Kimberly Hirsh

Portrait of an awesome life partnership: you get the kid down to sleep and then chat in the #FSNNA20 Discord while your partner watches Annotated Castlevania Symphony of the Night YouTube videos. Lots is wrong in the world but this family of mine is just right.

Pleased as can be to be hanging out @ #FSNNA20 this week. You can find me in Discord primarily hanging out in #15-hirsh where you’ll find my poster, “Where’d You Get Those Nightcrawler Hands? The Information Literacy Practices of Cosplayers.” But also elsewhere! Say hi!

Is anybody out there managing to be even mediocre at both parenting & working right now? Because I seem to have to choose to be okay at one and bad at the other, or bad at both, but not okay at both. (When I manage good at one it knocks me out for twice as long as I was good )

Current dissertation status: 4 chapters begun but with holes to fill, 116 pages. 1 chapter completely unwritten.

📚 Reading Sarah Kendzior’s (@sarahkendzior) book HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT & had to take a crying break after the intro bc “I have nostalgia for the future, because I am a mother and whatever system wins will be the one my children will inherit.” p. 15

I definitely just handed The Teacher from the Black Lagoon to my kid thinking it was Miss Nelson Is Missing, which is how you know my teen librarian chops are stronger than my children’s librarian chops.

It’s my kid’s birthday today, and thus my birthing day. It’s interesting that the author of the linked post wrote it as her kid was turning 4, since that’s how old my kid is today. I haven’t shared my birth story with very many people, because it is private and traumatic. I’m wondering if I’ll be ready to, soon. I feel like I might.

Before I gave birth, I made a cute comic about my brother’s birth 22 years earlier and said “I wonder what my hilarious birth story will be!”

Friends, very little of my birth story is funny.

It felt like a Campbellian journey.

My sweet mother-in-law texted me today to say she honors me on this day, too. It’s so appreciated.

Next time you celebrate a kid’s birthday, try to be mindful of how it might be impacting the kid’s grownups, too. If the one who gave birth is around, it’s almost certainly a time of complex feelings. BUT PRIDE AND JOY OF COURSE! But also lots of other complex feelings. Other grownups might be having big feelings at that time, too.

Until I feel comfortable writing my birth story, just watch this SNL digital short and know that I cry every time I watch it, because it’s funny because it’s true.

I did a dissertation bootcamp last week and honestly I feel like I need a break. We spent some time Friday talking about how to maintain momentum but I don’t think my body is ready for that.

Today I learned that my kid’s teacher plays tabletop RPGs. ♥️ (I did not ask her if I could get in on her game.)

I’m experimenting with podcasting about whatever I want. I’ve got 3 finished episodes of a planned Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast called Things of Bronze, so I thought I’d go on and upload the pilot for it and see how it goes. Show notes and transcript coming soon!