If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.

-Austin Kleon, SHOW YOUR WORK, p. 131

Finished reading: The Secret History by Donna Tartt 📚

I saw the news about Justice Ginsburg while my husband was reading bedtime stories to my son. I felt hollow. The characters in the book ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so my son asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a bedtime snack. I went to get him one, and added three plantain chips and three gummy bears to the plate as surprise treats. I felt so cheered by this simple act, and my son was so delighted by the snack. This is it, I thought. I’m so scared and so disheartened, but when I keep this, parenting, in front of me, I feel better.

Want to read: She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh 📚

Want to read: Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom 📚

I don’t feel like writing an informative blog post today. It feels like a day for writing something more personal.

You’re exhausted, right? We’re all exhausted.

I don’t know what to do besides keep going.

W: I would encourage you to have lunch.
Me: I will, but right now I’m writing.
(Y’ALL. I wrote NEW words for my dissertation today, words that were not copied and pasted from my proposal or comps!)

Please do not ask me how many times my son and I have watched the Courtney 1986 music video from American Girl because I have lost count.

Me to M & W: These days, besides you guys, books are my best friends.
W: These days?

I have named my aesthetic and it is witchy sparkle romantigothabilly academia.

Jen Polk (@FromPhDtoLife) has created an amazing reading list for grad students and PhDs exploring careers or job hunting. #altac #postac #WithAPhD

15 years of blogging (and 3 reasons I keep going) - Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) writes about why he blogs. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about blogging as a medium and a genre, and its value independent of content marketing. Kleon’s added fuel for my meditations here.

New profile pic. I think we all knew that a headshot where I look like I dgaf would give way to one where I’m clearly a marshmallow before too long.

Finished reading: The Freelance Academic by Katie Rose Guest Pryal 📚

🔖Lee Skallerup Bessette sums up so much:

Just because its hard, doesn’t mean it’s good and when everything is hard and you have issues with executive functioning, how can you even ever tell the difference?

My first PSL of the season. I waited until Bean Traders had them.

I was already clued in to post-ac/alt-ac possibilities before beginning my PhD. For some reason, seeing the rapid proliferation of post-ac advice this fall is increasing my anxiety rather than reducing it.

Me, browsing Rebecca Schuman’s (@pankisseskafka) website after reading about her in Katie Rose Guest Pryal’s (@krgpryal) book, THE FREELANCE ACADEMIC: Wait, the mother of Quit Lit and the writer of THE 90s ARE OLD is the same person? 😍 #JustGoAheadNow

I’m out on timelines and feeds for a while, folks. Taking some time to be really intentional about my input.

Finished reading: MEXICAN GOTHIC by Silvia Moreno-Garcia 📚

📽️ Just finished watching DEAD POETS SOCIETY for the first time in years and now I’m having an existential crisis because I don’t want my eulogy or epitaph to be “She was a fine student.” How’s your Sunday going?

My three-almost-four-year-old just said, “When I’m lonesome, my fear grows.”

World, we had a Pandemic Parenting morning and even though the sources of stress were resolved by 9:30 am, I’m still worn down by it here at 6:07 pm.

Got a ring light, tripod, and bluetooth shutter so of course I had to have a little photo booth fun.

Sometimes you and a friend come up with a hilarious idea and then a year later your friend executes it. #shiptember2020