iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

My only desires for the wild card games are for the Cubs to beat the Padres, but especially for the White Sox to beat the Astros. Look, in addition to undying enmity for the Astros, I just want to see Munetaka Murakami be incredibly drunk and joyful about his team advancing again.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Me when a human being tells me they're training on something and may be slow/make a mistake: oh that's cool, I'm not in a rush! gotta learn sometime Me when an AI phone agent says they're learning and may make mistakes: CONNECT ME TO A HUMAN AND THEN GO TO HELL

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm home, I'm exhausted, but I have (I think?) survived my MONTH OF DEADLINES though apparently now I better immediately start turning this conference paper into an article because one of my friends pretty much shoved me and a journal editor together yesterday & went "you two need to talk"

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I have had very positive feedback to conference presentations before but honestly never like this one. Like I know we say "I enjoyed your paper" as easy small talk in this setting but I have had multiple long conversations with people about it today.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

And I have a finished draft of my conference paper. Plenty of time before presenting it tomorrow at 11 am!

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I am so sorry, Phillies fans, I tuned into the game and as soon as I did, Brewers started hitting home runs off Nola. It's my fault. I just wanted some background baseball while I worked on my conference paper!

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The LA Queens won the WPBL championship last night and the Dodgers beat the Padres, so my family group chat is feeling very cheery this morning.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I know I've been using flowers for most of these posts, but September has really been the month of cute frogs, like this little spring peeper, who showed up with the rain to spy on my reading progress. I have been reading, I swear! Here's some September books. 📚💙

A little tan frog with dark brown markings just chilling on a pane of glass. He is tiny and adorable.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

If I take out my endnotes, this article is only about 300 words over the 6000 word guideline I was given soooooo I think I am going to leave it as is. Well within the 10% +/-, I say. (Or, I hope.) If I do have to count endnotes/bib, then a whole section will get axed, but I know exactly which one.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Did the dialect thing and, well, yeah. That's me alright.

A dialect heat map showing that this person talks most like someone from California and definitely not like someone from the Deep South or, to a lesser extent, the Dakotas.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I have one student this semester who is already quibbling about grades on small homework assignments, & then (more delightfully) the student who sends me an email starting with "I didn't want to ask this in class because it felt off topic but did Shakespeare influence Tolkien?" (+ 3 more paragraphs)

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Felt cute, went to a baseball game. (My sister also came and I do have pics of us together too.)

A woman in a Dodgers jersey and hat and sunglasses with a baseball field in the background.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

That first inning from Skubal was ROUGH but man, the team has been looking better from the 3rd onward. And the lads are hitting? Bless.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

For the third time in the eight years I've lived here, I got caught in a surprise rainstorm while out for a walk and someone has pulled over and offered me a ride. There are things that absolutely suck about living in a small rural town, but there's also moments like this.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Tiny Bookshop. TBH, sign me up, that sounds like a straight-up sabbatical.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Ventured to the big city for a concert last night and also had a lil tapas and reading time first. It was a treat all around. The band was American Patchwork Quartet and they were a delight.

A photograph taken at a bar seat. On the bar is a plate with cutlery, a small serving dish with a few morsels on it, a glass of sangria, and a book.

Four musicians on stage taking a final bow.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

My friend's sunflowers were looking glorious today.

A gorgeous orange sunflower with a lil bee on the edge of the dark center.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Slightly less than a month before deadline and I have a finished draft of the article. It ain't pretty, and I already have a lot of notes to myself for the first round of revision, but I have a draft. I'm going to let it cool off for 24-48 hours and then jump in on revision.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Today I did not do any writing, but I did get a haircut, a record (Camera Obscura's Let's Get Out of This Country), pastries, and despite going to two bookstores, only one (1) book. (Clearly it was my day in the Big City.)

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It was a baking day today in addition to being a writing day.

A loaf of sourdough bread and a couple dozen chocolate cherry oatmeal cookies cooling on a wire rack.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It's August and the days that remain for being outside and free of semester-time obligations are fewer and fewer. But outside is great. And sometimes, so are the books I'm reading. Here's what I'm getting through in August. 📚💙

A view of a grassy expanse surrounded by various conifer trees. It's a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and some white shreds of clouds.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I am HERE and LATE to the Odyssey discourse because I watched it TODAY!! but in all the talk about the film as adapting the epic, I don't think there's been much consideration that it uses the epic as a starting point but also folds in a lot of tradition that evolved atop the original text?

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

WPBL thoughts day after: that was indeed fun to watch. And the LA Queens pulled off such a comeback to win! It was also neat to see how international the appeal already is, with Korean and Latinx fans very clearly there in the Youtube stream's chat.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Just watching the season opener for the Women's Professional Baseball League and having a lot of feelings about it, damn.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Infuriatingly, sitting down with my notes and plugging them into an outline with my commentary is in fact making this article take shape much more clearly than just waiting it to spring fully formed out of my brain like Athena from the skull of Zeus.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Got to have a video call with the lady fostering this dog, and it was helpful though also I am running up against various feelings of my own. It's tough that I can't meet the dog in person (she's being fostered out of state & would be transported).

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I applied to a rescue to adopt a very cute and sweet-seeming little dog today. Send me some good vibes for the process? I think I'm maybe ready for a new furball in my life.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I can't donate again until September (my last one was a double red donation) but if you can donate, go do it, y'all. www.redcross.org/about-us/new...

redcross.org

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Well this is exciting. Silence of the Girls is a harrowing and powerful read, and it could make for an incredible film.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

In the interest of Doing Things, went to the botanical garden for their Fourth Friday after hours time, so I had a little picnic in the evergreen garden & went on the hydrangea tour. The flowers were very good.

A view from a gazebo of an open green space bordered by all kinds of evergreens and conifers. It's a beautiful sunny afternoon.

An oak leaf hydrangea with deep pink flowers.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Pretty cluster of soapwort along the trail today.

Cluster of dainty little five petaled pinkish white flowers next to a fence post

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

There was a power outage while I was gone, and my bedroom air purifier must have automatically turned on when power was restored because it was running when I got home. And given that Detroit looked like this when I landed, I am not mad about the purifier running a bit extra.

A view of the Detroit air traffic control tower through a profoundly smoky haze. The sky looks cloudy but it is probably all smoke.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Waiting for a flight and the gate agent put on a rock/paper/scissors tournament, with the winner getting s voucher and the rest of the top 4 getting a candy bar and swag bag. Somehow I made it to the final?? I lost, but the candy bar and bag clip were definitely worth the 10 minutes of my time.

A blue polyester bag and some loot, including a Southwest branded water bottle and bag clip and luggage tags, a mini hand sanitizer, a king size Twix, a miji pack of Oreos.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

For my fellow Shel Silverstein kids out there: I found it.

A sign on a metal railing at a curb which says "SIDEWALK ENDS". There is indeed no sidewalk past that point.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Went for a run this morning, was a smidge worried about cars on a one block stretch of my route where the road narrows around a curve. But the real problem turned out to be an aggressive dog on the loose. 🫠

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Is the cyclospora outbreak actually worse in Michigan or is Michigan just tracking it better? Either way I feel like I should just spend another week in California.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

It's July, I'm in California (for a bit longer anyway), and still reading books. Here are some of my beloved California poppies and also what I've been reading. 📚💙

A field with golden-orange California poppies blooming throughout.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This bitch went to a Dodgers game on her birthday (several days ago) and they won and it was pretty great.

A baseball diamond, seen from upper level seats just left of home plate,.on a beautiful summer evening.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

On the train to the beach, we sat across the aisle from a guy in a Mexico jersey on his way to see Canada v S Africa in LA. We asked him who he was cheering for, & he said, "we're all Canadian today."

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Just spotted a guy in the crowd of this Panama-Croatia game wearing a Croatia water polo cap. Alright, dude.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Spotted some Tartan Army during my layover. Have fun in Miami, guys!

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

You know what I needed the day before leaving on a trip? A plumbing issue. Thankfully it's minor, & a thousand blessings on the local plumbing company that squeezed me in when two of their guys finished another job early, who are now here fixing it.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Kinda fighting another bad spell of the blues (I am once again missing my dog so much, plus, you know, the horrors) so of course I am absolutely ripping through King Leopold's Ghost 😬

A paperback copy of King Leopold's Ghost on a wicker patio table next to a tablet showing last night's Dodgers game and a glass of iced coffee

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I went for my stupid little run this morning, and today is the final day of AP exam scoring. Thank heavens.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Bananas. Death to bananas. NO, not even in smoothies, NO, not even banana bread. Just no.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Made garlic scape pesto tonight and you know what? It was DELICIOUS.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

My bestie the Toledo Museum of Art is almost entirely shut down for renovations/reinstallations but she's still beautiful. And the one exhibition on curses and magic in the ancient world was cool. (But ughhhhh full reopening is a year away 😩)

A long, low building with a columned portico and a red brick courtyard in front with a red Calder sculpture. Blue sky with puffy clouds overhead.

An amulet carved out of white stone of a demon with an animalistic face

A green amulet of the Egyptian goddess Tawaret with her hippo head. She seems like a cool lady.

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E. A. Fredericks @efredericks.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

This bitch got out on a lake today.

A woman kneeling on a paddle board in a lake

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