Kimberly Hirsh

Yesterday I saw 3 people (I’d guess women) at Amsterdam Centraal 🚄 walking together wearing matching pairs of gorgeous plain black Docs and then felt super sad that I’d only had room for one pair of Docs in my suitcase and went with the floral ones.

Hi friends.

I wanted to take a moment to share my blogging “process,” which I put in scare quotes because it’s not very refined.

First, I have a thought or encounter something to which I have a response and decide I want to share that thought/response.

Then, I open up Google Docs and type what I want to share into a file called “Current Blog Post Draft.” I mainly do this to avoid losing a post because of a browser or app crash.

I sometimes read over it before posting. Sometimes I post right away.

My posts aren’t reviewed by an editor or even a beta reader. They go out fresh, raw, and often flawed in either form or content. The ideas are sometimes half-baked. I’m sometimes writing in the heat of emotion. I’m going to be wrong sometimes. Perhaps often.

Blogs are tools for thinking. As such, the thoughts expressed in them will not always be our most polished.

This is a personal blog, not a professional publication. I don’t mean for it to be anything but a personal blog and portfolio.

Thanks for reading it.

🔖📝 Read Why PhDs Need to Study Creative Writing by Anthony Ocampo, at the recommendation of Dr. Ravynn K. Stringfield.

This is one of the reasons I want to study creative nonfiction, to dig into public communication of the social sciences.

Hello, I require this shirt.

Who goes to the Dutch National Maritime Museum and buys an edited collection titled Gender at Sea as a souvenir? This academic. 📚🌊🎓

I’m not saying I’m just saying, the introduction to GENDER AT SEA talks a lot about Moana and what the story can tell us about women in maritime pursuits and how Moana saves the environment and teaches Maui it’s okay to be vulnerable, so… I chose wisely. 📚🌊🎓

Status: in a parasocial relationship with the crew of the Enterprise D.

Today I’m grieving the closure of Catapult magazine and classes. 📝

🔖 Read Antisemitic text was projected onto the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. 💔

🔖📚📝 Read Mess Up Your Good, Premium, Luxury Notebooks.

Yes! Great advice from Anna Havron.

The latest Dutch food: nasi saté ajam. This is an Indonesian dish. Because Indonesia was once a Dutch colony, there’s a lot of Indonesian influence in some of the most popular food here. I really loved this.

Finished reading: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 📚

This one took me a while to get into. Before giving up, I hunted down a review. The review indicated that there was more to this than vestibules, halls, statues, and tides, so I stuck with it. I’m glad I did.

🔖 📝 Joanna Penn discusses her use of AI to help her write a short story. This could be a valuable model for educators to use to teach students how to use these tools ethically and for effective writing.

🔖 Read Theater never recovered from COVID — and now change is no longer a choice.

…the people who live in the shadow of the refinery often don’t have the bandwidth to think about attending an experimental physical theater show on a bus.

“The problems in these communities – where am I going to live? Do I have enough food? – are so large, that it’s hard to even talk to people about any of the environmental injustices,” Cummings said.

🔖 Read The Summer-Camp Feeding Frenzy Has Already Begun.

🍿Watched Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter - Indefinite Talk.

This bit is so fun. Ought to be mentioned in the same breath as Who’s On First?

🍿 Watched Bert Williams - The Poker Game.

Stunningly good object work.

📺 Watched Key & Peele - I Said….

This is a beautiful sketch that heightens literally as high as you can go. Strong one to have early in the show.

🔖 Read THE JEDI ACADEMY WILL NO LONGER TEACH ANAKIN SKYWALKER’S MASSACRE OF THE YOUNGLINGS.

A+ geek satire.

Another Dutch meal. This is hutspot. It’s smoked sausage with gravy on a bed of potatoes, onions, and carrots. I liked it better than the one with kale but since I basically like all my foods separated as though I were a toddler, still not my fave.

📚💬📓 “… being transparent about one’s positionality, and choosing a granularity of analysis appropriate to your actual knowledge and experience, are key choices soneone must make as they enter fan studies.” Henry Jenkins, “Textual Poachers, Twenty Years Later”

🔖 Read The Sad Clown Joke That Became a Beloved Meme.

My favorite take on Pagliacci is Rhett Miller’s theme song for the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

You know what’s really great for a migraine is the monthly test of public warning sirens in the Netherlands. OH WAIT NO THAT DOES NOT HELP WITH A MIGRAINE.

🔖 A swirling soup of thoughts in my head about self-presentation after reading these posts:

• The personal brand paradox - Debbie Millman
• Build a reputation instead of a personal brand - Tracy Durnell
• The power of writing your story down - Jas Hothi

🔖 Read Is My Child Eating Enough Pirate’s Booty?

Parenting comedy is a microgenre that always lands with me.