iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

And leading into The Last Plunger I’ll Ever Need…

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

There are days, dear readers, I can hardly believe I’m paid for the work I do!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I made a bag, with pockets. No one else has this bag. It is a bespoke bag. Good job, me.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Saw this movie jet-lagged in London in 1998. Didn’t quite get it. But loved the dream sequences. And the “spreading” of Donny’s ashes. Saw it again last night. 9 of 10. 10 of 10 if we’re just talking about Jeff Bridges and his jelly sandals.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Bad design always sticks out to me. This sign looks like you’re applying lip gloss. I encourage you to put your hand in that position. IT’S WEIRD! It’s not a proper “shhhh” symbol: the hand is positioned wrong, regardless if you’re shhhhushing or shhhhushing someone else!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I circled back to this at Browse About books, twice: did I want to read about someone’s pain, when I carry pain from the loss of my mother in 2023, My Personal Year of Hell and Wonder? I gobbled this up. Wow. Nothing but praise. #booksky @mollyjongfast.bsky.social

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

I really resent this kind of marketing. I don’t know any handywoman who requires pink tools to be comfortable doing the job. Wanna market to us? Do tools with flames on the handles. Because we’re badasses, not little girls playing Barbie.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

My friend is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery, just a couple of miles from our work. Despite the fact that I’ve lived in the DMV for decades, I had never been there. It’s glorious. There’s this statue that I studied in Art History - it is better in person:

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Has recently become aware of American Realist painter Bob Barlett.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Oh how I adore a good paragraph!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

The leaning man on the left is Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who looks like he stepped out of this Hendrik Gerritsz Pot group portrait- oh look! There he is on the far right!!!!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

I think this is Rep. Eric Burlison, of Missouri, who also looks like he stepped out of a Grant Wood satirical portrait.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

But then, because everything is so balanced in this shot, and because we are conditioned to bounce from left to right… look at what’s happening on the right… ! Another triad and WHAT A FACE!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

… where this grouping is phenomenal. Not just the physical expression of the man in the foreground, but the men behind him, forming a little triad.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Center is Roy, who himself is an expressive figure. Not his face though… and the fingers at the center actually throw the eye to the left…

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

2/2 - Ali Hosseini Khamenei: became Iran’s Supreme Leader after Khomeini in 1989

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

1/2 - Ruhollah Khomeini : died 1989

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

It’s been 10 years since this moment.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Friday, post SCOTUS ruling.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The phrase “once a man, twice a child” assumes the individual was ever a mature man. Its roots are with a Greek grammarian, Diogenianus. Time comes for us all, and no amount of vile buffoonery and limp dick waving prevents the inevitable. Decline is undeniable. The cloud yelling is obvious.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

A best-seller in 1978: My mom had a copy. I re-read it this week after 44 years. It’s still excellent. But I don’t recognize that health care: patients are in the hospital days and weeks. No worries about insurance. The sexism from male doctors is something else.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

In praise of things that still work after 50 years

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

This one is so simple and so great!

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

This is my great-great Aunt Lizzie’s handiwork. She made all her clothes, and favored blues: cornflower, periwinkle, sky. She’d use her scraps for quilts, and she had such a strong sense of design.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

When you combine art school, sewing skills, and time. I shall call him… Tim.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Here is a more flattering photo from July 1944. He was accepting the Democratic nomination.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Here he is in November of 1943

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

In July of 1944, this photo of FDR shocked the country. He was 62 years old, and he’d be dead by April: a cerebral hemorrhage. He was being treated for hypertension, was on a low-salt diet, and he was a smoker. But the sudden change in his looks was evident to anyone with eyes in their heads.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Went on a witch-hunt today. Ended up at the house of Rebecca Nurse, the 71 year-old woman executed in 1692 because people were dumb and believed what they wanted to believe. And then told my son about “The Crucible” and it’s relation to McCarthyism. History. It burns and rhymes.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Susan, dear Susan. What a life you lead. What gifts you gave. Susan Stamberg made it BETTER for the generation of women who came after, and this woman thanks you deeply for it all: Your joy, Your smarts, Your kindness. Now rest, sweet gal. Your work is done.

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Melissa Gray @msgray.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Escaped to the Regency Era for the Jane Austen Society of North America’s annual convention. Learned English Country Dancing and cravat tying. Spoke to many about Mr. Darcy, Lizzie, Anne Elliot, Emma, Mrs. Jennings and fell in love with my job all over again.