iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 02/10/2026

this will end up just fine

cat sitting resolutely on top of a docked roomba

Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 01/10/2026

there is STUFF i am supposed to DO but also this showed up on my porch just now, surely the moral equivalent of a doctor’s note to get me out of obligations

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/09/2026

I don’t know if I trust the data retention practices of a group whose stated goal is eavesdropping on rats

screenshot from the article in the quoted post. the paragraph reads:

"This microphone is hot," said Basis scientist Nick Jourjine told walk participants. "It's picking up all the speech that's happening here, but our pipeline, once we upload this data, will detect that speech and remove it from the audio so that we can safely record rat vocalizations at scale without putting the people in the communities that we're trying to help at risk of having their personal conversations recorded."

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026

taking the morning off to go to urgent care to get my stitches taken out, accepting bets for how much of my bluesky homework (affectionate) I’ll finish while they take care of people who actually need urgent care

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 26/09/2026

you know what, yes I will put up the poster that was printed on the back of @akpress.org ‘s fall catalog

print reading “ALL YOU FASCISTS BOUND TO LOSE” in colorful overlapping text on a white background

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 25/09/2026

utility box by a bland suburban medical office park

a gray metal utility box. someone has written “OUR LIBERATION IS INTERTWINED” above a fraying poster that looks like it was a Shepard Fairey-style picture of Trump captioned “CHUMP.”

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026

ok, some of you are new here and one thing you should know is that I will periodically be putting on my (platonic agender) wife guy voice and yelling at you to preorder @mreiches.bsky.social ‘s book. look at the promo image PRH made! portersquarebooks.com/book/9798217...

the cover of CAT LADY: A RECKONING by Meredith Reiches, available 2.23.27 from Random House. the cover is white text on a background that is entirely orange cat fur with little rebellious tufts poking through the title.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 23/09/2026

ahem. do not @ me about ones that are missing, i didn’t consult my spreadsheet

about 90 books in several piles on top of a cedar chest. all the books are Josh’s fault.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 22/09/2026

“but rachel,” you might* be wondering, “did they manage to behead the book itself?” well, dear reader, *you were not

a copy of Headless World by Ascher/Straus. the cover is a drawing of a human torso outlining a forest. disembodied faces and eyes peek out of trees. the torso is cut off just above the chin. the book is held slightly open to show a single red page that divides the book into two halves. it’s doing a lot.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 20/09/2026

for a brief second this was gorgeous and now it’s just tasty

pot of chopped veggies including carrot, onion, kale, celery, green chile, and purple sweet potato

mug of the same soup, the colors are still there but muted

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 19/09/2026

in other Very Good Cover news I just picked this up and I’ll see you all on Monday

paperback copy of FOAM by Kate Zambreno, which I will do my very best to describe. it’s a 2021 work by the artist Ser Serpas called “conjoining fabricated excesses literal end to a mean.”

in this found-objects work, an old mattress is folded up and has has been shoved through a black panel of something - insulation, maybe? so that the panel sits at an angle to a raw concrete floor in the corner of a room. the walls behind the mattress/panel assemblage look unfinished, some dingy yellow with white spackle and crumbling drywall adjoining a section of white fresh drywall. the book’s title and the author’s name are in starker white against the white drywall, and the publisher’s name, Semiotext(e), is in small white letters against the concrete floor in front of the mattress.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 16/09/2026

gonna start a little thread for mid-month updates on this new sweater and see if that helps shift some scrolling time to knitting time. i like y’all but i need an analog thing that doesn’t need my text brain. 9/15/26: cast on and one row

loop of knitting (barely) on a set of circular needles. the yarn is pale blue/gray Brooklyn Tweed worsted in the Tones Icicle colorway. the pattern is indiscernible right now but it will be the Upper West Sweater by Thea Colman.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 14/09/2026

she thinks if she’s cute enough I won’t take away her new sweater.

cat lying on her side on a freshly washed handknit sweater that’s laying out to dry. she looks like someone who knows she’s about to lose the only thing she ever loved.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 12/09/2026

it’s important to have friends who know when they’ve read a book that is relevant to your interests. (on loan from the bestie.)

SEX ISN’T REAL: THE INVENTION OF AN INCOHERENT BINARY by Beans Velocci

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 12/09/2026

farmers market flowers update

bouquet of flowers in peach/orange/yellow colors with some dark purple spiky friends for good measure

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 12/09/2026

this is, very precisely, the current phase of my relationship with this cat

cat is lying on my stomach and looking at me like I am inconveniencing her tremendously

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 11/09/2026

phone: your, ah. your storage. it’s… me: what?? how could my storage possibly be full. also me, whenever the sky turns any color:

screenshot of fifteen photo thumbnails of the same sunset over a beach

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 11/09/2026

“Nobes himself looked like his entire family had died from an overdose of processed cheese.” portersquarebooks.com/book/9781953...

a copy of CALLS MAY BE RECORDED by Katharine Volckmer

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 08/09/2026

summer light is nice but I do like to be rewarded for getting up early

same sunrise from a different angle, bright gold and orange and pink set against purple-gray clouds fading up to blue sky

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 07/09/2026

you probably already know this, but just in case, I’m getting this on any csindie.com link

notice that says “This Account has been suspended. Contact your hosting provider for more information.”

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 06/09/2026

by way of apology for that last post here is something actually worth your time: a very good book about loss and piecemeal construction of meaning

RESIDUAL by Tisa Bryant. the cover shows a Black woman standing on a plank
in a crumbling house, wearing a floral dress and a sun hat. her back is turned to us and she’s looking over her shoulder out a window. the book is on a cafe table next to a cup of coffee.

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 06/09/2026

didn’t expect to catch good light this morning, but

sunrise throwing bright pink glow on low clouds

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 06/09/2026

this week’s homemade pizza attempt is on the right side of the binary

slices of homemade pizza with grilled peaches, mushrooms, peach-basil sausage, green chile tomato sauce, and mozzarella

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 05/09/2026

i just think my neighborhood is neat

flyer for an arts and music festival in Gilman Square, Somerville, MA on Saturday September 12 from 12-5

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 05/09/2026

well, one of the hydrangeas is doing ok

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 05/09/2026

my upstairs neighbor planted marigolds in our little patch of “garden” without knowing what they were and they are THRIVING (unlike the hydrangeas we put there as an experiment)

an abundant marigold plant with one flower blooming and more on the way

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 05/09/2026

farmers market flower update

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 05/09/2026

on the needles for #ShowMeYourKnits : there’s a possible world where I actually finish this this weekend. do we live in that world? only one way to find out

most of a gray-green handknit sweater with a little bit of sleeve and a collar left to be done. pattern is Bibliophile 2 by Alicia Plummer, yarn is Spincycle Versus (DK weight) in the Flora & Fauna colorway

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 31/08/2026

continuing the theme of different kinds of radical and complex connnection into August: An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail: portersquarebooks.com/book/9781804... Unfinished Grief: portersquarebooks.com/book/9781804... Triage: portersquarebooks.com/book/9781644...

AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT FAIL by Hélène Giannecchini, translated by Anna Moschovakis

UNFINISHED GRIEF: QUEER LOVE AND LOSS by Joshua Chambers-Letson

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 31/08/2026

portrait of someone who may or may not have noticed I was gone

cat accepting scritches and looking like she maybe actually is glad to see me

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 30/08/2026

if I convinced you to listen to this album based on this line, may I also suggest this book that includes … fish in your veins portersquarebooks.com/book/9780811...

A CERTAIN LUCAS by Julio Cortázar, translated by Gregory Rabassa

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 30/08/2026

my flight home is delayed but you know what, after a couple of days of friends, books, art, coffee, and good light, I don’t mind staying in Portland a little longer

afternoon light through some pine trees with a river in the background

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/08/2026

one more that I was into from the Portland Art Museum, from an exhibit of painters from various diasporas who are now working in the Pacific Northwest