Kimberly Hirsh

🔖 Some interesting links around “wholesome” as a word for things that restore us, rather than a conservative metric by which to judge people:

• When Did ‘Wholesome’ Become a Gen Z Compliment? (NYT Gift Link)
• Why Are We Craving “Wholesome” Things? (The Good Trade)
• Wholesome Games 🎮

📺 Watched The Baby-sitters Club S02E07, Claudia and the Sad Goodbye. 💔😭

If you know, you know.

🔖📓 Read How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward.

I love some of these alternate ways of creating age groupings. I could especially imagine grouping people according to their age at the time of key historical events or technological innovations producing valuable insights.

Does anybody else know why all I feel like doing is lying in bed and watching Netflix Originals? 📺

Finished reading: Wyngraf #1

The first issue of a cozy fantasy magazine. Full of lovely stories I very much enjoyed. Mother-daughter dragon calming, fairy diplomacy, what happens 20 years after you save the world, and more. Highly recommend.

🔖📓 Can ChatGPT Replace UX Researchers? An Empirical Analysis of Comment Classifications

This is an interesting study with implications for qualitative research beyond UX. Looks like the answer is, “It’s too soon to tell.”

🎙️💬

“Sometimes it can be hard when we’re fucking exhausted to choose the thing that feels nourishing.” Lindsay Mack, Tarot for the Wild Soul Episode 229, June Is Breaking Away

I’m only now catching up on the second season of The Babysitters Club and having Mary Ann as a triple virgo is brilliant. 📺

📺 The Babysitters Club S02E03, “Stacey’s Emergency,” brilliantly depicts what it’s like living with chronic illness.

Jami Attenberg’s #1000WordsOfSummer starts June 17 and the Slack is hopping right now, in case you want to join in on the fun. 📝

Finished reading: Demon in the Wood Graphic Novel by Leigh Bardugo 📚

Gorgeous graphic version of the Darkling’s origin story.

It was hard finding time to write while traveling, so I didn’t do all the travel blogging I would have liked. But I have consistent childcare for the next couple weeks, then for several more weeks after a one week break from now, and I’m hoping to write up some travel stuff during that time. 📝

🌊 Today is the first day of the 10th Annual 100 Days of Blue Mind challenge. As often as you can between now and Labor Day, “get near, in, on or under your wild, domestic, urban or even virtual waters.” Today I took a shower and hung out with my kid on some rocks near South Ellerbee Creek.

🔖📚 Read “I think, like marriage, home is a fantasy” - Kelly McMaster interviewed by Amanda Montei

Here are all of my intellectual intentions and here is this adorable, smiling, chubby baby, swallowing it whole.

When writing real life, there is always going to be a connection between what is happening at the breakfast table and how you are showing up on the page.

🔖📚 Read This Is Dedicated To Anyone Who Ever Left - Kelly McMaster interviewed by Lyz Lenz.

I like Manton’s Where have I been post and have had a pretty significant change in where I’ve visited since the start of the year, so I thought I’d make my own list.

As for what counts:

If I simply passed through in a car, train, or bus, it doesn’t count. If I was only there at an airport for a layover, it doesn’t count.

Everything else counts.

7 Countries:

• United States
• The Netherlands
• Germany
• Scotland
• Ireland
• England
• France

14 States:

• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Georgia
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Virginia

📺 Watched Velma. The two primary criticisms - that it relies too heavily on meta-humor and that the characters are selfish & don’t grow - are spot on, and yet I still found it compelling enough to watch all 10 episodes.

🔖 Read Monkey House: Strange Reflections at the Singerie by Kate Zambreno (VQR).

📺 Me, watching Bridgerton: How can anyone tell these Bridgerton brothers apart? They all have the same coloration. I guess two of them are a little taller? But I’m not sure.

🔖 Read The Winter Zoo by Kate Zambreno (The Yale Review).

For a few years when M. was a toddler, our family went to Knoxville - the place of my mother’s birth - for The Collective library conference. W. would present and M. and I would wander about town, exploring the best haunts and generally enjoying the adorable downtown and the home of the 1982 World’s Fair.

One of the places I took M. was Zoo Knoxville. We were there in mid-March so it was pretty much a winter zoo like Kate Zambreno talks about here, and our experiences there were very similar.

📚 Purchased 2 different books from museums to be shipped directly to my house rather than carrying them home myself:

• Sarah Bernhardt - Et la femme crea l’etoile exhibition catalog (Petit Palais, Paris)
• Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination exhibition book (Science Museum, London)

Time for a needs assessment! Micro.blog community, what resources do you need in the Micro.blog Community Library?

Want to read: The Light Room by Kate Zambreno 📚

📚 Here comes the BBC with a list of the 100 Greatest Children’s Books of All Time. Maybe when I’m recovered from jetlag I’ll see how many are on both this and Time’s 100 Best Fantasy Books list.

🍿 Watched Howard.

It’s always striking when you realize the outsize influence an artist has had on you, and watching this it really hit home what an influence Howard Ashman has been on me. I think tomorrow is its lady day on Disney+. I hope they’ll release it for purchase after that. I’d buy it.