Kimberly Hirsh

The thing about being a bard is that performance is more than just singing.

I need everyone to understand that in Marvel comics, there is the version of Thor that is a frog, and there is also a frog who is not Thor but has some of Thor’s powers. (Spoilers for Loki ep. 5.)

The Quiet Space has a website. This evolving project offers tools to help scholars & other knowledge creators manage the organizational aspects of their work so they can focus their energy on the creative aspects.

Tonight is the New Moon in Cancer. Next Wednesday is my birthday. My Sun, Ascendant, and Mercury are all in Cancer. I don’t believe the stars determine our destiny but as with all magical tools, I do believe they can help us set and live up to our intentions.

Cancer, the Crab, is a watery sign and ruled by the moon. I’ve always felt a connection to water, from when I was a tiny toddler fighting the undertow on Florida beaches, still now as I bob about with my kid in the pool after his swim lessons most days.

The moon is connected to water through the tides.

At Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida, they do mermaid shows, in which performers wearing fabric mermaid tails do water ballet. They also have a mermaid camp for grown-ups led by retired performers. Going is one of my dreams.

In one of the earliest episodes of The Mermaid Podcast, host Laura von Holt attends mermaid camp and interviews the retired perforners. One of them tells her, “The water is a teacher.” I have held this idea in my heart since I first heard it a couple years ago.

The water is my teacher. It can take the shape of any container. It can grow hard and expand when it’s cold. It can boil and evaporate when it’s hot. With persistence, it shapes land over time. It can be still. It can move rapidly. It can nurture life. It can reflect light. It can provide shade. The water teaches me to be flexible and persistent, to move how I need to.

The moon is my teacher. It never truly disappears. Sometimes it is in Earth’s shadow. Sometimes it shines the sun’s light down on us. It appears to change in cycles; it is both never the same and always the same. The moon teaches me to accept change as a constant and to retreat and shine as the time is right.

The water and the moon are my teachers.

W: Would you say the town of Brigadoon is changed by the events of the musical?

Me: What? No! Visitors to Brigadoon can’t change Brigadoon. It would violate the Prime Directive!

🖖‍‍

Good morning, friends.

I have a new-ish morning ritual. I creep downstairs so as not to wake my kid. I get out a glass. I go to the fridge. I get out a can of sparkling water. I get my thyroid meds. I count out my morning thyroid meds and supplements: one levothyroxine, three liothyronine, two l-tyrosine. I open the sparkling water and pour it into the glass. I open my bottle of liquid kelp (which I obviously need because I am a manatee) and squeeze four drops of it into the glass of water: one. two. three. four. And I sip the water and take my pills. Sometimes I play a game on my phone, sometimes I read. But today, I thought.

I sat in that sleepy barely-awake feeling, in my quiet kitchen, with the sky grey outside and the house cold because I keep it that way for sleep, and stared into space.

And three words came to me.

THE QUIET SPACE.

I’ve had an idea for a week or so and was trying to find a name for it. It’s a project/offering I want to put into the world, building on the Notion templates I’ve created. It’s something that takes my skills for organizing and my understanding of doctoral student life and academia and blends them to create a gift for the world.

And that gift is quiet space.

I wanted to do this as a video rather than a blog post but my kid is still sleeping.

The Quiet Space is a set of offerings that will create structure and space for scholars of all descriptions to focus on creating knowledge instead of managing it. The first offerings will continue to be Notion templates; I have a few more to put together. (I may also experiment with Google Sheets or ClickUp but for now I’m focused on Notion.)

Here’s the idea:

You, a knowledge creator, have a lot going on in your head. And administrative work, such as organizing your readings, tracking your revisions, managing copyright permissions - this stuff eats up space in your brain. It fills your brain with chatter about the best way to do these things. How should you create the structures to deal with them?

But what if the space that stuff ate up was open? And quiet? What if it was space you could use to move your ideas around and play with them? What if you took the time you’ve been spending banging your head against a metaphorical wall to figure this out and instead spent it outside looking at the clouds?

My offerings will be designed to open up that space for you, Scholar. I’ll see you in The Quiet Space soon.

❤️,

Kimberly

[Image caption: White clouds move across a blue sky over a silhouetted group of trees and some orange grass. In the bottom right corner, a stone path curves away into the distance.]

Hulu has both Beetlejuice and Season 7 of Younger, see y’all next week. 📺🍿

Back in May, I had some bloodwork done. I discovered that my thyroid hormone levels were in the normal reference range but were, in my opinion, suboptimal. Combining those numbers with a slew of symptoms that had snuck up on me a little at a time (as they always do), I talked with my doctor about upping my thyroid support supplement dosages (iodine & l-tyrosine). We agreed that I would increase those and we would follow up in July. If I was still symptomatic and my numbers were suboptimal, we would talk about increasing my thyroid prescription dosages.

My bloodwork appointment for that is next Tuesday. The doctor sent in the lab order today and emailed me a copy. It didn’t have the thyroid tests on it. I asked her to please add them. She did, but warned me that when people have normal results on these tests, insurance plans often only cover them once or twice a year, so I might have to pay out of pocket.

I’m lucky and privileged to be able to take that risk without worrying it will cause my family hardship.

But I’m also angry on principle. Because if I already felt so terrible when my levels were normal-but-suboptimal, how miserable would I feel if we waited to modify my treatment until my levels were below normal? How sick does a person have to be to “deserve” treatment?

Wikipedia tells me:

In case of medical tests whose results are of continuous values, reference ranges can be used in the interpretation of an individual test result. This is primarily used for diagnostic tests and screening tests, while monitoring tests may optimally be interpreted from previous tests of the same individual instead

I wish that had a citation, but I’m going to take the point anyway. I’ve been diagnosed with this condition for 10 years. We always use these ranges for monitoring because I’m already diagnosed. I’ve noticed a correlation between symptoms and the test results but because it’s easy to swing too wide in a dosage switch I like to pair symptoms and results to help determine my next move. I am frustrated and exhausted by the fact that being chronically ill is a constant fight, that so many things can stand between me and wellness no matter what actions I take.

I’m glad my doctor will order the test; I’ve had doctors who wouldn’t. I’m glad my family can afford to pay out of pocket; we haven’t always been able to. But I am livid for myself and others that we have to work so hard to get what we need to merely function, never mind thrive.

(I’m aware that there are many different things that prevent people from thriving. This is the one I’m feeling hardest today.)

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I’m re-reading Unf*ck Your Habitat and wanted to keep some notes in a place I’d be able to find them later. I decided my website was that place. So here we go!

UfYH author Rachel Hoffman points out that small habit changes will be more effective at keeping your home pleasant than a big life overhaul. Here are some of the habits she mentions:

1. Do a little bit every day.
2. Use your leisure time wisely.
3. Use your waiting time efficiently.
4. Put it away, not down.
5. Make your bed.
6. Keep your flat surfaces clear.
7. Unf*ck tomorrow morning.
8. Trash goes in the trash can.
9. Do the dishes every day.
10. Wash, dry, and put it away, gddmit.
11. Deal with your invisible corners.

Nightstand before & after courtesy the first couple of mini-challenges in the original UfYH book. (I’ll get a commission if you purchase the book using this link.) Thanks, UfyH!