Kimberly Hirsh

📚💬 “My Ph.D. cannot trump my gender.” Kelly J. Baker, SEXISM ED, “Academic Men Explain Things to Me,” p. 52.

Want to read: Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit 📚

📚💬 “When academic women, experts in their fields, are seen as not credible, then can women ever be?” Kelly J. Baker, SEXISM ED, “Academic Men Explain Things to Me,” p. 55.

Finished reading: Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner 📚

I finished reading SIX OF CROWS almost 4 months ago. It’s time for me to get back to the Grishaverse with KING OF SCARS. 📚

“Life just ran more smoothly when she got her way.” Leigh Bardugo, KING OF SCARS. Oh, Zoya, I love you so. 📚

🎙️ Listened to Gates McFadden Investigates 101: Jonathan Frakes.

Love it. McFadden is a great host & it feels like being with friends.

Went to Internet Archive to find my blog post from 20 years ago. More interesting than anything I had to say was this comment from my grandmother, who died this January:

Dearest Kimber…yes, you will remember today & what you did & were doing…and possibly feel a sadness for the terror and loss and a little bit of maturing….I know, for I can vividly recall the memories of the Pearl Harbor Attack when I was in 7th grade and the impact & saddness that followed those war years…but happiness as well as tears come along and in a wink, blink & nod the years go on, but memories linger….I love you very much my precious, gorgeous granddaughte.

📽️ Watched In a Lonely Place.

I watched this because it’s on the movie list on the aesthetics wiki page for dark academia. I’m not sure what qualifies it as dark academia; is it its noirness? The suspense? The sad inevitability of its conclusion? It doesn’t have a connection to learning or school.

Regardless, I enjoyed it and recommend it.

One of the elements of the film is that temperamental screenwriter Dixon Steele (one of the inspirations for Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Dixon Hill writes feverishly, composing by hand and then giving pages to his neighbor/girlfriend, Laurel Gray, to type up. He also gives her elaborate breakfast orders and makes other demands of her that are things people normally get compensated for doing. This reminded me of stories of J. D. Salinger and other writers relying on the women in their lives to take care of everything except the writing. It didn’t sit well with me in this movie and I think Steele’s behavior is supposed to serve as evidence that he is Not A Great Guy. It’s a little hard to be sure, as the film was released in 1950, but within the film a massage therapist tells Gray that she should be getting paid for typing and to look after her own career.

Steele being a dude who can alternate between charming and scary reminded me of Jenny Offill’s term, “art monster,” a concept I first encountered in Austin Kleon’s writing. He can be terrifyingly violent. At one point in the film, Steele’s friend’s wife says to Gray something like “He’s an artist; he can get away with being temperamental.” I read this not as an excuse being made by the film, but rather as another moment that is designed to make the audience worry for Gray’s wellbeing.

All told, a great movie, well executed.

🔖💻 Read Why bad technology dominates our lives, according to Ron Norman. If you didn’t already believe we were living in the Matrix, this article will convince you we are.

New bio: Extremely online since 1995. Mom. Household COO. Consulting scholar-librarian. Book person. Geek-of-all-trades. PhD in Information & Library Science. ♿

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to spend my time and one of the things I want to do is make higher ed better for caregivers. It only just occurred to me that both my parents were student-caregivers & staff-caregivers when I was young. ❤️

Wearing my 90s pop culture goth uniform today: Buffy the Vampire Slayer tee, Nightmare Before Christmas leggings.

Me:

yesterday for #StarTrekDay: AHHHH Star Trek, everything Star Trek!

this morning when it was all gray and rainy: AHHHH Dark Academia, everything Dark Academia!

after watching the new #Matrix trailer: AHHHH Cyberpunk! everything Cyberpunk!

I contain multitudes.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the first time the Internet Archive captured my first personal domain. The 20th anniversary of my first blog post was in March. That first post was in hand-rolled html, written in Notepad and FTPed to my host at envy.nu. It used fixed scrolling over a background image of Death from the Sandman comics.

My early blog posts were typical of a personal blog: what was going on with my classes, what I thought of video games I played and movies I saw, political opinions that thoroughly embarrass me now. My current blog posts aren’t that different now than they were then, but it’s much harder to find other personal bloggers now that blogs are a ubiquitous marketing tool.

I’ve liked blogging all this time. I plan to keep doing it.

🥳🎈🎉🎊🎂

Repping TNG Operations in my Lauren Christians Handmade dress for Star Trek Day. My kid told his teachers, “I’m being Spot because my mom is wearing her Data costume!” 🖖‍📺

Loading my advanced readers’s copy of Brent Spiner’s mem-noir Fan Fiction to my ereader in honor of Star Trek Day. 📚📺🖖‍

I know enough about Brent Spiner and his history with fans to know that this does not make us BFFs but I’m still psyched he liked my tweet.

If you read through today’s Done List, you’ll notice I put basic self-care tasks like showering and dental hygiene on it. This is because as a person with chronic illness, those count as tasks that use energy, energy I then won’t have to spend on something else.

• Prepped M’s lunch and school stuff.
• Took M to school.
• Took and posted Star Trek Day selfie.
• Made myself coffee and breakfast.
• Ate breakfast.
• Listened to part of the first episode of Gates McFadden Investigates. - really feels like sitting in on a conversation with my friends; apparently I have deep parasocial relationships with the TNG cast.
• Took a shower.
• Brushed, flossed, and rinsed my teeth.
• Trimmed my nails.
• Watched a little TNG.
• Made coffee.
• Had a snack.
• Managed my task list.
• Messed around on Twitter a lot.
• Gave W some feedback on his Fulbright essays.
• Loaded Brent Spiner’s upcoming book on my eReader.
• Read a lot of Lore Olympus.
• Worked on getting old masking tape off kitchen floor.
• Made lunch.
• Ate lunch.
• Picked M up from school.
• Made muffins with M.
• Watched a compilation of all Spot’s appearances on TNG 🐈.
• Played Dragon Quest III while M. watched Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir.
• Packed M’s snack and lunch for tomorrow.

It’s taken me a while but I think I have a stable connection for watching #StarTrekDay and I’m so psyched for Prodigy. I’ve watched the teaser with my kid & can’t wait to show him the full trailer.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I will never not have a crush on Wil Wheaton. #StarTrekDay

The Voyager theme is over here tugging at my heart strings. This is unexpected. #StarTrekDay

This Picard/Riker 2024 merch is all well and good but what I want is reprints of the Picard/Riker 1992 merch.

📺🖖 In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 3, episode 11, “The Hunted,” there is a whole society of intellectual bros wearing blazers over turtlenecks & claiming something is impossible because they’ve “studied it thoroughly” (though never tried it). Academia vibes, y’all.

My Done List for 9/7/21:

It’s easy for me to feel like a day went by where I didn’t do anything, so I’m making a list of what I did. Here’s today’s:

• Prepped M’s lunch and school stuff.
• Made M’s breakfast.
• Made myself tea and breakfast.
• Ate breakfast.
• Took M to school.
• Wrote and published a blog post.
• Emailed D about podcast ideas.
• Fixed some links and added others to the Writing page of my website.
• Categorized some transactions in QuickBooks.
• Played around with a contract creation service.
• Reviewed tasks and set priorities.
• Poked around on Twitter and micro.blog.
• Covered hole in bathroom floor.
• Ate a snack.
• Read a little Lore Olympus.
• Watched a little TNG.
• Took a nap.
• Scrolled dark academia Instagram.
• Did some ankle strengthening exercises.
• Printed some paperwork for W.
• Ate lunch.
• Read more Lore Olympus.
• Picked M up from school.
• Played with M & his new weather toys.
• Did video call with L. so she could talk to M.
• Watched Disney ride through videos with M.
• Trimmed M’s nails.