iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 02/06/2026

This is a cat check point. Relinquish your most recent cat picture on your phone #ProofOfCat

Beelzebub the flame point Siamese cat: cream colored fur with pale orange points.

Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 31/05/2026

Nah, I’d have to buy them, whereas I already had Ziploc bags. I did buy a special plastic box to hold all my spools of thread recently, though. That too entailed a lot of disentangling and was incredibly satisfying

Sewing supplies in baskets and a special plastic box with drawers only for spools of thread, ordered ROYGBIV as much as possible.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 30/05/2026

Also today on a whim I untangled the enormous knot of cables in the Electronics Drawer and sorted them into plastic bags and labeled them. Look on my works ye mighty and despair

Cables in plastic bags labeled for instance USB-C to USB-C

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 08/05/2026

Best film adaptation of The Odyssey, wrong answers only

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 08/05/2026

This is a judge who knows what “anaphora” means. She might have learned it from someone who was a @modernlanguage.bsky.social member.

DOGE was calling the shots. DOGE controlled the lists, DOGE rejected McDonald’s suggestions, DOGE added additional grants for termination, DOGE drafted and sent the notices, and DOGE dictated which previously awarded grants would live or die.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 29/03/2026

The local #NoKings protests are top of the scroll in the Raleigh News and Observer, which is good, and the same “thousands of people” phrase is used. My first thought on seeing it was that “tens of thousands” would probably be more accurate, and that’s just for one single major metro area.

Image of Raleigh News and Observer coverage of No Kings protests.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 28/03/2026

There were (and still are!) far more people at #NoKings in suburban Cary, NC than I expected. People lining the street on both sides for a solid mile, I’d say.

Protesters at No Kings rally lining the street.

Street in Cary NC at the start of the No Kings rally with a long line of protesters on the sidewalk in the distance.

Rage against the dying of the democratic light.

Come on people now smoke on your brother everybody get together and impeach this motherf*cker right now.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 25/06/2025

Got my first print copy of @theonion.com and one of my favorite bits is lower-case @jstor.bsky.social as a fake band name

Fake ad for a music venue with fake shows with fake bands including jstor, Canklet, The Enamorers, HVAC, and more.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 16/05/2025

You’re doing amazing, sweetie

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 26/04/2025

Nice water tower venue for @tressiemcphd.bsky.social passionately defending libraries as third spaces at Biscuits and Banjos in Durham. #biscuitsandbanjos

Three panelists sitting outside in between the white steel girders of the base of a water tower, with a bright yellow ramp

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 16/04/2025

Repost with the first album you bought with your own money

Yellow album cover for Men At Work, Business As Usual, showing a mountain range on top of an amplifier.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 22/02/2025

Movies you’ve watched more than 6 times, GIFs only

Joan Cusack in Working Girl asking Harrison Ford if he wants coffee, tea, or ME

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 04/02/2025

without downloading any new pics, where are you mentally?

Pecan pie with center mostly gone after having been eaten by a dog (not shown).

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 01/02/2025

What is going on in America

Top 3 Google search suggestions for the phrase “what is”: what is dei, what is a tariff, what is ice

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 28/12/2024

The spice cookies came out fantastic. Nice and spicy. I used butter (of course) and also went rogue and did half dark Karo and half molasses. This recipe is pretty similar to the Mark Bittman molasses spice cookie recipe I was going to use before I came across this one.

Dark brown round spice cookies cooling on a paper towel.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 27/12/2024

I’ve wound up keeping about 1/3 of Mama’s recipes from the rusted metal index card box: mainly things I remember eating and interesting Things like these two. Am now going to make these spice cookies because I was going to make some today anyway. (The “or butter” is my own addition from today.)

Recipe for spice cookies calling for 1 cup margarine among other ingredients.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 27/12/2024

More evidence of Mama collecting recipes at work. This hamburger roll (??) recipe must be from the late 70s when she was working in social services

Pink message slip saying that Carole wants a list of all the chronics in the clinic.

Recipe for some kind of hamburger rolls that requires 5 pounds of hamburger and is baked at 150 degrees for at least 8 hours.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 27/12/2024

Here I was intending to be ruthless about clearing out my mother’s mess of a recipe box, just as I did with so many of her things after she died, but then I come across things like this 1989 purple-inked printout of an electronic message from Mama’s work terminal with a recipe for Broccoli Salad.

1989 printout of a recipe for Broccoli Salad sent on USWest servers.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 22/12/2024

Grateful for my every-Sunday bluegrass jam at Bond Brothers Eastside — great musicians and great friends

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 21/12/2024

This thing is a beast and had been overgrown for a long time. I pruned it some earlier in the year, too. About 3/4 of this large brush pile is from this dang arbor.

Large pile of brush, about 3 feet high and 6 feet in diameter.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 21/12/2024

I pruned my muscadine grape arbor today. Not really correctly, mind you, since it’s too early in the winter and also I can’t figure out how to safely prune the top even with a ladder. But maybe this will keep it somewhat in check next year. I also restaked it so it won’t fall over, I hope.

Arbor with lots of thicket growth on top and almost nothing on the sides in front of yellow house.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 27/11/2024

Every year Hank Smith does a live version of Alice’s Restaurant and it’s one of my favorite things ever. When I first heard it was stunned: we listened to that song every Thanksgiving when I was growing up and I ever ever expected to hear it live. This year the 1969 movie was on silently too.

Hank Smith and the All Stars playing Alice’s Restaurant live during Thanksgiving week with the 1969 movie on a screen in the background

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 06/11/2024

Darcy says hi and would like a treat

Adorable shorthair black and white dog Darcy in front of cast iron stove

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 26/10/2024

Either this is my neighbor’s clever recycling trick for marking where they’ve planted things in their garden or it’s an avant-garde Halloween display depicting hungry corpses beginning to emerge from their graves

Patch of dirt with about a dozen white plastic forks sticking up out of it

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 24/10/2024

Half a head of cabbage, a habanero pepper, and a small red onion sautéed in butter. YUM.

Cabbage, habanero, and red onion in a pan on the stove

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 16/10/2024

Perfectly comfortable with her life choices

Black and white shorthair dog Darcy reclined on olive green couch

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 15/10/2024

Most people would probably post Exile in Guyville but I came to Liz Phair late so to me this is the perfect one

Cover of Liz Phair album whitechocolatespaceegg

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 13/10/2024

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but some subset of cats love hammocks. Whenever I hang out in my hammock Willa always comes and joins me. Perfect fall day for hammock hanging.

Tabby cat Willa in hammock on orange patterned cloth with tree and fence in background

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 06/10/2024

Second crop of peppers from my container plants. Think I’ll get a few more before the year is out.

Two green peppers, lots of green jalapeño peppers, and one bright red jalapeño in a yellow plastic colander

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 01/10/2024

Black Dog and Pink Azaleas, Oct 1, 2024. For Black Dog Day. Darcy agreed to sit briefly for this photo even though she was VERY much enjoying her walk. cc @darthbluesky.bsky.social

An adorable black and white shorthair dog wearing a red harness and collar on a black leash in front of a flowering bush of hot pink azaleas. Her mouth is wide open and her brown eyes are filled with glee.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 19/09/2024

Watching Big Cats 24/7 on PBS with one of my small cats

Tabby cat on blue chair in front of television showing a jaguar by a tree

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 18/09/2024

A Thousand Acres The Nine Tailors The Two-Income Trap

Cover for Jane Smiley A Thousand Acres showing a hay bale in a field

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 17/09/2024

I like all the 3s and 6s in my Bluesky number

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 13/09/2024

Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy. groveatlantic.com/book/wilming...

Cover of book Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino. Cover image showing a roofless, smoking building with a crowd in front of it. Pulitzer Prize sticker on cover.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 06/09/2024

You‘ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last tv show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?

John Turturro and Christopher Walken touching foreheads in Severance.

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 04/09/2024

Pepper harvest from three plants

Colander full of small green peppers and jalapeños

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 30/08/2024

Petulant because it isn’t walk time yet

Adorable black and white dog curled up on couch looking reproachfully at the camera

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 28/08/2024

Not sure what to make of this correct result but it reminds me a bit of OCR errors — some letters harder to detect than others

ChatGPT result correctly answering that there are three p’s in pineapple

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 21/08/2024

Debbie Birx talks at length about this moment in her book Silent Invasion

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 15/08/2024

My tripod cat Willa basically seems to take the attitude that having a left front leg would only get in the way of proper patio table lounging

Tripod tabby cat sprawled on black iron mesh patio table with red geraniums and yellow shed in the background

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 09/08/2024

Unlike you, I get my news from a reliable source

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Amanda French @amandafrench.net · 02/08/2024

Perhaps unwisely I went to this effing website and filled out this effing form, not agreeing to receive texts (ha, as if) and it’s absolutely true. I was not taken to information about voter registration. This is the final screen.

Voter Registration. It takes less than two minutes to register! Thank you. Reader, I was not registered to vote.

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