Kimberly Hirsh

Just spent almost 2 hours correcting an AI transcript of a 47 minute interview. This is about 1/3 of the time it would have taken me to transcribe it on my own. And yet I’m worn out from it anyway. My current rate of productivity is 1 major research task per day.

Today’s bio update: replaced “Mom & Scholar-Librarian” with “Mom. Learner. Infomancer. Editrix. Webhead.”

Today’s #100DaysOfCode progress: started freeCodeCamp’s Applied Visual Design challenges. Too headachey/tired to reflect much now, but happy with my progress.

Today’s #100DaysOfCode Progress:

I completed all of the Basic CSS challenges at freeCodeCamp.

I’ve started compiling a list of organizations for women in coding, with a special focus on moms who code.

I started listening to Command Line Heroes. Their latest episode is about the Dreamcast, which made it really easy for me to get interested. I like the style of the show. It’s that kind of high quality reported podcast that brings me joy. Like if The Double Shift were about technology.

Having another go at #100DaysofCode, because nobody ever said, “I sure wish my employee didn’t know how to code.”

Took my kid for a drive this morning, just to do something different and because we were cleaning out my car and he asked. There was this one stretch of road we were driving down and I almost felt normal in that moment.

“We want the human relationship with nature to be based on abundance, a relationship that encourages us to participate in the resilience, the restoration, and the reciprocal relationship that we need to have with nature.” - Barton Seaver, quoted in Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols

My kid insists that Darkwing Duck’s sidekick is named Lunchpack, and it’s adorable.

Today we went for a family walk and from a distance we saw a neighbor family walking their pig, and it was the best thing that has happened in a while.

Me: Hm, this is a lot of pain from this flare, whatever its origin. I think I’ll just watch Star Trek: The Next Generation until I feel better.

It’s a high pain day but my brain is less foggy than it has been in a while. Mens sana in corpore morbido. Looking for advice on how to cope with a flare and honestly, the most useful at this point has been “Surrender.”

This is an… interesting… time to be researching cosplay.

Kim Werker, one of my favorite people I’ve never met, is offering her course Crochet for Challenging Times for $10. Crochet is the most soothing thing I’ve ever done, so check it out.

Going to re-learn knitting so that I can make all the things from Doomsday Knits, including the pattern that is a Dollhouse reference.

I’m struggling to write a blog post today or even a short note. My mood is low due to extreme uncertainty in both the wider world and my own specific circumstances.

My kid has been binge-watching Magic School Bus and Thomas & Friends. All I want to do anymore us sleep and play & Final Fantasy VII Remake.

But he and I did just bake a cake together, so in addition to living in about the best situation one can, I’ve got that.

Today in My Son, the 3 Year Old Fic Author: a crossover in which Spider-Man and the Ninja Turtle Michelangelo team up to defeat Dormammu.

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws. I’m a learner who writes.

I’m sure there are grad students for whom a list of ways to stay productive right now might be useful, but I am not one of them.

I just DMed 6 cosplayers on Instagram to invite them to participate in my study. 5 were in person acquaintances, 1 was recommended by a friend. Feels like I’m actually, you know, gonna do research!

Sometimes, as an exercise to give me insight into what I should be focusing on, where I should put my attention, whenever I’m choosing an activity rather than fulfilling an obligation, I ask myself, What would I do if money were no object?

For at least a few years now, maybe longer, the answer has been that I would learn in public. That’s it. My perfect day would be that I would get up, have a walk and breakfast with my family, take my kid to school, then pop on a podcast about whatever I’m learning, go home and spend the morning writing about what I learned yesterday, and the afternoon learning some more: reading or listening or watching or, most importantly, practicing whatever my new thing is. And then I’d get the kid, and we’d learn something together, and then maybe go for another walk, and have dinner as a family. And then I’d play games of some sort, and eventually I’d go to bed.

It’s kind of amazing that I just banged out that perfect day so quickly, because I’ve been thinking about the perfect day exercise for years, and been stumped, and just now as I was writing about learning in public I realized that this is it.

Something else I’ve been moving toward and that really gelled for me this morning is the idea that, even though money is an object, I can still learn in public. Whatever new thing I’m doing, I can write about it.

And then, of course, I realized that I’ve actually been doing that for years, too.

Hm. And oh hey, look, when I first bought the domain name kimberlyhirsh.com, I even said that the whole point of the thing was to write about what I’m learning.

But now I’m going to do it a little more deliberately, I think. A bit more consciously. I’m toying with the idea of doing something like they do on the By the Book podcast, picking a domain and then within that domain picking a book or website or whatever and then applying everything I learn from that resource, and blogging about it the whole way. We’ll see. I’m starting with Jeff Goins’s book, You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One). He said, “Commit to writing something–anything–today. Maybe… Write it just to get it out. Right. Now.” And here we are.