Kimberly Hirsh

Facebook Live museum tours on my calendar today, The Dark Crystal exhibit at the Center for Puppetry Arts and Tim Burton at the Neon Museum.

Because it’s seasonally appropriate, today we’re listening to Christo Graham’s Muppet Christ Superstar.

Guess I have to not Internet until after our copy of FF7R gets here… See y’all later, probably with lots of thoughts on books I’m reading to take my mind off not having the video game, I guess?

Feeling like hiding today, but I worked on recruiting for my dissertation and put my CV on kimberlyhirsh.com. Also tried avocado-based chocolate “ice cream” and it was delicious. I radically prefer it to any other non-dairy frozen dessert. Marco Polo continues to make me happy because it’s kind of like texting with somebody’s face and voice. Plans for future blog posts include continuing my series of Steal Like an Artist for scholars (and then moving on to Show Your Work and Keep Going), advice on streaming aquarium cams, and watching Groundhog Day.

I definitely have some sensory processing problems & they’ve gotten worse since isolating. I have to hide when my kid gets loud & chatty after dinner & suddenly I can’t stand the feel of fabrics that never bothered me before.

I’m reading Lori Morimoto’s (@acafanmom on Twitter) book, An Introduction to Media Fan Studies and it’s so good. Highly recommend, look for a + review once I’m finished.

Everybody get the Marco Polo app and let’s have asynchronous video chats.

I know this isn’t what actually happened, but I like to imagine that I summoned into being the latest issue of Josh Radnor’s Museletter. I had a dream last night in which he and I were friends.

I fell into a new COVID-19 spiral today. This went beyond anxiety and felt closer to depression. The world started to take on that bell jar feeling. For me, it’s not about being suffocated; it’s about distance. It’s about feeling as if there is an impenetrable plate of glass between me and the rest of the world.

I immediately unsubscribed from my email newsletters that are about the actual news, because what set this off was not fear for my own life or the lives of those I love, but disgust with the behavior of humans, especially those with a lot of power. I don’t care to go into the details, but it launched me into a feeling of hopelessness and I thought, I won’t be able to fight back against this sort of thing if I just keep steeping myself in news about it. So as I said, I unsubscribed and appointed W. my official news source.

I’m attempting to combat the feeling by sitting in the sunshine and reading The Artist’s Way.

Nobody has time for depression that they have the power to push away; so often depression itself takes away that power. Mine hasn’t taken it away yet, so here I am trying to shake it off.

I’m having a down day. Not helping is this (extremely informative but also depressing) piece from The Atlantic, The Four Possible Timelines for Life Returning to Normal. I’m extremely privileged/blessed/lucky to have financial security right now, something I know is not certain for many, many people. Acknowledging that, this has disrupted my work in a way that is very specific to me (and other people doing research similar to mine, I imagine). Specifically, a lot of my research proposal hinges on cosplay being a blended affinity space, where fellow travelers/affines meet both in person and online. In particular, they have historically met at fan conventions. The experts in that Atlantic piece - a public health expert and an epidemiologist - suggest that large gatherings - including conventions - are probably off the table for a long time. Likely at least four months, maybe as much as a year or more.

I had hoped to finish data collection by August.

This doesn’t wreck my dissertation by any means, but it means a pretty thorough rethinking of my argument for the research’s unique contribution and value.

More gold from McSweeney’s: Self-Isolation or Graduate School?

McSweeney’s Frog and Toad are self-quarantined friends by Jennie Egerdie is my favorite art to come out of COVID-19 so far.

The Punky Brewster episode “The Perils of Punky” aired in 1985. In it, Punky’s dog is turned into a skeleton. It gave me nightmares about my own dog turning into a skeleton. Even now I can’t handle stories of undead pets. Punky Brewster is why I can’t watch Frankenweenie.

I feel like when you’re young & you realize you’re weird you can choose one of two protective mechanisms. You can be too cool for everything or not too cool for anything. I chose the latter & have always been judgey of the former & am trying to break myself of the judginess.

I’m obsessed with the 1997.chat app and sad about my empty buddy list. You can find me at Kiba Rika.

My son and I have been listening to the Frog and Toad audiobook collection, read by the author, Arnold Lobel, a lot in the past several weeks. It’s so pleasant.

One day, M asked me if we could meet Arnold Lobel. I told him no, because Arnold Lobel died years ago, back when M’s aunt ME was a toddler. He said, “Oh, that’s sad. Now we’ll never meet him.” I said, “Yes, it is sad. But isn’t it neat that we can hear his voice and know his stories and ideas, even though he died?”

I can’t remember his response, but Austin Kleon’s post, The best distance learning is reading a book reminded me of this exchange.

I put on the Labyrinth soundtrack & said to W, “This music is so good.” He said, “I’m not sure if it’s good because of nostalgia or quality.” I said, “I’m not interested in distinguishing between nostalgia and quality.”

Long before the coronavirus moved from animals to humans, I had set myself a goal of recognizing the abundance that is already in my life, and taking advantage of it rather than consuming more. I didn’t do a great job. I’m doing a better job, now.

I know not everyone has abundance. I feel privileged and blessed.

I was hunting around for where our many different video games are and I found that I had literally five unplayed Professor Layton games. So I gathered them all together and started Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask last night.

If you are stuck at home with more non-work time at home than usual, and have a cluttered house, maybe you will find something fun and cool lying around, too.

My city’s mayor issued a Stay-at-Home order today.

I’m grateful that the two people I’m staying at home with are so lovely.