.

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:10:17 -0400

🍿📺🎄 Watched The Christmas Train.

Based on a David Baldacci novel & bringing a bit of star power with Dermot Mulroney, Joan Cusack, and Danny Glover. A journalist runs into an old flame on The Christmas Train. Cute stuff. Almost too high-quality actually, for the vibes I’m looking for.

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 21:56:39 -0400

Happy Hanukkah from this honorary M.O.T., whose 41% Jewishness is all on her dad’s side. 🕎

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 18:16:33 -0400

Today’s stay poor slowly scheme: open a romance-only bookstore. 📚

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 08:45:25 -0400

I was using Bing to play with ChatGPT-4 and I asked it who I am. It returned what is perhaps the most truthful answer.

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 12:10:59 -0400

📚 Today’s library haul. Catching up on Holigays22 and some other holiday reads, plus a YA biography of my hero Sarah Bernhardt - quand même!

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 08:19:02 -0400

Finished reading: Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur 📚

The first holiday rom-com of a month where I hope to read many. Elle is an astrologer who dreams of a big love. Darcy is an actuary who’s terrified of having one. This book’s heat level is sensual, a couple explicit scenes. A lovely book but I wish the third act break-up had been resolved more quickly so I could’ve had more joyous reunion time.

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 17:56:57 -0400

It reveals something about my character that I’m really psyched about being on someone’s dissertation committee.

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:33:55 -0400

🔖 Read Bring back the blog by Alan Jacobs.

Hear, hear.

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 19:30:39 -0400

Fun with migraines: in the past year or so I’ve started having vertigo in the prodrome stage, tilting involuntarily when I walk. In the past couple of months I’ve developed olfactory hallucinations. I don’t like migraines, y’all.

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 21:55:24 -0400

🍿 Watched Airplane!.

Super fun. I can’t begin to imagine how delightful it must have been for the people who saw it when it was first released.

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 13:08:07 -0400

🔖💻 Read The Indie Web Manifesto.

Before the IndieWeb, there was the Indie Web. This was published in 1997.

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 13:05:11 -0400

🔖💻 Read The Hacker Manifesto.

the beauty of the baud

I love this turn of phrase.

We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons…

This was published in 1986.

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 07:40:38 -0400

🔖 Read True/useful by Seth Godin.

Seth shares a handy matrix for helping us stay resilient and cultivate belief, shaking off cynicism and avoiding traps.

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 03:43:39 -0400

📺🍿🎄 Watched The Naughty Nine.

This is a heist movie about kids on the naughty list breaking into Santa’s workshop. It honors all the heist tropes and is super fun. Watch with a kid if you can.

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 12:43:35 -0400

A list of lists: in his book Keep Going, Austin Kleon writes about a variety of types of lists you might keep and I made a list of them:

to-do
to-make (he says to-draw)
to-learn
Someday/Maybe
to-not-do
pro/con
thanks for/help me
end-of-year
commandments

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:28:42 -0400

New bio on most of my profiles: Mom & PhD with a librarian’s heart and an academic’s mind. I manage multiple chronic illnesses and I love books and games. 🌈♿

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:20:44 -0400

📓 I know Twitter is all the things we all know it is now but I still love that some scholars wrote a journal article about the relationship between emojis and identity in Twitter bios.

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:51:55 -0400

📺🍿🎄 Watched Reporting for Christmas.

I really like this one. A hard-hitting Chicago reporter heads to a small town in Iowa to cover the 40th anniversary of the local toy company’s most popular product. Life changes ensue.

Super cute, winning cast.

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:47:17 -0400

Me: I’ll put this little tumbled sodalite crystal on my bedside table, it will make me happy.

The Kitten: Ooh a new toy!

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 18:03:33 -0400

💬

“Recover yourself. That’s where your creativity is.”

Kate McKean in today’s Agents & Books Q&A issue.

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:24:17 -0400

I was thinking about Austin Kleon’s urging to show your work and I thought, “But Austin, what do I do when I don’t even feel up to making things to show my work on?” and then I thought, “Well he already told me: Keep going.”

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:24:44 -0400

🔖Read Twenty Rules for the New Escribitionist.

23 and a half-year-old blogging advice that is still pretty solid.

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:16:58 -0400

I’ve had kimberlyhirsh.com for fifteen years today. I had other domains before that. I’m really glad I claimed this one. It’s been great for me both personally and professionally.

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 04:49:22 -0400

🔖 Read You Can’t Unsubscribe from Grief by Jenessa Abrams (Electric Literature).

This is a gorgeous essay. I really needed it right now.

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 15:15:31 -0400

📺🍿🎄 Watched A Biltmore Christmas.

Mostly for Jonathan Frakes & Robert Picardo 🖖🏻 but I ended up really liking it. There’s a lot of 40s Hollywood glamor. Also, I love Biltmore. I’ve been there only twice but I still love it.

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:21:59 -0400

Well, it’s taken more than 7 years, but it’s finally happened: my child’s taste has completely eclipsed mine in my Spotify Wrapped.

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:08:22 -0400

📺🍿🎄 In the movie A Timeless Christmas, I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that a man time-traveled from 1903 to 2020, but asking me to accept that his love interest is a shoe-in for a history faculty job simply by virtue of having a PhD is a bridge too far.

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:47:38 -0400

🍿📺🎄 Watched A Christmas Frequency. A radio producer sets her show’s host up on on-air blind dates to save the show from the slump it’s in because the host is no fun after separating from her husband. It’s not a solid movie but I liked it because the cast is adorable.

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 12:46:07 -0400

Darth Vader and I are finishing off the Thanksgiving babka with some cherry Coke.

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:14:57 -0400

💻 Recently my less-than-alma mater asked, “Remember the 90s at Carolina?

I didn’t get there until 1999 so I had different things in my metaphorical Carolina Jeep.

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 11:57:29 -0400

📺🍿🎄 By the way, time travel is a whole subgenre of holiday made-for-TV movie. See:

Eve’s Christmas (yes, that IS Amber from Clueless!)
Back to Christmas (featuring Veronica Mars’s Michael Muhney and 1990s Jan Brady!)
Christmas Comes Twice (Tamera Mowry!)
A Timeless Christmas

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 03:37:16 -0400

📺🍿🎄 I was watching Hulu’s A Christmas Frequency and everything was going great but then it shattered my suspension of disbelief by having one guy give another guy an expense report, printed on paper.

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 15:15:33 -0400

🍿 Saw Wish. A story full of good ideas. Music nice but not as memorable as, say, Encanto. Chris Pine is, of course, a delight. Full of beautifully casual representation.

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 13:57:13 -0400

📝 Jami Attenberg in today’s Craft Talk newsletter:

it’s important to write the things you can write.

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 13:33:30 -0400

Today in Year of Making, LEGO set 40658, Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama.

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 08:49:51 -0400

Anybody know if there are vampire stories, in any medium, that address the question of neuroplasticity? I feel like an animated corpse shouldn’t have it, but it seems like it’d be useful to help you make the most of your potentially very long life.

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 17:06:20 -0400

Finished reading: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado 📚

A bunch of excellent and chilling stories. Horror and make it literary. Uncertainty that is maddening but then that’s kind of the point.

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 13:39:38 -0400

I just want to be able to feel grief in my heart and also sleep. It doesn’t seem like a lot to ask but my body disagrees.

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 17:50:37 -0400

It’s never too late to start a year of making, so here I am starting my Year of Making 2023 on November 20. This is the Goldberry shawl, designed by Michele DuNaier in Lion Brand TruBoo in the Goldenrod colorway. The pattern contains many delightful Lord of the Rings references.

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 13:42:11 -0400

Want to read: Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found by Frances Larson 📚

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 13:41:17 -0400

Want to read: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey 📚

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 21:40:36 -0400

If you’re in North Carolina and interested in having natural organic reduction (aka human composting) available as a funeral option, please consider using this form letter I built with resistbot to contact your NC legislators.

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 08:29:55 -0400

Want to read: Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner by Judy Melinek 📚

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 17:23:45 -0400

🔖💬 “Your death matters. You can choose something that will reflect the values and beliefs that you held in your life, and translate them into your death. What you choose to do, is your final act, your final gesture on this earth.” Sarah Chavez, The Order of the Good Death

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:49:20 -0400

Want to read: Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel by Loren Rhoads 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:47:38 -0400

Want to read: Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:46:30 -0400

Want to read: The Victorian Book of the Dead by Chris Woodyard 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:46:05 -0400

Want to read: A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death by Chris Woodyard 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:44:14 -0400

Want to read: Good Grief: Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter by E.B. Bartels 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:40:51 -0400

Want to read: The Anatomical Venus by Joanna Ebenstein 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:40:28 -0400

Want to read: The Morbid Anatomy Anthology by Joanna Ebenstein 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 18:39:10 -0400

Want to read: Cabarets of Death: Death, Dance and Dining in Early Twentieth-Century Paris by Mel Gordon 📚

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 07:38:18 -0400

🔖📚🎭 Read Why We Should Celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio (Literary Hub).

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 15:18:45 -0400

Finished reading: Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad) by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary 📚

A helpful framing of normal, baseline anxiety as a source of information that can spur us to creativity and action.

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 13:23:16 -0400

November is not my favorite month.

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 11:08:04 -0400

🔖 Read The enshittification of academic social media (The Thesis Whisperer).

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 21:25:08 -0400

Set up the Vapor1994 theme with custom colors on my website until I create a custom theme. A few font-size and color tweaks to make still but mostly I’m very happy with it.

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 10:34:09 -0400

🔖 Read Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival?.

Fun to read about all the IndieWeb’s neighbors!

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 21:13:22 -0400

Finished reading: The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish 📚

A 17th Century bit of philosophical fantastical adventure.

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 20:47:28 -0400

📚💬 “I endeavour to be as singular as I can.” Margaret Cavendish, The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:35:00 -0400

Hey Micro.bloggers and other interested parties, do you have favorite resources that helped you learn how to create a Hugo theme?

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 11:26:16 -0400

🔖 Read Two Wins for Public Libraries This Week at the Polls by Kelly Jensen (Literary Activism).

Good things are happening but we need to remain vigilant. The people trying to take books out of libraries and take control away from library professionals are immensely well-funded.

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:14:24 -0400

🔖 Read:

Thanks @gr36 for directing my attention to Whiona!

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 10:09:11 -0400

🔖💻 Read Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore by Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker).

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:58:39 -0400

Voting selfie!

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:01:48 -0400

🔖📚 Read A Pennsylvania Public Library Had Funding Cut Because of LGBTQ+ Books. Then, An Olympian Stepped In..

An important reminder from Kelly Jensen about how libraries are on the ballot today in many places.

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 07:35:58 -0400

🔖 Read The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts by Brewster Kale (The Guardian).

A useful reminder that even publishers come for libraries now, with restrictions on digital lending.

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 04:14:29 -0400

If, like me, you grieve Halloween’s passing, I’m delighted to inform you that I have officially extended Halloween season. The last day of the season is now November 22.

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:21:18 -0400

Get ready for a jump scare next time you open this backpack.

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 08:41:11 -0400

I often find myself watching movies in 22-minute chunks, partly because of being a parent and partly because of having a short attention span lately. I do TV shows with act breaks, so 3 or 4 breaks as I watch where commercials would be. It’s been liberating to realize I can do this. 📺🍿

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 03:34:34 -0400

📺👱‍♀️ Buffy’s experience in the episode “I, Robot… You, Jane” is super relatable. I had two friends with online boyfriends around 1997 and I wasn’t sure about them (though I became friends with these boyfriends). Fortunately, they weren’t digitized demons. Just teen boys.

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 06:52:32 -0400

LinkedIn: Recommended job for you! FBI Special Agent!
Me: Ooh, I wonder if I can get assigned to The X-Files.

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 08:08:46 -0400

Yesterday the House Committee on Education held a session called Protecting Kids: Combatting Graphic, Explicit Materials in School Libraries. In this session, some of the witnesses claimed that they didn’t want to ban books, only remove them from school libraries. They claimed that any book you can still purchase is not banned. But what they didn’t discuss is that not everyone has the funds to buy the books they want to remove. Parents have to decide for themselves whether they should control what their own children read. But they certainly shouldn’t control what other people’s children read. If you’re in the US, please consider using this tool from the American Library Association to contact your legislators and ask them to protect the freedom to read.

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 19:53:39 -0400

Finished reading: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas 📚

Great all the way through but extra compelling for the last third. Like Mexican Gothic, it uses Gothic tropes of a spooky house and a mysterious husband to interrogate colonialism in Mexico. Highly recommend.

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 04:41:15 -0400

🔖📺 Read How The Haunting of Hill House conveys the horror of family.

In the world of Hill House, devotion to family is a tender kind of madness that exists just on the other side of mourning, a ghostly insistence that the love that binds us is also the thing that keeps us chained.

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:07:53 -0400

I’m having one of those days where you give yourself credit for every single thing you do. So here’s what my work task list looks like today so far.

✅ Download Word.
✅ Install Word.
✅ Download report with comments.
✅ Open report.
✅ Get paper from studio.
✅ Put paper in printer.
✅ Print report.

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 18:48:19 -0400

Want to read: The Brain that Loves to Play by Jacqueline Harding 📚

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 18:48:18 -0400

Want to read: The Brain that Loves to Play by Jacqueline Harding 📚

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 19:19:32 -0400

Feted my kid thoroughly and now I am so tired.

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 23:24:34 -0400

Tonight I’m very obsessed with the idea of reading The Secret Garden as a child as a gateway to a love of Gothic literature. 📚

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 08:25:52 -0400

My kid is 7 today. I love him so much.

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 19:16:47 -0400

Finished reading: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 📚

Keeping this Gothic train rolling. This one is excellent, of course.

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 13:37:57 -0400

📚💬 “When I am afraid, I can see perfectly the sensible, beautiful not-afraid side of the world, I can see chairs and tables and windows staying the same, not affected in the least, and I can see things like the careful woven texture of the carpet, not even moving. But when I am afraid, I no longer exist in any relation to these things.” Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Substitute depressed or anxious for afraid here and it’s exactly how I feel.

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:32:20 -0400

Finished reading: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 📚

Another Gothic. Governesses, am I right?

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 12:38:52 -0400

💬📚 Dropping this quote here so that next time I try to hung it down I’ll find it on my own site and not have to go to GoodReads:

“She strode the earth clad in the invisible armor of their virtual companionship.” Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 03:47:28 -0400

Finished reading: “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe 📚

Making my pivot to Gothic now that it’s October. (I skipped my usual campus novels in September and stuck with romance.)

This one’s a classic, of course. But I like “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Masque of the Red Death” better.

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 12:41:04 -0400

📚💬 Roderick Usher has sensory integration issues:

“He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive…” - Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Sat, 30 Sep 2023 15:36:42 -0400

I have only skimmed this EdWeek piece on the science of reading but the person saying reading instruction doesn’t need to be changed because it worked for them 30 years ago might not realize that balanced literacy was a change from that. My 1st grade class did phonics.

Sat, 30 Sep 2023 10:06:21 -0400

🔖🖼️ Pokémon teams up with Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

My kid doesn’t like art museums and only tolerated the Van Gogh museum because the scavenger hunt involved getting a prize at the end. I wish they’d had this going on when we were there!

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 13:21:15 -0400

We’ve reached the moment when we learn if my claim that I wouldn’t go on the academic market because I didn’t want a tenure track job is genuine, or if it’s just a lie I told all of us because I didn’t think there’d be a TT job in my field I didn’t need to move for.

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:34:21 -0400

I’ve been watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 for the first time since I watched it as a kid when it originally aired. I remembered liking Quark and that Dax seemed like a good cosplay option for me. But this time around, I find myself really locked in on and adoring Kira. 🖖🏻📺

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 04:06:13 -0400

Finished reading: We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian 📚

I loved it so much, finished it in under 48 hours. “Newsies for shippers” is an apt description. I love people being sweet on each other and making happiness when they feared it just wasn’t out there for them.

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 12:41:19 -0400

Today’s Literary Activism newsletter from Book Riot shares information about several student groups fighting book bans. 📚

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 21:41:20 -0400

So, this week on Lower Decks, we learned that Vulcans have an understanding of the importance of informed consent when conducting social research. 🖖🏻

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:45:29 -0400

📚 I’m reading Sandra Hughes-Hassell’s book, Collection Management for Youth: Equity, Inclusion, and Learning and planning to share my reading notes. I’m trying to decide whether it makes more sense to create a new post for each chapter or just do one for the whole book. Thoughts?

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 22:10:05 -0400

I’ve got big days the next couple of days so what am I doing? Reading past bedtime, of course. (Future Kimberly, please forgive me.)

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 22:04:46 -0400

📚💬 “She didn’t know much about buildings, but it was clear that this one needed an unbelievable amount of work.
But at the end of it? Something she built up, rather than cut down.” Travis Baldree, Legends & Lattes

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 19:15:14 -0400

Finished reading: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera 📚

So good! Manuela is going to marry a wealthy man, for the good of her family. But first, she’s going to spend six weeks in Paris, having Sapphic adventures.

As with all the best romances, this book is about two people who make each other grow as much as it’s about falling in love.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Hotter than steamy, very explicit.

Highly recommend.

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 09:20:35 -0400

I was planning on getting to work soon but my office mate had a different idea.

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 21:13:42 -0400

I’m sleepy and in pain which is a rough combo because it’s hard to actually sleep while in pain.

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 19:30:16 -0400

There are few feelings as good as canceling a bunch of library holds because your family already owns all the books. 📚

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:34:02 -0400

Midnight says hi. 🐈‍⬛

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 03:20:55 -0400

📚 There are still spots available for online attendance at Public Librarianship in Contentious Times, a conference hosted by the University of Michigan School of Information and the Michigan Library Association. School librarians should find this relevant to their work as well and are welcome.

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 17:21:32 -0400

Pro tip: too tired/anxious to introduce yourself at a social event? Wear a bookish shirt and wait for people to come ask you about what you’re reading.

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 08:04:39 -0400

🔖🖖🏻 Happy Star Trek Day! I just read Teaching in Trek: A Look at the Education System of the Future by @joepraska@universeodon.com.

I love thinking, reading, & writing about this stuff. This is great timing as I watch Keiko O’Brien start the school on DS9. Thanks for writing this, Joe!

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 02:03:20 -0400

Finally watched the Amsterdam episode of Ted Lasso and just really missed Amsterdam the whole time. It was a really cool place to be and I’m sorry that between the weather and transit strikes we didn’t get into the city more. Also, gezellig is kind of like Dutch hygge.

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 19:29:50 -0400

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about my first writing craft book. In case you didn’t believe that I was excited, I recently found my journal from 7th grade and in it I write about that very book.

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 11:32:29 -0400

📺🖖🏻 Finished my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation today. It felt much less intense watching “All Good Things…” now than when it originally aired, probably because I can visit my Enterprise-D friends whenever I want.

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 08:48:12 -0400

🔖 💻 Read Now is the time for grimoires: It isn’t data that will unlock AI, it is human expertise by Ethan Mollick (One Useful Thing).

This is the most helpful take on generative AI that I’ve seen: create a prompt that is basically a computer program written in prose instead of code.

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 10:04:02 -0400

Fan Studies Network North America is October 11 -15 and open for registration! I’ll be facilitating a conversation among FanLIS scholars about fan tagging practices and ways libraries can use their collections to engage fans.

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 09:22:10 -0400

📚🍳 Started reading the introduction to Jules Sherred’s Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook and I might cry.

“The kitchen is the worst room in the house if you are disabled. I’m about to change that and make life easier for everyone.”

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 06:29:47 -0400

🔖📚 Read Shadow and Bone author Leigh Bardugo: ‘People sneer at the things women and girls love’ by Sian Cain (The Guardian).

She really is my hero.

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 06:21:40 -0400

🔖📚 Read Falling in Love With the Avengers, America’s Most Toxic Work Force by Leigh Bardugo (New York Times, gift link)

I love Leigh Bardugo so much.

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:52:11 -0400

Meet Midnight and Wednesday.

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 11:15:40 -0400

💬📚 “I hunker down with books when I need time to process what’s happening in my own life.
Books give me the space to breathe.”

Kelly J. Baker, Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 10:53:33 -0400

Currently reading: Final Girl: And Other Essays on Grief, Trauma, and Mental Illness by Kelly Baker 📚

Austin Kleon says to climb your creative family tree. Kelly is like an intellectual big sister, so I’m starting with her. (Katie Rose Guest Pryal is another.) 📝

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 19:23:12 -0400

Finished reading: From Bad to Cursed by Lana Harper 📚

Loved it even more than Payback’s A Witch. Full review coming later this week.

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 18:58:03 -0400

📚💬 “Disaster and hero, monster and martyr, beauty and beast . . . Choose your own dichotomy. Because it doesn’t matter. We were always built to be both.” Lana Harper, For Better or Cursed

Sun, 27 Aug 2023 06:08:49 -0400

W: I just don’t have a framework for doing this kind of writing…
Me: You need to read a lot of it and then just start writing.
W: holds up invisible mirror

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 12:09:19 -0400

If generative AI traffic is declining, does that mean AI can just become another tool we use and we can talk about it normally without talking about it exclusively?

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:48:03 -0400

Everybody else: You seen Barbieheimer yet?
Me: Nah, I’m going to the theater to see Terminator & Robocop. (Time travel is rad. So are retro cinema experiences.)

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 10:02:32 -0400

The belief at the beginning of a writing project that we don’t know how to write it comes for all of us who write, no matter how many writing projects we’ve finished or awards we’ve won, and IT HAS COME FOR ME RIGHT NOW.

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 09:07:35 -0400

I just donated to and joined Students Protecting Education, a national organization that a group of high schoolers started in response to book banning in their community. It’s awesome that young people want to step up to save the world. It’s critical that we don’t expect them to do it alone.

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 23:03:44 -0400

🔖🖖🏻 Read ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Had to Update the Look of Beloved Characters — and Battle the Pitiless Gaze of HD.

I love that they were able to let Worf’s skin be the same color as Michael Dorn’s.

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 12:20:25 -0400

Welcome to the analog part of qualitative data analysis. Whenever I get to the coding-the-codes stage, I need to channel Austin Kleon and use my hands. I sometimes handwrite the codes on index cards, but this time I printed them up and am cutting them into strips.

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 17:59:06 -0400

In the US? You might think the Kids Online Safety Act is good but before you decide, please read this piece at Ars Technica, this piece from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and this week’s newsletter from Charlie Jane Anders. Then if you think it’s bad, contact your congresspeople.

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 20:09:13 -0400

My infant starts first grade tomorrow, nbd.

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:02:10 -0400

My aspiration as a parent is to one day have a plan for the day and a half of free time my kid has the first week of school.

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 00:52:39 -0400

I find myself resentful of my body’s need for sleep.

Sun, 20 Aug 2023 13:01:46 -0400

If you’re in New Zealand and you have improv experience, you should probably go do this workshop with Bianca Casusöl. She’s the best.

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 03:31:55 -0400

🔖 Read To Be a Consumer of Culture Means Living in a Hostage Situation by Aaron Bady (Slate)

A great exploration of the role of fan labor in culture work.

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 21:03:42 -0400

Looking at my On This Day page, I found this blog post about letting go of self-punishing goals. I really needed it, as I’ve spent much of this vacation staring into the ocean and making plans for how I’ll do everything better once I get home.

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:23:13 -0400

📚🔖 Read The Parentified Protagonist: From Shifting Roles to Shapeshifter, a guest post by Stephanie Willing (Teen Librarian Toolbox).

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 08:08:47 -0400

📚 Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter is always valuable. This week, Kelly Jensen takes a deep dive into the use of ChatGPT to decide whether books should be removed from libraries.

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:46:52 -0400

Finished reading: Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper 📚

It’s a witchy romance between two bi women and it has a punny title. What’s not to love? Moderately steamy.

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:45:48 -0400

📚💬👱‍♀️ “When Pearl Dragon and cheap wine and even magic have all failed us… there will always be Buffy marathons.” Lana Harper, Payback’s A Witch

😭 I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:43:55 -0400

There was a big storm in Durham a couple days ago. Much of the city was without power. As soon as their power was restored, the libraries opened as cooling centers & places to charge devices. I worry sometimes that there’s no point to my research but I found this reddit comment heartening.

Mon, 14 Aug 2023 11:36:23 -0400

Finished reading: Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander 📚

This book is super queer and super cute. Simone’s a chef. Ray’s a kitchen manager. They take a long time to get together but once they do, it’s 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Warning: Transphobia & a relatedly garbage workplace.

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 11:13:13 -0400

Want to read: Disabilities and the Library by Clayton A. Copeland 📚

Sun, 13 Aug 2023 10:43:06 -0400

Want to read: Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age by Meryl Alper 📚

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 14:36:58 -0400

Want to read: 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow 📚

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 14:33:06 -0400

Want to read: Birth Control: The Insidious Power of Men over Motherhood by Allison Yarrow 📚

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 10:05:02 -0400

🖖🏻 Did I just revise my LinkedIn bio so it starts with a Star Trek quote? Yes, yes I did, and the whole thing is very professional.

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:44:36 -0400

🔖 Read On looking down.

A lovely meditation from @dwalbert on the things we notice when we walked. Our family stayed in Le Vésinet, a garden city outside of Paris, for a couple of weeks in May and their greenways existed in a state of studied neglect. Wildflowers sprouted all along the sidewalks. It was beautiful—and something we were only able to notice because we had to walk a kilometer to get to the train station.

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 12:21:00 -0400

J’aime les vacances. ⛱️

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 10:18:36 -0400

📚🔮 “…the Tarot constitutes first and foremost an apprenticeship in seeing.” Marianne Costa, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 21:18:08 -0400

Finished reading: Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel 📚

Gorgeous prose in this book that’s like if The Lion in Winter was mostly a romance between Richard and Philip. Recommend!

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 19:10:58 -0400

I may be leaning into being a middle-aged librarian stereotype, but I’m leaning into being a goth middle-aged librarian stereotype.

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 02:15:28 -0400

🎮 Played the Pikmin 4 demo, ended up buying the Pikmin 1 + 2 bundle, and I feel so guilty every time my little plant guys die in battle. 🌱

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:08:44 -0400

📚💗 August 19 is Bookstore Romance Day!

My fiction reading has been almost exclusively romance (across a variety of subgenres) since May and it’s making me very happy. Why not support your favorite indie bookshop & buy a romance from them?

I’ll write up some recommendations in the coming days.

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 18:14:33 -0400

This is true friendship.

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 11:38:38 -0400

Finished reading: The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes 📚

This one didn’t click with me right away, but that was about me and what else I’ve read recently, not about the book. It’s beautiful and sweet with a bit of spice, too.

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 11:04:39 -0400

📚💬 “…my body is the keeper of secrets, and this pen is its liberator.” J. C. Cervantes, The Enchanted Hacienda

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 06:52:20 -0400

📚📺 The trailer for The Power dropped. I loved this book so much. The show has an amazing cast. I’m looking forward to watching it.

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 21:19:11 -0400

Finished reading: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune 📚

Listened to the audiobook. I understand why so much of the beginning of this book had to establish for us the dreariness of Linus Baker’s life. I didn’t really get into it until he arrived at the eponymous house. And from then on it made my heart sing.

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 12:53:42 -0400

🔖 Read The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries.

Karawynn Long compares the trajectory of Overdrive/Libby to platforms like Amazon and Facebook and finds a lot to worry about. An important read for those of us in libraryland.

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 07:40:21 -0400

📚💬 “We are who we are, not because of our birthright, but because of what we choose to do in this life.” TJ Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 06:55:34 -0400

📚💬 “Why can’t life work whatever way we want it to? What’s the point of living if you only do it how others want you to?” TJ Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 06:56:14 -0400

📺👱‍♀️🖖 Glen Weldon’s rewrite of song titles from “Once More, with Feeling” to include Star Trek stuff is precisely calculated to delight me, specifically.

The musical episode of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS is still yet another reason to love the show.

Formally, it’s ONCE MORE, WITH PHASERS, but at least they acknowledge the debt the episode owes to B:TVS when a character says “I’ve got a theory….”

Great opening number.
— Glen Weldon (@ghweldon) August 3, 2023

Going Through the Photons

Walk Through The Fire Phasers

Something to T’Pring About

What You Neel(ix) https://t.co/ntlQtaIa7R
— Glen Weldon (@ghweldon) August 3, 2023

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 02:08:57 -0400

Finished reading: The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest 📚

Adorable romance about a publishing assistant who starts an email friendship with the author of her favorite book, then he unknowingly moves into her apartment building. I love stories about book people. Highly recommend.

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 19:45:12 -0400

🍿 Watched Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie.

A reimagining of the TV show. I loved how well it used the Palais Garnier. Sweet story and you get all the emotional payoff fans of the show had to wait 5 seasons for in only 105 minutes.

Sat, 29 Jul 2023 07:14:49 -0400

Finished reading: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett 📚

Lovely! A scholar of faerie lore travels to a frozen Scandinavian town to research for her book and along the way, her annoyingly wonderful colleague decides to join her. Brilliant use of both academia and faerie stuff in this one. Highly recommend.

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:09:38 -0400

🔖 Skimmed Publicize Your Principles.

This idea might be helpful for articulating Micro.blog’s principles. ATTN: @manton @jean

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 12:26:24 -0400

📚💬 “I was supposed to remain comfortably outside the stories with my pen and my notebook.” Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:50:17 -0400

📚💬 “He felt lighter somehow. Like he wasn’t paint blending into the wall. He felt real. He felt present. Almost like he could be seen.” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 02:44:17 -0400

📚💬 “Home is where we get to be who we are.” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:23:42 -0400

There’s a special irony in the fact that GalaxyCon Raleigh’s Cosplay, Cons, & Parenting panel takes place from 6:30 to 7:30 pm, exactly when parents need to be feeding their children and moving them toward bedtime.

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:39:22 -0400

o no I am become the dad in the LEGO movie

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 13:45:27 -0400

So I’m on Bluesky. (If you’re seeing this on Bluesky, it’s thanks to Micro.blog cross-posting!) If they ever actually federate, I’ll follow folks on micro.blog. For now, I’ll just be checking in there whenever I remember to, which will probably be infrequently.

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:55:25 -0400

🔖📚 Read IN A WAVE OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY RETELLINGS, WHERE ARE THE GREEK WRITERS? by Lyndsie Manusos (Book Riot).

Lots of exciting recommendations in here.

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 07:07:00 -0400

🔖🍿 Read Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a Fascinating, Spectacular Philosophical Experiment by Olivia Rutigliano (Literary Hub).

Well, I was already interested in seeing Barbie, but now that I know it’s about existential crises, I really want to see Barbie.

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 08:30:02 -0400

I love how the Web works. I post that I want to read Jillian Hess’s book, How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information. Anna Havron reads it and blogs about personal information management. Tracy Durnell reads that post and writes about the value of taking notes. And then I read that and find a choice quote like this:

Like leisure need not be earned, neither must learning be driven by purpose or need.

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 01:37:57 -0400

I should really stick with my watch-mostly-Star-Trek plan. 🖖🏻

Sun, 23 Jul 2023 00:14:49 -0400

Was too busy actually celebrating my 14th wedding anniversary yesterday to blog about it. A thoroughly Durham date: browsing & picking up orders at The Regulator and Hometown Apparel, breakfast anytime at Elmo’s, and dessert at Locopops.

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 05:08:55 -0400

💬📚 “Sometimes silence was the loudest thing of all.” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 04:59:58 -0400

💬📚 “Why is it that I must always worry about tomorrows?” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 20:54:41 -0400

Finished reading: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 📚

Listened to the audiobook. Super adorable. Super hot. Super made me teary with it’s AU 2016 election that a woman won. Highly recommend.

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 20:20:42 -0400

Finished reading: Nimona by ND Stevenson 📚

Weird I waited so long to read it. A lot going on here and I’m always delighted by the way ND Stevenson’s art reminds me of Quentin Blake’s.

Tue, 18 Jul 2023 22:48:45 -0400

Finished reading: Ana María and The Fox by Liana De la Rosa 📚

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 12:03:37 -0400

🔖📚 Read Let the Kids Get Weird: The Adult Problem With Children’s Books by Janet Manley (Literary Hub).

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 07:34:04 -0400

🔖📓 Read Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time by Ellen Samuels (Disability Studied Quarterly).

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 21:39:07 -0400

Photo of my lovely husband W & myself in front of Ferris Bueller singing in the parade! Thanks to Retro Film Series!

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 12:13:26 -0400

I have a (relatively subdued thanks to new meds) migraine (3 hormone shifts a month cause these for me whee!). I also went and had 3 fillings all on the left side of my mouth. So my brain is not in its finest shape right now, which is why I sent 3 emails with factual errors.

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 01:58:25 -0400

Finished reading: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna 📚

What a sweet, cozy cup of tea of a book. This one made me so happy. And for the first time in a while, I feel like writing a full review. Stay tuned.

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:37:45 -0400

💬📚 “It was always irksome when an idea went nowhere, but Mika knew by now that there would always be new ideas.” Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 11:45:13 -0400

Okay it’s not noon and my library’s collective daily borrow limit for Hoopla has been reached which… I feel like we must have a really low collective daily borrow limit.

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 10:13:17 -0400

It’s my birthday Friday! I’m keeping Kimbertide low key this year. If you want to play along, watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Muppet Movie, play an arcade game, or eat some pizza.

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:22:57 -0400

Finished reading: Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin 📚

Another sweet romance set in the Toronto Muslim community from Uzma Jalaluddin. This one has Shop Around the Corner/She Loves Me/You’ve Got Mail vibes. It includes a community dealing with racial hatred and coming through in a joyous way. Highly recommend.

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 07:35:36 -0400

🔖🎭📚 Read It’s Getting Hard to Stage a School Play Without Political Drama by Michael Paulson (NYT, gift link) via Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter.

When I was in Europe reading censorship news from the US, I kept thinking, “I just want to fight censorship and make theatre.” Turns out these two things are related.

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 07:42:45 -0400

I’m signed up for Threads. I’ll actually use it when it implements ActivityPub and/or is available in-browser.

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 20:11:56 -0400

Finished reading: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi 📚

I read this start-to-finish in about 8 hours. It’s a romance that illuminates grief and what can come after. It made me cry. It made me hungry. Highly recommend.

Sun, 02 Jul 2023 07:04:21 -0400

My On This Day page surfaced this blog post today:

Constructing websites as constructing ourselves: Thinking out loud

I still think about this all the time. I still feel that as I build my site, I’m building myself.

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:56:02 -0400

Apparently my idea for what counts as the prettiest hair is bound to the year 1993. This soft hair on Deanna Troi, with thin bangs, the front pulled up, tendrils in drint of the ears, and big loose curls in the back resonates for me as true beauty. (ST:TNG 7x11 Parallels, airdate 11/29/93) 🖖🏻

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 09:53:54 -0400

I seem to have no attention span today. I’m going to blame the postdrome stage of migraine.

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 10:44:11 -0400

Finished reading: Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin 📚

This is a beautiful homage to Pride & Prejudice, as well as to the Toronto Muslim community. A sweet love story with beautiful language. And so much tasty-sounding food and drink! Highly recommend.

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 11:30:12 -0400

📝 Brilliant gem from Jaya Saxena in today’s #1000WordsOfSummer letter:

my writing got better the moment I allowed myself to be the kind of writer I am, even if I don’t work the same way as the writers I want to be.

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 04:20:58 -0400

📚 Me, reading Ayesha At Last: This is a Pride & Prejudice retelling, I know this, so when is Khalid going to go all Mr. Darcy?

Author Uzma Jalaluddin, on page 40: Here you go.

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 12:03:45 -0400

I am on Day 4 of a migraine. I’m about to try a new medication for it. Here’s hoping it makes a difference.

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 02:44:33 -0400

Picard: I feel as if I’m in the Scottish Highlands.
Colonist: The cornerstone of every building was taken from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen…
Me, A Jerk: Those aren’t in the highlands.
🖖🏻

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 17:13:46 -0400

Hey friends, what are some good values statements from organizations? (I’m deliberately not defining criteria for good, but please feel free to explain why you think the ones you mention are good.)

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 07:14:07 -0400

🔖 Read What Is A Third Place? (And Here’s Why You Should Have One) by Emily Torres (The Good Trade).

I’ve been thinking about third places, their role in fiction, what they look like online, & how they overlap with affinity spaces for a few days so it felt like serendipity when this hit my inbox.

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 11:11:45 -0400

My desk chair broke a little bit and I’m having trouble determining whether I can fix it…

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:17:11 -0400

📚💬 “To me intellectual life is fundamentally different from academic careerism.” bell hooks, remembered rapture: the artist at work

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:14:33 -0400

📚💬

It is precisely because common structures of evaluation and advancement in various academic jobs require homogenous thought and action… that academia is often less a site for open-minded creative study and more a space of repression that dissenting voices are so easily censored and silenced… it is dangerous for us to allow academic institutions to remain the primary site where our ideas are developed and engaged." bell hooks, remembered rapture: the artist at work

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 06:52:28 -0400

🔖 Read Katy Simpson Smith on Writing a Southern Woman Louder Than Herself.

Writing, as a career, is inherently boat-rocking.

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 18:48:31 -0400

📚💬 “Science fiction is the literature of social and technological change.” Nalo Hopkinson, “What is science fiction for?” in Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 12:53:51 -0400

🍞 This bread is from Simple Mills’s Artisan Bread mix. It has a beautiful crack, but vinegar as a leavening agent leaves something to be desired. The texture is a bit dense. Motivation for me to use the copy of Gluten-free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day I ordered on @cygnoir’s recommendation.

Sun, 18 Jun 2023 12:52:42 -0400

In response to @mbkriegh’s In Praise of the Choir:

This post reminds me of Austin Kleon’s writing on Brian Eno’s concept of “scenius”:

I myself feel the same way about choral music, as well as a variety of other forms of collaborative art (theatre, movies & TV, video games). I’ve been a choral singer and I’ve been a soloist, and for the longest time I thought my worth as a singer was to be measured by how often directors wanted to give me solos. But over time, I’ve come to realize that people don’t want a choir or chorus full of bad singers, that being a choral singer is a special skill, and that I tend to get chills more often listening to a good choral piece than a solo.

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 09:41:13 -0400

Finished reading: The Widow of Rose House by Diana Biller 📚

This is a lovely romance set in Gilded Age New York, where a scandalous society widow and a famous inventor fall in love as they try to exorcise a ghost from the Gothic mansion she just bought. Content warning: spousal abuse, neglectful parents, bad treatment in a mental health facility.

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 08:08:38 -0400

💬📚 “Real life is people leaning on each other when things are hard. It’s loving each other so much there’s no question about facing things together. It’s fighting for each other and with each other and being damned grateful for every morning you wake up together.” The Widow of Rose House, Diana Biller

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 15:23:36 -0400

Halfway through the week of no school or camp and we’re not doing too badly, thanks to grandma time, the pool, and a moratorium on screen time limits…

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 10:32:14 -0400

📚💬 “Love isn’t naïve, Alva. It’s hope, and it’s faith, and it can outlast buildings and wars and empires.” The Widow of Rose House, Diana Biller

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 12:34:26 -0400

🔖📚💖 A couple of links about pleasure reading for your reading pleasure:

What Romance Novels Taught Me About Taking Pleasure More Seriously by Stephanie Fallon (The Good Trade)
Don’t Call Them Trash by Sophie Gilbert (The Atlantic)

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:06:43 -0400

There’s something really special about being a 90s comedy nerd married to another 90s comedy nerd.

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 13:41:06 -0400

I like how when I text someone and am a lot, knowing they’re a lot too means I know we’ll both be okay because we’re both a lot and they won’t be mad I a-lot-ed at them.

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 16:27:59 -0400

🎙🖖Listened to Our Opinions Are Correct, Episode 131: The State of Star Trek, with Mike McMahan. Spoilery still from the Strange New Worlds Season 2 trailer on that page.

This is a lovely episode, full of thoughts on what makes Trek Trek, when it’s at its best, and what Lower Decks does.

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:02:46 -0400

🔖 Read A LETTER FROM THE NEW CORPORATE OWNERS OF HOOPER’S STORE (McSweeney’s).

This is hilarious and ends with a perfect button.

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 10:36:30 -0400

📝📓 Fascinated by this ethnographic study on youth’s “pocket writing” practices.

Most fiction I write happens in my pocket now and is mostly private, shared only with very specific people. As a teenager, I did a lot of writing that was tucked away in my backpack, only shared with particular friends.

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 14:21:45 -0400

Installing Linux on my Windows machine…

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 07:30:39 -0400

🔖 Some interesting links around “wholesome” as a word for things that restore us, rather than a conservative metric by which to judge people:

When Did ‘Wholesome’ Become a Gen Z Compliment? (NYT Gift Link)
Why Are We Craving “Wholesome” Things? (The Good Trade)
Wholesome Games 🎮

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 06:22:45 -0400

🔖📓 Read How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward.

I love some of these alternate ways of creating age groupings. I could especially imagine grouping people according to their age at the time of key historical events or technological innovations producing valuable insights.

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:09:56 -0400

📺 Watched The Baby-sitters Club S02E07, Claudia and the Sad Goodbye. 💔😭

If you know, you know.

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 23:27:35 -0400

🔖📓 Can ChatGPT Replace UX Researchers? An Empirical Analysis of Comment Classifications

This is an interesting study with implications for qualitative research beyond UX. Looks like the answer is, “It’s too soon to tell.”

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 17:54:12 -0400

Finished reading: Wyngraf #1

The first issue of a cozy fantasy magazine. Full of lovely stories I very much enjoyed. Mother-daughter dragon calming, fairy diplomacy, what happens 20 years after you save the world, and more. Highly recommend.

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 13:33:02 -0400

Does anybody else know why all I feel like doing is lying in bed and watching Netflix Originals? 📺

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 22:56:20 -0400

📺 The Babysitters Club S02E03, “Stacey’s Emergency,” brilliantly depicts what it’s like living with chronic illness.

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 13:28:13 -0400

I’m only now catching up on the second season of The Babysitters Club and having Mary Ann as a triple virgo is brilliant. 📺

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 07:03:47 -0400

🎙️💬

“Sometimes it can be hard when we’re fucking exhausted to choose the thing that feels nourishing.” Lindsay Mack, Tarot for the Wild Soul Episode 229, June Is Breaking Away

Tue, 30 May 2023 16:35:08 -0400

Finished reading: Demon in the Wood Graphic Novel by Leigh Bardugo 📚

Gorgeous graphic version of the Darkling’s origin story.

Tue, 30 May 2023 13:52:17 -0400

Jami Attenberg’s #1000WordsOfSummer starts June 17 and the Slack is hopping right now, in case you want to join in on the fun. 📝

Mon, 29 May 2023 17:54:27 -0400

🌊 Today is the first day of the 10th Annual 100 Days of Blue Mind challenge. As often as you can between now and Labor Day, “get near, in, on or under your wild, domestic, urban or even virtual waters.” Today I took a shower and hung out with my kid on some rocks near South Ellerbee Creek.

Mon, 29 May 2023 06:35:17 -0400

It was hard finding time to write while traveling, so I didn’t do all the travel blogging I would have liked. But I have consistent childcare for the next couple weeks, then for several more weeks after a one week break from now, and I’m hoping to write up some travel stuff during that time. 📝

Sun, 28 May 2023 10:43:16 -0400

🔖📚 Read This Is Dedicated To Anyone Who Ever Left - Kelly McMaster interviewed by Lyz Lenz.

Sun, 28 May 2023 10:05:35 -0400

🔖📚 Read “I think, like marriage, home is a fantasy” - Kelly McMaster interviewed by Amanda Montei

Here are all of my intellectual intentions and here is this adorable, smiling, chubby baby, swallowing it whole.

When writing real life, there is always going to be a connection between what is happening at the breakfast table and how you are showing up on the page.

Sat, 27 May 2023 15:53:57 -0400

📺 Me, watching Bridgerton: How can anyone tell these Bridgerton brothers apart? They all have the same coloration. I guess two of them are a little taller? But I’m not sure.

Sat, 27 May 2023 10:32:36 -0400

🔖 Read Monkey House: Strange Reflections at the Singerie by Kate Zambreno (VQR).

Sat, 27 May 2023 08:47:27 -0400

📺 Watched Velma. The two primary criticisms - that it relies too heavily on meta-humor and that the characters are selfish & don’t grow - are spot on, and yet I still found it compelling enough to watch all 10 episodes.

Fri, 26 May 2023 07:49:39 -0400

🔖 Read The Winter Zoo by Kate Zambreno (The Yale Review).

For a few years when M. was a toddler, our family went to Knoxville - the place of my mother’s birth - for The Collective library conference. W. would present and M. and I would wander about town, exploring the best haunts and generally enjoying the adorable downtown and the home of the 1982 World’s Fair.

One of the places I took M. was Zoo Knoxville. We were there in mid-March so it was pretty much a winter zoo like Kate Zambreno talks about here, and our experiences there were very similar.

Thu, 25 May 2023 17:38:06 -0400

🍿 Watched Howard.

It’s always striking when you realize the outsize influence an artist has had on you, and watching this it really hit home what an influence Howard Ashman has been on me. I think tomorrow is its lady day on Disney+. I hope they’ll release it for purchase after that. I’d buy it.

Thu, 25 May 2023 17:33:02 -0400

📚 Here comes the BBC with a list of the 100 Greatest Children’s Books of All Time. Maybe when I’m recovered from jetlag I’ll see how many are on both this and Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books list.

Thu, 25 May 2023 14:59:05 -0400

Want to read: The Light Room by Kate Zambreno 📚

Thu, 25 May 2023 14:18:56 -0400

Time for a needs assessment! Micro.blog community, what resources do you need in the Micro.blog Community Library?

Thu, 25 May 2023 12:20:11 -0400

📚 Purchased 2 different books from museums to be shipped directly to my house rather than carrying them home myself:

Sarah Bernhardt - Et la femme crea l’etoile exhibition catalog (Petit Palais, Paris)
Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination exhibition book (Science Museum, London)

Thu, 25 May 2023 12:14:19 -0400

Just learned that it would cost £22 to have 100g of Tchai-Ovna’s Faeries Blood Tea shipped to me here in the US. Yikes.

Thu, 25 May 2023 12:04:03 -0400

🔖 Read How to Scale Back, Even When It Seems Impossible.

Do you need to lose something else to find yourself? Katie Pryal writes about how she had to let so many things go to create space for herself to thrive.

Thu, 25 May 2023 07:43:47 -0400

🔖📝 Reading Revision can be fun. No, really. by Charlie Jane Anders.

…revision can actually be kind of exhilarating at times. Because instead of thinking of the revision process as fixing my garbage draft, I’ve started to think of it as unwrapping a series of presents that I wrapped for myself before.

Tue, 23 May 2023 20:09:59 -0400

Home again and happy to be here.

Tue, 23 May 2023 01:20:19 -0400

🔖 Read The Healing Power of JavaScript.

❤️

Mon, 22 May 2023 15:24:15 -0400

Happy World Goth Day!

Tomorrow I will go home, where I will have access to all my goth perfumes and jewelry.

Today, I give you this photo of Sarah Bernhardt wearing her bat hat, which I hope to recreate with a needle-felted bat.

Mon, 22 May 2023 14:44:34 -0400

I’ve created playlists on YouTube for all 3 Micro Camps, in case you, like me, have a long flight and might want to download and watch them all on the plane (if you have YouTube Premium, that is):

Mon, 22 May 2023 07:41:03 -0400

Last full day in Europe and I’m spending it alternating between packing and lying down. Don’t underestimate how much stuff you can acquire in 4 months, even when you’re doing your best to be really selective.

Sun, 21 May 2023 16:32:36 -0400

“Y’all” is the best contraction. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Sun, 21 May 2023 14:04:38 -0400

📚 Revisiting Time’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.

N. K. Jemisin:

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

Sun, 21 May 2023 03:58:36 -0400

📺 Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is exactly the Star Wars show I would have written as a kid:

Kai Brightstar
Nash Durango
The Crimson Firehawk

Brilliant targeting for its audience.

Sat, 20 May 2023 20:44:38 -0400

Finished reading: Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale 📚

A sweet historical romance involving a Quaker and a rakish Duke.

Sat, 20 May 2023 13:56:12 -0400

Announcement time!

Do you write a blog? Send it to me and I’ll read it!

Thu, 18 May 2023 20:20:16 -0400

🔖🌐 Read Webring History.

animated email gifs, web counters, scrolling and/or blinking text, midi background music that could not be turned off and the “under construction” images.

I’d forgotten about midi background music! This quote is basically a list of things that made the web feel fun for me. I’m going to work on recapturing that vibe, even if the tech looks different.

Thu, 18 May 2023 01:18:17 -0400

I was feeling disconnected from the Micro.blog community, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just because I wasn’t posting that much. So I changed the setting so that I see replies in my timeline. (I’d had them hidden.) I already feel more part of the conversation.

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:38:21 -0400

O no two meetings left, not done for 3+ hrs, and yet so sleepy. Might be an afternoon caffeine day. I would love to just live in Paris forever but it will be really nice when I’m only 3 time zones away from my colleagues.

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:23:15 -0400

🔖 How Does Motherhood Impact Your Creativity? It’s Complicated vogue.com
Read: www.vogue.com
Vogue: Fashion, Beauty, Celebrity, Fashion Shows https://www.vogue.com/article/how-does-motherhood-impact-your-creativity

My inhibitions were methodically ripped to shreds by the pure chaotic energy of the small children and carers around me. I stopped caring about whether what I was doing made me feel silly, and that is a huge boon to anyone wanting to express themselves creatively.

Tue, 16 May 2023 19:32:21 -0400

I’m in Paris this week so I don’t know how much of Micro Camp I’ll catch live, but the schedule looks great.

Sun, 14 May 2023 15:16:51 -0400

Missing Moulin Rouge playing in my hometown but it’s okay because I got to see the actual Moulin Rouge.

Fri, 12 May 2023 12:18:57 -0400

🔖🎵 Read Patiently Holding the Sound: Gretchen Parlato on motherhood as a musical inspiration.

What a great interview.

Thu, 11 May 2023 21:24:53 -0400

🔖🌐 Read Bring Back Personal Blogging by Monique Judge (The Verge).

Thu, 11 May 2023 21:17:20 -0400

My blog host, Micro.blog, has declared it the Summer of Blogging and is offering 4 months of their standard hosting plan at a price of $1/month. I highly recommend them. If you want a simple way to have your own website, this is worth a try.

Thu, 11 May 2023 11:07:31 -0400

I’ve been obsessed with this chandelier for a long time and today I finally got to see it in person.

Thu, 11 May 2023 07:05:22 -0400

Reading the souvenir book they sell at Shakespeare and Company, Shakespeare and Company: A Brief History of a Parisian Bookstore.

For George, it was more important to have a community of readers and writers than just to sell books.

😍

Thu, 11 May 2023 02:21:11 -0400

Je suis à Paris. J’adore Paris. Yesterday I sat in the reading room of Shakespeare and Company, wrote in my notebook, and pretended to be A Writer. (I am a writer. But I am A Reader.)

Wed, 10 May 2023 21:02:33 -0400

I’m grieving dooce by going through her archives and reading this post while I am in Paris is extra beautiful. I was cranky and tired and in pain the day we got here, and even so as soon as I stepped out of the train station into the city, it took my breath away. I’ve always suspected Paris would be my heart’s true home (I was born on Bastille Day) and it’s lovely to have it confirmed.

Mon, 08 May 2023 22:45:35 -0400

Starting Season 7 in my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, finding myself very glad there’s so much other Trek media including TNG tie-ins so I basically never have to say goodbye to my Enterprise D friends. 🖖🏻📺

Sun, 07 May 2023 18:49:40 -0400

Want to read: The Witch of Woodland by Laurel Snyder 📚

Sat, 06 May 2023 17:11:37 -0400

🔖📝 Read My Commitment to Wellness as a Lifelong Writer by Yolande House — Breathing Space Creative

I’ve learned that honouring my needs each and every day is a part of what loving myself looks like. When I finally learned how to love myself, I learned it’s not a goal with an end. Rather, it’s a process of committing and being true to myself each and every day, even when (and especially when) it’s hard.

Sat, 06 May 2023 17:00:52 -0400

Over the past week, I’ve worked through Esmé Weijun Wang’s workshop, Building a Writing Habit While Living with Limitations. In the workshop, we assess our limitations, set writing goals, inventory our resources, explore how we can make the most of our 24 hours. Highly recommend, $117. 📝

Thu, 04 May 2023 15:34:52 -0400

🔖📚 Read BookTok encourages reading as an aesthetic and no one is safe from its gaze by Elena Cavender (Mashable).

Insightful piece about how limiting our reading to a particular aesthetic connects with our attention being commodified.

Wed, 03 May 2023 02:02:02 -0400

Finished reading: Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond 📚

Loved it. Scorchingly hot, fun secret agent hijinks. Highly recommend.

Mon, 01 May 2023 06:35:20 -0400

I am reading Gwenda Bond’s Mr. & Mrs. Witch right now and one of the 🔥 scenes actually made me cry because it was so beautiful and made me so happy. 📚

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:14:31 -0400

🔖📓 Read Automated transcription and some risks of machine interpretation.

Dr. Daniel Turner does a great job illuminating how large language models work and how we need to think about indigeneity and colonialism when choosing our transcription method.

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 12:49:15 -0400

Want to read: How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information by Jillian M. Hess 📚

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 08:53:23 -0400

Want to read: It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World by Mikaela Loach 📚

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 21:33:36 -0400

Want to read: Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc 📚

Sat, 22 Apr 2023 05:56:58 -0400

Me: I put my hair up and brushed my teeth! I’m ready to face the day! flops onto bed

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 22:23:26 -0400

I’m trying to see myself as others see me. Would you please tell me:

When have you seen me happiest?
What do you come to me for?
Where do I stand out against my peers?

Qs from Christina Wallace’s The Portfolio Life 📚

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 17:51:49 -0400

🔖📚 Read Roman Polanski, David Bowie, and a New Solution to the Problem of Art Made by Monstrous Men by Laura Miller (Slate).

The magnitude of an artist’s personal transgressions sometimes matters less than the nature of the attachment it disrupts.

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 10:46:43 -0400

Went by the Oscar Wilde house yesterday and the plaque saying he lived there said:

OSCAR WILDE
POET, DRAMATIST, WIT

and I liked it so well I’m changing all my bios to read “Mother, learner, wit.”

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 03:35:53 -0400

🔖🎨 Read On growing alongside your artistic practice (The Creative Independent).

Mother-artist Bailey Elder talks about growing as an artist and being a mother. Elder is starting a blog to interview other artistic mothers!

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 02:14:11 -0400

🔖 Read Durham Officials Push for Affordable Housing in Southpoint Redevelopment.

Pleased with my city’s Planning Commission members.

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:21:21 -0400

🔖📝 Read When You Aren’t Sure Whether Your Writing Is ‘Important’ by Nicole Chung (The Atlantic).

You just need to find one person who understands and appreciates what you’re trying to do and why, and then you look for the next person…

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:14:19 -0400

🔖📝 Read Kids Will Still Read Banned Books by Nicole Chung (The Atlantic).

Chung doesn’t minimize the harm of book banning, but discusses how it’s impossible (and a bad idea) to try to control kids’ reading.

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:06:36 -0400

🔖📝 Read How Can You Write About Pain Without Retraumatizing Yourself? by Nicole Chung (The Atlantic).

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 15:49:44 -0400

🔖📝 Read On Pitching and Rejection by Nicole Chung (The Atlantic).

pitching is not just about figuring out what editors or publications may be interested in—figuring out what you are most interested in is vital.

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:35:31 -0400

It’s my defense-aversary! I’ve been a PhD for two years. For me, getting the PhD was much bigger than having the PhD has been. Perhaps I’ll write up more reflections on this later.

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 04:38:19 -0400

💬📚📓📝

No dissertation is worth a lifetime of revision.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:27:38 -0400

I haven’t been sharing a lot of travel adventures not because I haven’t been having them, but just because making the time to share is tricky.

But here! Have some photos!

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:32:48 -0400

🔖 Read Lois Before Clark: In Defense of the Superhero Girlfriend.

Dreamed I decided to get obsessed with Lois Lane, decided this meant I should actually get obsessed with her, knew this essay by Dr. Ravynn K. Stringfield was the place to start.

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 10:38:12 -0400

🔖📝 Read “I Hate the Idea of Healing” A Conversation with Maggie Smith

One thing that mothering has taught me is that I can’t be precious about where I work. When I work, I cannot demand uninterrupted space and time…If I got completely derailed every time somebody needed me, I’d never do anything.

Sun, 09 Apr 2023 14:24:31 -0400

Finished reading: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett 📚

My first finished Discworld. Reading Piers Anthony feels like coming home (miss me with your takes on him, please, I know his flaws). Reading Terry Pratchett feels like visiting a treasured friend. A lot of fun here.

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 21:33:26 -0400

🖖🏻📺

Data: *has a personal problem* *does extensive research* Captain Picard, I have done all the research but I do not have the answer to my problem.

Picard: What do you think about the problem, though?

Data: *blinks*

Just another reason I identify with Data.

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 20:12:45 -0400

Full-on happy misty-eyed over this week’s Picard. 🖖🏻📺

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 04:53:11 -0400

💬📚📝📓

Learn how to revise and you will produce a better first book. Remember it and you will enjoy writing the books to follow.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 04:51:45 -0400

💬📚📝📓

Revision is unromantic, time-consuming, tiring. It is also the only way to make one’s writing better.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 04:22:27 -0400

📓 Read Subjectivity and Reflexivity: An Introduction by Franz Breuer, Katja Mruck & Wolff-Michael Roth (Forum: Qualitative Social Research).

A quick introduction to a pair of special issues. Interested to see how the conversation’s advanced.

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 11:35:17 -0400

💬📚📝📓

Writing isn’t a record of your thinking. It is your thinking.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 11:28:32 -0400

💬📚📝📓

Revision is a job for optimists.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 07:21:28 -0400

The Barbie Selfie Generator is pretty fun.

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 02:18:18 -0400

Hey Internet! I’m interested in your perceptions. What are my superpowers? What are my areas of expertise?

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 04:22:18 -0400

💬📚📝📓

…the operating instructions of scholarly publishing rarely form a part of graduate training…

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 12:29:59 -0400

💬📚📝📓

Write everything you want published as if there are people who make decisions and work within limited budgets—their checkbooks, or their libraries’ acquisition budgets.

William Germano, From Dissertation to Book

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 05:34:26 -0400

Looking at my Scholarly Pipeline (Notion template I made, pay what you want) for the first time in a while & I’ve got an idea for a piece of scholarship that all I noted down was “JME Geekery.” Anybody else have any idea what I might have meant?

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 04:55:08 -0400

Want to read: Malice House by Megan Shepherd 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 10:23:04 -0400

Teenagers at this park are listening to the Macarena. Do I feel old or 15?

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 02:36:17 -0400

It took a couple years, but I finally created a page on my website curating all my writing about dissertating in the open.

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:13:11 -0400

Want to read: Pre-Raphaelite Painting Techniques by Joyce H. Townsend 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:11:42 -0400

Want to read: Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature by Allen Staley 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:10:34 -0400

Want to read: Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists ; Publ.on the Occasion of the Exhibition at Manchester City Art Galleries, 22 November 1997-22 February 1998 by Jan Marsh 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:09:37 -0400

Want to read: Flora Symbolica: Flowers in Pre-Raphaelite Art by Debra N. Mancoff 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:08:24 -0400

Want to read: The Pre-Raphaelites by Laurence Des Cars 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:07:22 -0400

Want to read: English Pre-Raphaelite Painters: Their Associates and Successors by Percy H. Bate 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:02:00 -0400

Want to read: Haunted Texts by William Evan Fredeman 📚

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:00:11 -0400

Want to read: Essential Pre-Raphaelites by Lucinda Hawksley 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:57:42 -0400

Want to read: The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy by William Gaunt 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:55:41 -0400

Want to read: Pre-Raphaelites in Love by Gay Daly 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:49:47 -0400

Want to read: Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde by Tim Barringer,T. J. Barringer 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:47:34 -0400

Want to read: The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art by Dennis Sydney Reginald Welland 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:45:24 -0400

Want to read: Reading the Pre-Raphaelites by Tim Barringer 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:43:26 -0400

Want to read: The Pre-Raphaelite Art of the Victorian Novel by Sophia Andres 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 14:21:49 -0400

I love the Gothic Charm School book very much and am happy to have bought it as an ebook so I can re-read it as I travel, but I miss the special font for the Secret Goth Cabal. 💀📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:17:23 -0400

Want to read: Haunted Greece by John L. Tomkinson 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:15:47 -0400

Want to read: Troublesome Things by Diane Purkiss 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:14:45 -0400

Want to read: Fairy Tales, Now First Collected by Joseph Ritson 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:13:36 -0400

Want to read: Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-eastern and Central Europe by Eva Pocs 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:12:35 -0400

Want to read: The Banshee by Patricia Lysaght 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:10:39 -0400

Want to read: Elf Queens and Holy Friars by Richard Firth Green 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:09:45 -0400

Want to read: Handbook of Fairies by Ronan Coghlan 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:08:32 -0400

Want to read: The Fairies in Tradition and Literature by Katharine Mary Briggs 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:06:50 -0400

Want to read: Dictionary of Fairies by Katherine Briggs 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:05:27 -0400

Want to read: Fairies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Literature by Nicola Bown 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:04:31 -0400

Want to read: Fairy Lore by D. L. Ashliman 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:02:48 -0400

Want to read: Tolkien on Fairy-stories by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:59:10 -0400

Want to read: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies by Anna Franklin 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:55:59 -0400

Want to read: The Good People by Peter Narvez 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:44:00 -0400

Want to read: Northumberland Folk Tales by Rosalind Kerven 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:42:05 -0400

Want to read: Fabulous Creatures, Mythical Monsters, and Animal Power Symbols by Cassandra Eason 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:37:58 -0400

Want to read: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 04:33:27 -0400

Want to read: Strange and Secret Peoples by Carole G. Silver 📚

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 01:22:19 -0400

Hello Internet! I’m having a vampire night due to migraine. I’m going to get up and take my morning medicine so I can wait an hour and then have coffee, food, and pain meds.

I’m really enjoying reading a lot.

How are you?

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 20:30:19 -0400

Want to read: The Classic Fairy Tales (Norton Critical Editions) by 📚

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 20:24:30 -0400

Want to read: The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler 📚

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 20:04:49 -0400

Finished reading: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow 📚

This one took me a little while to get into but once I was in, I was all in. Super fun while also dealing with all the ways our stories can be garbage. Highly recommend.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:06:01 -0400

🔖📚 Read Ladies of Leisure.

This one bummed me out. I think it sells Dept. of Speculation short.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:50:33 -0400

🔖📚📝Read Is Parenthood the Enemy of Creative Work? by Kim Brooks (The Cut)

That’s one of the major things parenting is teaching me, the balance between letting go in writing and practicing craft, the balance between being ferocious with my imagination and rigorous in my practice. Shape and chaos. Learning to shape chaos.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:51:31 -0400

🔖📚 Read The books that help define motherhood – for mums everywhere to read

Is it ever possible to reclaim yourself without endangering your child?

I don’t know. Because for me it’s been more about reconstructing myself rather than reclaiming myself.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 10:06:34 -0400

📺 Want to watch:

SMILF
Catastrophe
Motherland
The Letdown
Workin’ Moms

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 10:03:18 -0400

🍿 Want to watch: Tully.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 10:02:33 -0400

🔖📚 Read Art or Babies.

you can make your art without being an art monster: You can do it as… an art mother.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:29:03 -0400

🔖📚 Read Why are we only talking about ‘mom books’ by white women? by Angela Garbes (The Cut).

I love Angela Garbes’s writing. This is another old one.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:16:29 -0400

🔖📚 Read The Stranger Guest: The Literature of Pregnancy and New Motherhood by Lily Gurton-Wachter (Los Angeles Review of Books)

Another old bookmark.

How will having a baby disrupt my sense of who I am, of my body, my understanding of life and death, my relation to the world and to my sense of independence, my experience of fear and hope and time, and the structure of my experience altogether? Dr. Spock is silent on these topics.

By the time a new mother has the time (or free hands) to write again, the most extreme experience is beginning to fade from her memory.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 08:55:52 -0400

🔖📚 In a Raft of New Books, Motherhood From (Almost) Every Angle by Parul Sehgal (The New York Times).

Recent books on motherhood, however, frequently and sometimes unwittingly, illustrate a different phenomenon: how motherhood dissolves the border of the self but shores up, often violently, the walls between classes of women.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 08:46:18 -0400

🔖📚 Read Maggie Nelson: Inflections Forever New by Ariel Lewiton (Guernica).

We’re all human beings with bodily needs living within a system. We don’t need to prove that we’re not a part of the fabric of the culture in order to want to change it.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 08:22:41 -0400

🔖📚 Read Why All the Books About Motherhood? by Laura Elkin (The Paris Review).

Another bookmark I’ve been sitting on for years.

These new books recast motherhood not as the reactionary choice, the choice made because it’s what’s socially expected, but as something hard won, intellectually demanding, a form of creative labor. Not something that takes you away from your work but something that is now both frame and canvas for it.

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 04:02:46 -0400

🔖📚 Read We Need to Talk About Whiteness in Motherhood Memoirs by Nancy Reddy (Electric Literature).

I bookmarked this 4 years ago & am only reading it now. Reddy points out admitting you’re struggling carries a different risk for moms of Color.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:50:48 -0400

🔖📝📚 Read The parent trap: can you be a good writer and a good parent? by Lara Feigel (The Guardian)

Feigel writes about motherly ambivalence.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:37:35 -0400

🔖 Read Writer Moms: Can We Do Deep Work While the Kids are Home? by Sara Bates.

Before we do… the practical things we need to do in order to create space for deep work, we need to cultivate the belief that our creativity is worth all that trouble.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:31:38 -0400

Want to read: A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle 📚

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:21:47 -0400

Want to read: How Not to Exclude Artist Mothers (and Other Parents) by Hettie Judah 📚

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 10:05:33 -0400

🔖📝📚 Read I left my baby to write this. How do artists balance creativity and the ache for their child? by Rhiannon Lucy Coslett (The Guardian).

Coslett has as many questions as answers and mentions a lot of books I’m keen to check out.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 09:57:11 -0400

Want to read: This Boy We Made by Taylor Harris 📚

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 09:50:34 -0400

🔖 Read How Writing and Motherhood Coexist for Author Taylor Harris by Ravynn K. Stringfield (Shondaland).

Great interview! I need to go track down Harris’s work.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:26:15 -0400

🔖 Read Rebecca Solnit on Women’s Work and the Myth of the Art Monster (Lithub).

I want to be an art monster like Grover: lovable and loving and imaginative.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:11:32 -0400

Want to read: Weird Girls by Caroline Hagood 📚

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 07:02:38 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read The Mother, the Artist, and Me by Caroline Hagood (Elle).

This is a great essay about what can happen when we bring our kids into the work of art with us, when our kids become part of our creative community.

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 04:52:49 -0400

Finished reading: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill 📚

I want to write a long response to this one but don’t have time today. It’s less about art-making than I expected. It’s also excellent.

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 08:33:33 -0400

Look, I’d love to play in an improv jam but I can no longer do things that START at 10 pm so I guess I need to organize an improv jam for sleepy people or you know, parents of young children.

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 17:09:37 -0400

I just want to fight censorship 📚 and make theatre 🎭.

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 13:42:37 -0400

Finished reading: Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders 📚

I love this so much! Charlie Jane Anders says to invent imaginary friends to hang out with and write about them, which inspired me to write stories about characters friends and I invented a while back and now almost 10K words later I feel capable of writing fiction again. Highly recommend.

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 14:59:05 -0400

Finished reading: Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn 📚

I might love this even more than Legendborn, which I didn’t think was possible. Tracy Deonn goes broader and deeper and is my hero.

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 03:30:18 -0400

I cannot recommend Book Riot’s censorship coverage highly enough. They’re doing great work, with Kelly Jensen leading it. If you’re in the US, you can also get their e-book How to Fight Book Bans and Censorship for $2.99. It’s helping me cut through feeling helpless. 📚

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 22:52:18 -0400

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I do weird things like buying a Krang cosplay t-shirt or getting all 3 The Librarians movies on Amazon Prime. Tonight, I subscribed to the newsletter of every local theater company I could find. How will daytime Kimberly feel about this?

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:40:47 -0400

🖖🏻 Brent Spiner is my hero.

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:15:35 -0400

📺💬🖖🏻 “I can’t say being equal parts irritating and endearing isn’t slightly familiar.” Picard 3x06, The Bounty. IT ME.

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:12:53 -0400

Yo Internet, why does the Voyager theme tug at my heartstrings so? I barely remember the show but it always gets me misty.

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 05:11:20 -0400

🔖 Read Should I learn coding as a second language? by Meghan O’Gieblyn (Wired).

the most celebrated historical revolutions (those initiated, that is, by humans) were the result of mass literacy combined with technological innovation.

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 16:11:52 -0400

🔖 Read

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/03/01/moving-slowly-and-fixing-things-we-should-not-rush-headlong-into-using-generative-ai-in-classrooms/ blogs.lse.ac.uk
Read: blogs.lse.ac.uk
blogs.lse.ac.uk https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2023/03/01/moving-slowly-and-fixing-things-we-should-not-rush-headlong-into-using-generative-ai-in-classrooms/

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 15:57:04 -0400

🔖 Read

Why No One Clicked on the Great Hypertext Story wired.com
Read: www.wired.com
Wired.com https://www.wired.com/2013/04/hypertext/

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 06:45:28 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read

A Beginner’s Guide to Writing IP in Publishing — ERIC SMITH ericsmithrocks.com
Read: www.ericsmithrocks.com
ericsmithrocks.com https://www.ericsmithrocks.com/blog/2023/3/9/a-beginners-guide-to-writing-ip-intellectual-property-in-publishing

Awesome blog post from Eric Smith full of helpful information.

Being active in the spaces you want to write about, helps build your profile and helps get you seen.

Friends, I cannot stress the importance of community in the bookish and writerly space.

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 23:13:04 -0400

Want to read: A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs 📚

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 23:09:46 -0400

Want to read: Saving Time by Jenny Odell 📚

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 16:58:17 -0400

Want to read: The Magician’s Daughter by H. G. Parry 📚

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:15:08 -0400

Ah yes, that weird need-to-cry, don’t-know-why feeling… (I suspect this is about the fact that the amount of stuff you have when traveling expands to fill the luggage available.)

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 08:16:50 -0400

Scenes I want to explore more: TTRPGs, literary (incl but not limited to sff). What pubs, websites, podcasts, people, other stuff should I check out?

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 10:53:07 -0400

🗨️ My response to Kottke.org Is 25 Years Old Today and I’m Going to Write About It

Happy anniversary, Jason! Is the font on that Notes entry Tahoma or Verdana? I’m having some big early blogging nostalgia looking at it.

I love what you say about the kottke.org being a process. I got the web only a little while before you started kottke.org. I was 14 or 15 and I’ll be 42 this year. Since I first opened up Netscape (after my dad, who ran IT for Duke Law School, told me that Prodigy and AOL were a waste of my time and the web is where it’s at), the web has been a key piece of my identity development and construction.

Here’s to 25 more years or as many as you would like, if that’s too many.

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 10:54:34 -0400

📺 Shrinking is doing a great job dressing a teen in 90s throwback clothes and if y’all see me walking around in overalls with one side undone now you know why. THIS IS OUR MOMENT, XENNIALS, find a grown-up way to wear the clothes you loved as a teen!

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 14:31:33 -0400

hey hey you know how that moral philosopher profiled in the New Yorker would solve the trolley problem? whichever way would give her the most material for her next book

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 06:34:03 -0400

Had abbrevia.me describe me based on my tweets. Alt text contains the text of the description, which was too many characters to include here. I know personal branding is whatever, but “friendly and knowledgeable” is a brand I’m happy to have.

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 02:18:40 -0400

Finished reading: Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto 📚

This has been a great read while wandering Amsterdam. I have a much better understanding of the significance and uniqueness of the city, and have been able to attach more meaning to particular places, than I would have if I hadn’t read it. Highly recommend.

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 01:46:45 -0400

📚💬 “Life is absurd. It has no meaning. But it has beauty, and wonder, and we have to enjoy that.” Frieda Menco, Holocaust survivor, quoted in Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 15:20:08 -0400

Anne Frank kept a commonplace book.

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 10:45:31 -0400

“She didn’t die. She was killed. Because she was a Jewish girl.” Hannah Pick-Goslar, a friend of Anne Frank’s 💔

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 22:28:23 -0400

🔖 Read Understanding Blogs by Tracy Durnell.

An excellent exploration of what makes blogging its own medium.

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 21:18:34 -0400

I guess I missed World Book Day & International Cat Rescue Day in Europe but it’s still March 2 back home, so happy both of those! As I like to say when beatboxing poorly, BooksAndCatsAndBooksAndCatsAndBooksAndCats. (Because boots are good but books are better.)

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 11:21:45 -0400

Haven’t listened to Worlds Beyond Number yet but Erika Ishii in this TechCrunch interview is making me cry so that’s cool:

“When you find people to create with, you gotta grab onto them and just keep doing that for the rest of your lives together.”

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 23:38:14 -0400

I’ve got a couple recent co-authored articles:

Description framework of makerspaces: Examining the relationship between spatial arrangement and diverse user populations in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology

Makerspaces in Libraries at U.S. Public Colleges and Universities: A Census in portal: Libraries and the Academy.

My excellent co-authors are Dr. Maggie Melo, Dr. Laura March, & researcher Emily Arnsberg.

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 19:38:28 -0400

🎮 Playing Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe with my kid. Super fun. Couch co-op Kirby seems to be his gateway to playing instead of just watching. Might do Kirby Star Allies next.

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 08:56:26 -0400

Hi friends! It’s time for an Amsterdam Photo Dump! There are 8 photos here so if you’re viewing this on a timeline, be sure to click through to kimberlyhirsh.com to see them.

Here’s what you’re seeing:

A street lamp that has been decorated to look like Nijntje (known as Miffy in English).
The facade of the Royal Palace Amsterdam. (The word for “rabbit” in Dutch is “konijn” and the Dutch name for the Royal Palace is “Koninklijk Paleis,” so I keep trying to come up with a rabbit-palace pun.)
A detail of a relief on the front of Amsterdam Centraal Station featuring the patron deity of our household, Athena.
The clock tower at Amsterdam Centraal Station.
A pedimental sculpture on the National Maritime Museum featuring Neptune, whose image is used heavily in Amsterdam due to the importance of sailing to its history and economy.
and 8. Votive ships made of wax at the National Maritime Museum.
A house near the Vondelpark that I thought looked cool and haunted.

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 10:32:38 -0400

🔖 Read Sci-Fi Publishers Are Bracing for an AI Battle by Elizabeth Minkel (Wired).

I’m interested to see how this shakes out.

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 20:46:52 -0400

Finished reading: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 📚

Happy to have read it. Turns out vibes are enough when you’ve got charming characters.

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 07:45:08 -0400

🔖 Read The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing by Vauhina Vara (Wired).

This is an excellent long read. There are a lot of good questions here. How can we scale non-capitalist initiatives in a capitalist world? How can we acknowledge volunteer labor in that scaling? How can we support local action without resorting to geographic discrimination?

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 04:17:43 -0400

Currently reading: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 📚

Now that I’m reading for vibes & character instead of a narrative arc, I’m enjoying this properly. The book didn’t work for me the first time I tried it.

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 05:12:28 -0400

My kid’s school is hiring a classroom teacher in his age range. So if you got the gig you might get to teach him, and I hear he’s pretty delightful.

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 08:39:49 -0400

🔖📝 Read IF YOU LOVE WRITING, YOU SHOULD RELISH REJECTION.

This is a really helpful piece that reframes rejection as the water writers swim in.

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 08:58:55 -0400

🔖🎓 Read All my classes suddenly became AI classes.

I love the assignment here that asks students to work with ChatGPT as if it were a student and they were a teacher coaching it to get better writing out of it.

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 10:56:32 -0400

Yesterday I saw 3 people (I’d guess women) at Amsterdam Centraal 🚄 walking together wearing matching pairs of gorgeous plain black Docs and then felt super sad that I’d only had room for one pair of Docs in my suitcase and went with the floral ones.

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 18:24:54 -0400

Status: in a parasocial relationship with the crew of the Enterprise D.

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 15:41:18 -0400

I’m not saying I’m just saying, the introduction to GENDER AT SEA talks a lot about Moana and what the story can tell us about women in maritime pursuits and how Moana saves the environment and teaches Maui it’s okay to be vulnerable, so… I chose wisely. 📚🌊🎓

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 12:35:20 -0400

Who goes to the Dutch National Maritime Museum and buys an edited collection titled Gender at Sea as a souvenir? This academic. 📚🌊🎓

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 06:51:53 -0400

Hello, I require this shirt.

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 03:51:13 -0400

🔖📝 Read Why PhDs Need to Study Creative Writing by Anthony Ocampo, at the recommendation of Dr. Ravynn K. Stringfield.

This is one of the reasons I want to study creative nonfiction, to dig into public communication of the social sciences.

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 04:45:43 -0400

Today I’m grieving the closure of Catapult magazine and classes. 📝

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:14:45 -0400

The latest Dutch food: nasi saté ajam. This is an Indonesian dish. Because Indonesia was once a Dutch colony, there’s a lot of Indonesian influence in some of the most popular food here. I really loved this.

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:43:10 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read Mess Up Your Good, Premium, Luxury Notebooks.

Yes! Great advice from Anna Havron.

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 03:43:43 -0400

🔖 Read Antisemitic text was projected onto the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. 💔

Sat, 11 Feb 2023 13:10:36 -0400

Finished reading: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 📚

This one took me a while to get into. Before giving up, I hunted down a review. The review indicated that there was more to this than vestibules, halls, statues, and tides, so I stuck with it. I’m glad I did.

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 06:39:48 -0400

🔖 📝 Joanna Penn discusses her use of AI to help her write a short story. This could be a valuable model for educators to use to teach students how to use these tools ethically and for effective writing.

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 04:59:43 -0400

🔖 Read The Summer-Camp Feeding Frenzy Has Already Begun.

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 03:35:06 -0400

🔖 Read Theater never recovered from COVID — and now change is no longer a choice.

…the people who live in the shadow of the refinery often don’t have the bandwidth to think about attending an experimental physical theater show on a bus.

“The problems in these communities – where am I going to live? Do I have enough food? – are so large, that it’s hard to even talk to people about any of the environmental injustices,” Cummings said.

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 13:59:59 -0400

Another Dutch meal. This is hutspot. It’s smoked sausage with gravy on a bed of potatoes, onions, and carrots. I liked it better than the one with kale but since I basically like all my foods separated as though I were a toddler, still not my fave.

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 04:55:00 -0400

🔖 Read THE JEDI ACADEMY WILL NO LONGER TEACH ANAKIN SKYWALKER’S MASSACRE OF THE YOUNGLINGS.

A+ geek satire.

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:36:42 -0400

📺 Watched Key & Peele - I Said….

This is a beautiful sketch that heightens literally as high as you can go. Strong one to have early in the show.

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:12:54 -0400

🍿 Watched Bert Williams - The Poker Game.

Stunningly good object work.

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:07:09 -0400

🍿Watched Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter - Indefinite Talk.

This bit is so fun. Ought to be mentioned in the same breath as Who’s On First?

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 19:20:17 -0400

🔖 Read The Sad Clown Joke That Became a Beloved Meme.

My favorite take on Pagliacci is Rhett Miller’s theme song for the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 06:24:19 -0400

📚💬📓 “… being transparent about one’s positionality, and choosing a granularity of analysis appropriate to your actual knowledge and experience, are key choices soneone must make as they enter fan studies.” Henry Jenkins, “Textual Poachers, Twenty Years Later”

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 19:44:21 -0400

🔖 A swirling soup of thoughts in my head about self-presentation after reading these posts:

The personal brand paradox - Debbie Millman
Build a reputation instead of a personal brand - Tracy Durnell
The power of writing your story down - Jas Hothi

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 07:02:42 -0400

You know what’s really great for a migraine is the monthly test of public warning sirens in the Netherlands. OH WAIT NO THAT DOES NOT HELP WITH A MIGRAINE.

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 22:33:23 -0400

🔖 Read Is My Child Eating Enough Pirate’s Booty?

Parenting comedy is a microgenre that always lands with me.

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 19:15:35 -0400

🔖 Read “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather.”

Took me a little while to get into the format of this short story but in the end I loved it. Big The Hazards of Love vibes.

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 10:57:44 -0400

Today’s adventure: NEMO Science Museum. Very cool, but I’m spoiled by having an awesome science museum in my hometown. I think it would have seemed even cooler were I not so blessed.

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 18:17:55 -0400

Finished reading: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 📚

I’m extremely late to this one. It’s excellent, of course. I love the way Angie Thomas shows that even in the face of tragedy and appalling oppression, there’s room for joy.

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 11:21:38 -0400

🔖 Read Interview with Kelly J. Baker: “I can’t push through when I’m stuck.”

“My writing routine became write frantically whenever I had a chance or had the energy to do so.” Dr. Baker knows.

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:11:32 -0400

Another Dutch meal: stamppot boerenkool. This is smoked sausage with sauce on a bed of potatoes mixed with kale. I really liked the sausage but it turns out even mixing it with potatoes can’t make me like kale.

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 12:09:00 -0400

I made a menu of Dutch foods for us to try. They’re sort of home food staples, not anything too elaborate or traditional. This is the first thing we tried: hagelslag, which literally means hailstorm. It’s bread and butter topped with real chocolate sprinkles.

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 06:58:55 -0400

I’m so excited to hang out with my friends for new stories.

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 18:07:14 -0400

🔖 Read WE’VE LOST THE PLOT by Megan Garber (The Atlantic). “Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.”

Chilling. What now?

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 19:50:08 -0400

Finished reading: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo 📚

I love it so much. I left the hardcover at home but bought the ebook to read while I’m traveling, which meant I could highlight without feeling weird about it and I highlighted a ton of stuff.

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:10:33 -0400

🔖📺🎮 Read Television Is Better Without Video Games and Video Games Are Better Without Gameplay (Ian Bogost, The Atlantic).

Maybe Ian Bogost should stop playing video games.

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 06:32:41 -0400

My kid made a Kirby and the Forgotten Land fanzine, I am dead from cute.

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 22:47:34 -0400

📺🖖🏻 When I watch TNG or Picard, Data is Data, but anyone else Brent Spiner plays is Brent Spiner doing an awesome job. But Data is, viscerally for me, Not A Character Brent Spiner Plays, but instead A Guy (an android guy but still).

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 13:41:08 -0400

📺 Watched Ares.

Brilliant dark academia horror with all the hallmarks: secret society, dangerously powerful young people, gorgeous fashion, a lower class newcomer, with the spirit of LEGENDBORN or ACE OF SPADES critiquing the aesthetic’s Eurocentrism.

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:37:17 -0400

Duolingo really emphasizes the importance of learning the Dutch word “krant,” which means newspaper. I was confused at first because it seems like a specialized term now that print news doesn’t have such a big market share but one of these comes to our house each Thursday, so?

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 21:02:41 -0400

The video of the Pop Culture Dialogue I was part of on inherited fandoms is now on YouTube.

Tue, 24 Jan 2023 10:21:50 -0400

In just a bit I’ll be contributing to the live-streamed Pop Culture Dialogue on Inherited Fandoms, hosted by the Popular culture Studies Journal. You can tune into their YouTube channel at 11 am CST/12 pm EST/5 pm GMT/6 pm CET (where I am!) to watch!

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:17:50 -0400

I love your newsletter, whoever you are, but I’ve put it on web-only. Trying to get quiet in here 🧠. I’ll find you when I’m ready.

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:25:23 -0400

Well I guess the jet lag is over because instead of getting a brilliant solid stretch of sleep that didn’t start until 2 am, I was out by 11 but up around 2:45 & now can’t get back to sleep because restless legs so I guess I’m feeling at home in the Netherlands now.

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:57:11 -0400

We took a walk through the village down to the Westeindeplassen (a lake) today. Here are some photos from that walk.

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 21:24:17 -0400

The other day W pointed out that the way we communicate in memes is basically the same as Tamarians in “Darmok” 🖖🏻. When I say, “Spiderman pointing at another Spiderman,” it’s not that different from “Shaka, when the walls fell.”

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 13:29:56 -0400

🔖 Read The online free speech debate is raging in fan fiction, too by Elizabeth Minkel.

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 13:21:32 -0400

🔖 Read The Fannish Potlatch: Creation of Status Within the Fan Community by Rachael Sabotini (Fanfic Symposium) via Lori Morimoto’s Introduction to Media Fan Studies.

How has the fandom gift economy changed since this was written in 1999?

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 07:42:18 -0400

Me in the Netherlands on Day 3: UGH I can’t believe I haven’t been to ALL THE MUSEUMS, what am I even doing

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 19:55:01 -0400

🎮 Played the Dragon Quest Treasures demo.

Cute with some fun mechanics and a cool world but not so compelling that I’d purchase without a steep discount.

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 17:29:06 -0400

🔖📺👱‍♀️ Read Sarah Michelle Gellar Returns to Fighting Form: “I’ve Earned the Right to Stand Where I Am”.

“Was it an ideal working situation? Absolutely not. But it’s OK to love Buffy for what we created because I think it’s pretty spectacular.”

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 04:30:52 -0400

Woont u in Nederland? Ik ben in Aalsmeer. Wil u afspreken? Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands, maar ik spreek veel Engels.

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 04:24:24 -0400

Me: wants to message all my friends and family My friends and family: are sleeping, I hope, as it’s 3:30 AM where most of them are

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 08:06:24 -0400

Well, a cat walked us home from the bus stop so I guess we and everyone we know are moving to Amsterdam.

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 06:13:30 -0400

📺 Finished watching Wednesday. Glad I stuck with it. I appreciate Wednesday refusing to be in the same teen drama show as everyone else. I was delighted by the ending. Be warned: replies may contain spoilers.

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 23:44:09 -0400

📺💬

Tyler: Come on, don’t you like a day that’s all about you?
Wednesday: Every day is all about me. This one just comes with cake and a bad song.

🖤🌧️🖤

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:57:52 -0400

📺💬 “It’s not my fault I can’t interpret your emotional morse code.” 🖤 Wednesday 🖤

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 15:26:52 -0400

🔖 Back on my dark academia bullshit thanks to WEDNESDAY (the show is DA, the character is goth) and so I read this interview with Donna Tartt.

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 12:42:30 -0400

Real struggle to focus today which is probably a combo of getting to bed late because I wanted to keep tabs on how my mom was doing in the ER (poorly but her heart’s okay), janky sleep, and travel anticipation.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:56:16 -0400

Pro-tip: asking questions about why you’re doing the research in the way you’re doing it and what you originally said you were going to do and how close you’re getting to that and what needs to shift and what that shift will look like is all part of the work. 📓

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 11:05:27 -0400

📺 Watching WEDNESDAY and every time Christina Ricci says, “Wednesday,” I’m all, “Are you talking to yourself?” in spite of the killer job Jenna Ortega is doing.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 14:03:27 -0400

Make a note: 2023 is the year of unsubscribing.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 11:49:01 -0400

Hey librarians! Where do you get information to help you do your job?

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 11:10:08 -0400

📚💬 “Be open to the possibility that you are bigger, more magical, more powerful than you dare imagine, that you are here to do something that is necessary and consequential and that only you can do.” Bakara Wintner in WTF Is Tarot? And How Do I Do It?, on XX JUDGMENT

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 05:37:43 -0400

🔖 Read How Wednesday Addams Birthed a Generation of Cynics by Emily Alford (Longreads).

This is my favorite Wednesday think piece so far.

Ricci’s Wednesday was devious, quietly furious, and most importantly, content to be so.

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 22:22:24 -0400

It seems extra cruel that while my mom can’t actually carry herself around on her legs, she can feel lots of pain in them.

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 20:31:01 -0400

🔖 Read All in Good Fun: How Fanfiction Reignited My Passion for Writing by Briana Lawrence, linked in this week’s The Rec Center

The first time I started working on a fic in the past couple of years, I did it in a spiral notebook.

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 15:38:03 -0400

Hello. LIS scholars, scholars of #LIS for those of you on hashtaggy places: are you familiar with LIS research that points to PEOPLE as the dominant/preferred resource of information? Can you point me to it? I’ll hunt some down myself but thought I’d ask.

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 12:59:08 -0400

Hey Internet. What’s fun with a kid in Amsterdam? Besides De Poezenboot, obviously. 🐈‍⬛

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 20:51:15 -0400

Me: gets Steam Deck for Christmas

Me: proceeds to add tons of 90s PC adventure games to my Steam wishlist

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 19:38:14 -0400

🎮 Started playing The Secret of Monkey Island on the Steam Deck. Correcting a gap in my point & click bona fides. So far Yakko & Wakko Warner as the Fettuccini Brothers is my favorite part.

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 12:37:58 -0400

Loved my first day hike, hiked in spite of the sense of impending bursitis. Two days later, bursitis is still here plus some other joint pain and I’m trying to figure out how to deal without just taking to bed for the day.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 12:27:28 -0400

Q: Was there ever a series of books you were skeptical about, but ended up liking very much?

A: I can’t think of any right now but this is a great question & I’m going to keep thinking about it.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 12:26:03 -0400

Q: who was your crush in middle school lmao

A: Had a different one each year. Not naming names but one of them performed surgery on my mom a few years ago.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 12:24:41 -0400

Q: the longest time you’ve ever gone without showering?

A: Don’t know but far too long, more than a week. I’m generally bad about it & new parenthood made it even worse.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 08:16:58 -0400

Dense fog advisory today until 10 AM. Big woodland goth vibes.

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 07:23:55 -0400

Finished reading: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie 📚

Poirot’s first case. A bit of homage to Doyle at the start, then on to the modes that come to define Christie’s work: a rogue’s gallery & a drawing room reveal.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 20:57:41 -0400

Begin As You Mean to Go On, courtesy of Leigh Bardugo:

Read for pleasure: Read The Mysterious Affair at Styles on my Kobo.
Make things (courtesy of Kim Werker): Set up my new Bullet Journal.
Take walks: Did a first day hike at Eno River State Park.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 20:12:26 -0400

Q: What’s one thing that typical town libraries should change to increase community participation?

A: Find ways to reach people who aren’t already coming in the building. What else is going on locally? Can you have a library presence at those events? Can you partner with other organizations?

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 18:55:28 -0400

Q: What are your plans this weekend?

A: Nothing big - maybe going to the Farmer’s Market & then prepping bc on 1/16 I leave for Amsterdam - W got a Fulbright and M & I will travel Europe with him as he studies international copyright!

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 18:53:30 -0400

Anon message: You’re still one of the first people I think of fondly when I’m reminiscing. 🪵🫀

Reply: Aww thank you! That’s super sweet.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 18:51:49 -0400

Next anon q: Do you remember your Bronzer days with joy? Or with time (and events) does it feel like just an old phase you went through?

Answer: So much joy. Some of the most fun ever. I will never stop being a Bronzer and I will never stop loving other Bronzers.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 18:03:49 -0400

Next anonymous question: Favourite fandom/ship for fanfic?

My answer: Oh my goodness this is way harder than the career question.

My AO3 bookmarks say New Girl, Nick/Jess. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull is a close second. But mostly I love good gen friendfic. By which I mean fic about friends hanging out, not fic I write about my friends.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 18:02:18 -0400

Next anonymous message: You are the best!

My reply: Thanks! Backatcha!

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 13:41:12 -0400

Fourth anonymous question: Favorite place you’ve ever visited?

My answer: The Library of Congress

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 13:40:18 -0400

Third anonymous question: If you could choose any career would it be what you’re doing right now or something else?

My answer: This is such a hard question. I would be a professional musical theater performer and fiction writer if I could but I do love my work.

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 13:37:38 -0400

Second anonymous question: Who’s the last person you texted?

My answer: My sister

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 13:36:38 -0400

First anonymous question: Hottest sport?

My answer: I don’t really sport and I’m super heat sensitive so… All of them that aren’t water or snow sports?

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 12:57:14 -0400

Saw @heroicendeavour@glammr.us answering anonymous questions and thought it might be fun to do this myself. I reserve the right to refuse to answer any question but if you want to get in my nonny inbox, here’s the link to send me a question.

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 19:36:36 -0400

Did the PBS Kids NYE countdown so… Here’s to some good stuff happening in 2023.

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 09:05:00 -0400

On this day last year, I wrote:

“…my word of the year for 2022 is MEND. My goal is to keep going.”

Last night I quote tweeted someone who said “Please brag to me about a thing you did in 2022 that you’re proud of.” & added:

“I kept going.”

It feels good to achieve a goal.

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:03:57 -0400

PS If you’re wondering why I’m still awake at 4 it’s because my mom keeps having miserable side effects from the TKIs for her leukemia and then I worry and my body goes into anxiety mode. Also all my dreams now are stress dreams and I don’t want them.

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:00:57 -0400

My Child Woke Me Up at 1:30 and I’m Still Awake at 4: The Kimberly Hirsh Story

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 20:00:11 -0400

Finished reading: Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur 📚