Kimberly Hirsh

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 23:26:13 -0400

🔖📚 Read In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility You Can Be “Demure and Brat All at Once” by Samantha Silva (Literary Hub)

In the Dashwood family and in my family, it sometimes feels like the older sister feels like she has to be Sense so she can hold space for the younger sister to be Sensibility.

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 10:12:40 -0400

💬📚 “It’s easy to take one’s own enthusiasms for granted; it’s much harder to explain them.” Mary Beard, Talking Classics

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 18:20:43 -0400

Keeping an eye on news about Pride displays coming down in my local library and getting ready to show up at whatever meetings I need to. I have limited physical capacity for in-person activism but I will Show Up for Libraries.

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:02:50 -0400

More grief today learning of the loss of Anthony Stewart Head. I met him at a con once. It was probably the summer of 2003. He was so generous with his time, chatting with a couple of us from the official Buffy posting board until his handler shooed us because a line had formed. He hugged me before I left and he smelled exactly as good as you would have expected. GraceAnn A. DeCandido wrote a wonderful piece about the importance of Giles to the library profession back in 1999. May his memory be a blessing. I met Tony Head at a con once. It was probably the summer of 2003. He was so generous with his time, chatting with a couple of us from the official Buffy posting board until his handler shooed us because a line has formed. He hugged me before I left and he smelled exactly as good as you would have expected.)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:45:04 -0400

💬📚 “I love the days when my body cooperates.” Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 23:58:56 -0400

The Wayback Machine has a robust archive of Dr. Raúl Pacheco-Vega’s website. One of my first thoughts was how important it was to preserve the writing he did about doing research. I’m glad the Internet Archive has it.

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:10:51 -0400

I am devastated by the death of Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega, an incredibly generous scholar who impacted my research process for years. If, like me, you always want details in the midst of your grief, Periódico Correo has them but be warned that it involves violence.

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:28:53 -0400

🎮 I’ve been thinking about why Celeste feels better to me (as in, more pleasant to play) than Animal Well does, and the reason is simple: in Celeste, when you die, you go back to your starting point on the same screen where you died. In Animal Well, you go back to a save point.

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 15:49:31 -0400

Angry/frustrated over the insurance situation with the school library. I don’t often get very angry. I am at present so angry that none of the things that would normally make me feel better even sound worthwhile.

Thu, 28 May 2026 18:52:24 -0400

Finished reading: The Lost World A Novel by Michael Crichton 📚

It’s fascinating to me that Crichton wrote this at Spielberg’s behest, but the movie is so very different from this. Only a few scenes and characters from this are in it.

My romanticized nostalgic childhood summer replay

Thu, 21 May 2026 17:36:19 -0400

In her article, How To Balance Being Online With Mindfully Logging Off, Stephanie Fallon says,

It can be so tempting to start over in some romanticized revamp of a 90’s childhood summer.

She’s talking here about the temptation of a radical digital detox but I read this and immediately thought, that sounds super fun! I want a 90s (or 80s!) childhood summer!

So I’m asking myself, what does that look like?

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Participating in the library’s summer reading program
And thus maxing out my borrowing privileges (50 books at a time)
And spending hours and hours reading
Hanging out at the pool as much as possible

If I want to go mid-to-late-90s, I’d add in participating in one or more theatrical productions and doing some hobbyist web development.

As an educator who only works 10 months out of the year, I think I can get pretty close to this. I’m thinking about how I want to meld it with having my kid at home with me for many weeks, too, as he’s only doing a few camps this year.

What would your nostalgic romanticized childhood summer look like?

Thu, 21 May 2026 17:23:40 -0400

Finished reading: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton 📚

A great time and at its most interesting in the places where the movie departed from it.

Mon, 18 May 2026 08:52:23 -0400

💬📚📝 “I offer up the idea of the safety of a sentence for you right now, the possibility of a place to put yourself, to put your heart. A place to rest for a while from these feverish days.” Jami Attenberg, 1000 Words

Mon, 18 May 2026 08:48:03 -0400

💬📚📝 “How do I cut through all the constant buzzing around me and capture the simple truths? With the slash of a sentence.” Jami Attenberg, 1000 Words

Fri, 15 May 2026 09:15:38 -0400

🔮📚💬 “You don’t need to push or clear away your humanness to sit with the numinous.” Lindsay Mack, Tarot for the Wild Soul.

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:36:07 -0400

🔮📚💬 Lindsay Mack, Tarot for the Wild Soul:

…the Tarot cannot reliably tell us when something will end or how something will turn out. It doesn’t consistently fix, heal, or tell us precisely what will happen or when it will happen. But it can be medicine in the face of deep pain. It can help us come home to and stay with ourselves, no matter what might be arising.

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:10:42 -0400

I’m doing a couple of qualitative action research projects at work and, as one does in qual research, have collected a huge amount of data (mostly student work samples) and now have to figure out how to analyze it. 📓

Thu, 14 May 2026 09:42:46 -0400

🔖📚📝 Read A Deaf Manifesto on Motherhood (Electric Literature).

A great interview with Sara Nović about her book Mother Tongue, parenting, and writing.

Thu, 14 May 2026 07:08:00 -0400

I didn’t publicly mark the fifth anniversary of my dissertation defense back in April because things were so busy. Dr. Katy Peplin is celebrating 10 years of having a PhD and wrote a great blog post about ten things she’s learned in ten years of having her PhD.

Quick note on Jurassic Park and university research

Mon, 11 May 2026 09:44:43 -0400

📚 Trying out a re-read of Jurassic Park since we’ve been enjoying the movies and I haven’t read it since I read it when the movie was first released.

Crichton’s introduction laments the infiltration of commercial interests into university scientific research, focused on individual greed and failing ethics. It doesn’t mention the interplay of university research funding and patent law that led to a push for commercialization of research and tech transference in the 1980s, the era Crichton is talking about here.

Reading Jurassic Park is different as a lapsed academic than it is as a middle schooler.

Mon, 11 May 2026 08:35:07 -0400

Finished reading: The Long Game by Rachel Reid 📚

Like literally everyone, I adore Ilya Rozanov. Depression rep here really resonated with me.

Sat, 09 May 2026 18:36:55 -0400

Finished reading: Role Model by Rachel Reid 📚

Fri, 08 May 2026 08:23:28 -0400

When the siren song of goblin mode calls, I aspire to run the opposite direction and end up in goblin king mode: wearing tight pants, covered in glitter, walking around inside MC Escher’s art.

Thu, 07 May 2026 09:07:56 -0400

I have aspirations of being a person whose morning routine consists of more than just wake up, take meds, stare into space. That’s definitely all I can manage right now, but maybe one day.

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:30:54 -0400

Finished reading: Common Goal by Rachel Reid 📚