iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Update. My husband, an undiagnosed Enneagram 8, has asked for their customer service number with a grin and the direct quote, "Let me call them. I enjoy ruining people's days." My halfhearted apologies to whoever answers. It's not your fault your org was designed and is run by squirrels. But.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

lol got a response from subrogation: "We've approved the claim. Please call our customer service department to ask them to release payment." 🤯🤯🤯 Does Meritain's entire system run on carrier pigeons Are their team members legally barred from talking to each other What is even happening

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Well, dealing with insurance for the 800th time about the same claim might have derailed my morning, but at least the upstairs bathrooms are now both clean and I'm feeling less unhinged.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

I haven't had Meritain Aetna insurance since February. So whyyyy am I still on the phone explaining that getting shot in a drive-by is NOT a workplace injury? So ready to be done with their BS and move on. (To be clear, they're not denying the claim. They're just totally incompetent.)

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Another year, another anniversary my husband and I nearly forgot about until we received a "happy anniversary" text from his mom.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Today I'm editing stories for a holiday recipe themed sci-fi anthology and these stories are just too charming Also I'm now hungry

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Me: *languishing dramatically over the back of the couch like a cat, the day before a very important presentation* My husband: Girl you are 42 and playing with fire, are you trying to throw out your back again Me: I am spry, I am a youths My back: lol friend

media.tenor.com

a cartoon of bart simpson sitting next to an elderly woman with the words " behold the ravages of age "

ALT: a cartoon of bart simpson sitting next to an elderly woman with the words " behold the ravages of age "

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

HI! The 4 Week Story Finding Challenge starts Monday, which means you have less than 48 hours to sign up. You in? story-rebel.kit.com/products/sto...

story-rebel.kit.com

4 Week Story Finding Challenge

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Reposted by Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!)

Karen Eisenbrey @kareneisenbrey.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

My review of Outsiders by @kwakjessie.bsky.social: 8 tales of nonhuman characters working things out. They are alien yet relatable, and while several stories have elements of horror, they all have a cozy vibe, warmed with humor and caring. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

goodreads.com

Karen Eisenbrey's review of Outsiders

5/5: This collection of short stories is a quick read—I read the whole thing in a couple of hours—but it would also be fun to snack on, one story here and there. Each tale features a nonhuman characte...

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

OMG this guy is reading his essays to a girl out loud in the coffee shop. He just read a travelogue, now he's reading a piece his therapist recommended he write. Thank god for noise cancelling headphones

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Almost two years after my injury, I am finally embracing pirate mode with a new headshot. Huge thanks to Meghan Paddock Farrell for turning me into a thriller writer! www.instagram.com/mpaddockfarr... And to Zoe Della Rocca for the makeup. ;) www.instagram.com/zoe_della_ro...

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

For those wondering, the first eye-loss-by-duck story is from Frank B. Brady, the author of A Singular View: The Art of Seeing with One Eye. Which my cousin's monocular neighbor generously gifted to me after he heard what happened. It's a delightful book. (Story is in the alt text, too.)

First page reads:

Unhappy landing: I have no memory of being hit. I recall only a dazed awareness that something was wrong...that Charles Macatee was swinging our plane into position for a landing...asking the tower for runway lights...calling for an ambulance to meet the plane.

Then Tom Wright, the third man aboard, was helping me out of the cockpit, where I had been flying copilot, and onto a couch so that he could take my place and assist in the landing.

Interminable minutes later (actually less than three), I was being lifted into the ambulance. Exactly seven minutes after the accident, I was getting skilled emergency treatment in an Airforce Hospital.

Our plane, a research DC-3, had been on the last leg of a flight from Chicago via Washington that April evening

Second page reads:

We'd been skimming over Long Island after sunset and were preparing to land at Grumman Field when the craft was struck. Captain Macatee had no idea what had hit us until after landing, when he found a five-pound mallard duck in the cockpit.

The big bird, one of a migrating pair that had collided with us, had crashed through the windshield and struck me full inthe face, bouncing my head against the aluminum bulkhead behind me. A large dent in the heavy metal testified to the force of the blow. Later, when I had the chance to examine it, I realized that the bulkhead had actually kept my neck from snapping.

In my work in aviation safety, I had recently taken a keen interest in a procedure designed to test the resistance of cockpit windshields to just such bird strikes. The method was to fire a newly killed chicken, encased in a paper bag, from a pneumatic cannon at various types of windshield mock-ups. The technique is still in use today, except that the chickens are now fired at velocities as high as 700 miles an hour. Thanks to such testing, the modern cockpit windshield is an inch-thick marvel of strength, with heated laminations to prevent its becoming brittle at high-altitude temperatures.

By a wry twist of fate, stronger windshields had been orderd installed on all DC-3s. Ours arrived shortly after the accident.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I have heard a lot of wild ways that other one-eyed folks joined the Pirate Club. Incredibly, this is the *second* eye loss by duck story. Ducks, man.

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Reposted by Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!)

Dawn Vogel @historyneverwas.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Recommending the Outsiders Kickstarter from @kwakjessie.bsky.social ! historythatneverwas.com/2025/04/30/k...

historythatneverwas.com

History That Never Was » Kickstarter Recommendation: Outsiders by Jessie Kwak

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Reposted by Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!)

Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

You think I don't know the law? Wasn't it me who wrote it?

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

42 is the age where you understand the answer to life, the universe, and everything — right? Let's do this!

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Reposted by Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!)

Dani Fiend 👹 @danifinnwrites.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

2 more days for this bundle to help US trans refugees 🏳️‍⚧️ 🫶

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Me: What if I dealt with burnout by not writing anything for the rest of the year? Also me: Suddenly can't stop writing a brand new thriller WIP Sometimes what the work needs is for you to just decide you're not a writer anymore 😂

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Got a bone bruise on my femur playing capture the flag... ...the night before my wedding. I had to walk down the aisle on crutches.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 31/10/2024

I can't decide between my all black evil eye or my gleaming cyborg eye for greeting kids at the door with candy tonight.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 10/10/2024

The last time I played Horizon Forbidden West was apparently 6/30/23, two weeks before my eye injury. I saved in the middle of a battle? With some dude I don’t recognize?? And I don’t remember how to use my bow??? WTF am I doing here?????? Ok, think we’re gonna start a new game 😂

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 03/10/2024

Still riding high off watching my niece’s middle school volleyball team crush the opposition last night. Yeah! Show those rich private school kids what rez girls are mad of!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 28/09/2024

I think we have a winner for our mystery monster tree!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 28/09/2024

Do I have any smart plant friends on here who can help me ID this beast? For context, this is Oakridge, OR

An tree with leaves the size of an elephant’s ears, growing higher than a one-story roof

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 24/09/2024

I have just requested a new eye, and I'm extremely excited to see what my ocularist does with my direction! Wearable art!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 04/09/2024

My body wanting to be wide awake at 4am means I've gotten through most of my to do list (and also written 1k words on an unplanned essay) by 9:30am. Wild.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 05/08/2024

I love Jordan's books, and thoroughly enjoyed the first one in this series!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 26/07/2024

Just turned in a commissioned short story that could be described as: "A haunted cabin, but the real ghost was the patriarchy all along." Happy Friday!

media.tenor.com

Lets Go GIF

ALT: Lets Go GIF

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 19/07/2024

Go grab these weirdo super fun books!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 19/07/2024

The amount of time/brainpower I've spent figuring out how to publicly mark this—which feels necessary since it was a public thing from day 1. Can't capture all my feels in 1 essay, but here's my writerly take on the 1-year anniversary of getting shot in the eye. jessiekwak.ck.page/posts/pirate...

jessiekwak.ck.page

Pirate birthdays and new perspectives 🏴‍☠️

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 11/07/2024

I'd been wondering if I'd notice if I put my prosthetic eye in upside down and yep there's definitely a right way up

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 09/07/2024

Just had my one-year checkup with my retina surgeon, and he's pretty stoked on everything except that they'll probably never get the guy who shot me. Me too, doc. But my little weird eye passed the exam with flying colors!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 28/06/2024

I want to get back into boxing, but this gym's classes are at 6:30pm Do I eat a fast dinner at 5, so I'm neither starving nor too full? Or do I eat a snack, then have dinner at 8 and plan to stay up late? Not sure how to handle this, but either way I won't have time to cook real food. Thoughts?

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 20/06/2024

Oh hey hi! I'm taking part in a writeathon fundraiser today as part of the Alzheimer's Association's Longest Day annual fundraiser. All the money goes to Alzheimer's research! Please help the cause, if you're feeling so moved: act.alz.org/goto/jessiek...

Image reads: The Longest Day Alzheimer's Association: I'm a proud solstice champion!

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 18/06/2024

Finally submitted that essay about the many ways screenwriters use traumatic eye injuries as world-building and character-building in popular media. I had two more examples to add since I first drafted it in April, and I haven't even been watching that much tv.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 18/06/2024

I have never been pregnant, but in my teens and twenties I threw up almost every month on the first day of my period. Often multiple times. So I have a lot of questions for movie writers who announce pregnancy by having some poor actress vomit. My dudes we ladies contain multitudes of nausea

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Reposted by Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!)

Strong Women, Strange Worlds @swsworlds.bsky.social · 09/06/2024

Are you a speculative fiction author who identifies as a woman, or nonbinary? Then we want you! Fill out the form below to tell us you're interested in reading at one of our fun, low-pressure online Quick Reads events! #authors #writingcommunity #books docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

media.tenor.com

Celebrate Eurovision GIF

ALT: Celebrate Eurovision GIF

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 28/05/2024

I am four chapters from the end of Nanshe Chronicles 5!!! Can't wait to celebrate. 🤩 Finishing a book is always a big accomplishment, but this one's bigger than usual — getting back on the writing horse after my injury last summer has been quite the trip.

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 19/04/2024

In researching this week's fiction newsletter (jessiekwak.ck.page/posts/missed...) I came across this absolute legend of a Craigslist missed connection ad. portland.craigslist.org/mlt/mis/d/po... Did *you* take home the haunted armoire? I have so many questions.

portland.craigslist.org

You got a haunted armoire from Peerless Estate Sales - missed connections - craigslist

Last month you took home an armoire/cabinet from a Peerless Estate Sale on NE 65th (64th?). It was DEFINITELY haunted- I physically recoiled when I saw it, and the next day when it was marked 'Free'.....

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 05/04/2024

I have gone to bed at a reasonable hour every night this week, and barely had any booze. In other words, I have done The Responsible Things. So why am I so exhausted?

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Jessie Kwak 🦆 (🦈!) @kwakjessie.bsky.social · 27/03/2024

Just your friendly neighborhood cyborg out taking a walk in the spring rain.

Jessie under a purple polka-dot umbrella, wearing a mirrored silver prosthetic eye and smiling

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