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Rachel Hands

@rachelhands.com
1.5K followers 663 following 8K posts

contains work, tech, books, good light, weird art and music. also sometimes cats. she/her. 🖤🩶🤍💜. opinions mine. mostly-work writing at the link: rachelhands.com

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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 42m
I frankly feel very much like this book cover, here at the end of Q3
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 42m
happy end of Q3 to all who celebrate
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 2h
September was …. rough for finishing things but there was one clear fave. possibly my new favorite KZ which is saying a lot: portersquarebooks.com/book/9781635...
portersquarebooks.com
Foam (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
A strange and speculative text from one of the most innovative writers of their generation.I am still transitioning, but I am unsure into what.Who are all these Evas? They puncture and disrupt the domestic space and equilibrium of the narrator, who alternately relies upon them or administers their care. Foam is the latest boundary-blurring, genre-resistant, strange and speculative new fiction from Kate Zambreno, the inimitable and relentless literary stylist and conceptualist. Inspired by the absurdities of Eva Hesse and other soft sculpture, these are speculative art essays and textures, a document of precarity and slippery time—mischievous, moody, estranged—a masterwork of tone and atmosphere.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 4h
there was a kid in the store when I was in recently who confidently proclaimed “fiction is real and nonfiction is not real!” and yeah, I have a shelf or two of those
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 4h
if you like the kind of books I post about and your family is bugging you for a holiday list, here is your present
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 5h
a common misconception. sometimes they’re Argentine
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jonlink @jonlink.bsky.social · 8h
A Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) plan for Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) control is currently taking comment until Oct 30. Water & sewer bills in Somerville are the highest in the state and are set to double and CSO is why. Here's a short explainer and what you should do.
voice.somervillema.gov
Combined Sewer Overflow Control Planning Program - Joint efforts by Cambridge, MWRA, and Somerville
The Draft Plan is here! Submit comments by October 30, 2026. The City of Cambridge, the City of Somerville, and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority are proud to present the Draft Updated Combi...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 13h
bsky.app/profile/rach...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 13h
timeline corrective: tell me about a time someone introduced you to a piece of music because they loved it or wanted to make sense of it together, and that you now love. e.g.: sitting on the floor of my friend Steve’s apartment listening to Louis Andriessen’s De Stijl, thinking “this is ALLOWED??”
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 14h
my radar for this kind of thing is very insensitive, but probably ballet class circa age 10 or 11
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 30/09/2026
it’s a good thing they are around to keep an eye on such safety hazards as solo exercise
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 30/09/2026
yes I am lying down on the couch, no this is not lap time
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 30/09/2026
ok, I recognize that the PT exercises do not look like much is happening but it still feels like an insult for the cat to decide I’m furniture mid-set
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i agree with the key point here and will add to it that there IS a reward, it’s knowing you did one right thing instead of walking around plagued by the nameless shame that afflicts all men who are determined to live the most frictionless lives possible
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/09/2026
portrait of an explorer
cat climbing on a person’s lap and gazing steadfastly into the distance. some slightly overstuffed bookshelves are behind her.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/09/2026
anyway I’m doing a bad job of my own goal of staying out of ai discourse. logging off now
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/09/2026
it might be that their speech detection is so well trained that it removes all non-rat vocalizations before the data becomes accessible. it might also be that they’re going to get subpoenaed for the raw data and feel like they have to hand it over.
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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 · 29/09/2026
outstanding
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/09/2026
have been trying to avoid adding to ai discourse on here as an experiment in my own mental health and today is testing me. so maybe instead of failing that test I will find somebody to compliment on their work
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
(this is a local medical provider network I’ve been using for almost 20 years, they just never asked me before)
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
no I’m confident that they meant orientation. they know my pronouns.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
not beating the allegations of secretly being a robot, I guess
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
I was so taken aback that I very nearly said out loud “404 file not found”
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
at urgent care today (to get three sutures taken out of my hand) they asked for my sexual orientation. to the receptionist’s credit they said very clearly that I didn’t have to answer if I didn’t want to. and also. they asked.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
HUZZAH!!
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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
ACID GREEN VELVET by Grace Krilanovich
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Kirkdale Bookshop @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Nearly two years after I read it, I still think often about this. It didn't really get the attention it should have done fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/the-wa...
fitzcarraldoeditions.com
The Ways of Paradise | Fitzcarraldo Editions
In his foreword to The Ways of Paradise, Peter Cornell presents this so-called found manuscript, the work of a now-deceased, obscure researcher who spent three decades in the National Library of Swede...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 28/09/2026
I regret to share that I do, in fact, feel better if I do the little forest*** witch* exercises
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 27/09/2026
“The vapours that had risen from warm bodies in the pews would have carried syllables mixed with candle-soot, distilled as condensation on the chapel windows.”
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 27/09/2026
I’m not very far in but it’s already got some of the fascination with objects and abandoned spaces holding stories that AGITT had, and maybe even more of the kind of imagery and poetic language you’re meant to feel in your body
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 27/09/2026
the print version is worth it for the visuals but some of you need this for immediate sunday storm listening (read by the author) libro.fm/audiobooks/9...
libro.fm
Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa Narrated by Doireann Ní Ghríofa Audiobook on Libro.fm
From the award-winning author of A Ghost in the Throat comes a time-traversing, form-defying, genre-morphing story of a reader unraveling the legacies of a fabled asylum and the women who haunt its ha...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 27/09/2026
there’s a line in Foam that goes “The multiplicity of simultaneous connections and isolations.” and man nobody does THAT like Kate Zambreno
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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
this would have been an indecipherable handwritten note if not for the stitches
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
important notes I take at work about important tasks I have to do
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
Asana emailed me to ask if I forgot to send my comment. the comment is “Actors are people”
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
this is a post for like four of you but it is bringing me joy
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
thinking about people who’ve never been to the Met Opera before and are imagining powdered wigs or whatever, encountering Yannick’s conducting and ARC’s voice in a Missy Mazzoli/Royce Vavrek opera is going to get me through the rest of the week
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026
Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
10/10, would tell my friends to catch a falling knife here (friends. do not catch falling knives. i did save the cat tho.)
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 24/09/2026
i got a customer satisfaction survey about my visit to the ER. possibly hospitals should not have to measure their net promoter scores
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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 · 23/09/2026
you know… the person who could do this does have a big embarrassing crush on Mamdani
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 23/09/2026
safety first
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Mutual Aid Medford and Somerville @mutualaidmamas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
ENG: Check out our mending skillshare coming up this Sunday! Join your neighbors to learn (or teach!) how to darn, sew, patch, and repair clothing—no experience needed. Either mend clothing for the free store, or bring your own projects! Masking is encouraged, but not required.
Pictured is a green flier with a darker green dot border on the top and bottom. In the bottom right, green pants, a green cardigan, and multi colored thread spools are pictured. Near the top left, “MEND” is written large black text and "with MAMAS" is beneath. "Join your neighbors for a mending skillshare!" is below in black text. In a white text box below that, "Learn to darn, patch, and repair clothing, no experience needed. Bring your own projects to work on or mend clothing for the free store. Masking is encouraged, but not required!” is written in black text. In a white box with black text on the top right, "Sunday, 9/27 1:30-3:30 PM, Connexion 149 Broadway, Somerville" is written.¡Echa un vistazo a nuestros talleres de reparación de ropa que tendrán lugar este domingo! Únete a tus vecinos para aprender (¡o enseñar!) a zurcir, coser, poner parches y reparar prendas; no se requiere experiencia previa. ¡Puedes reparar ropa para la tienda gratuita o traer tus propios proyectos! Se recomienda el uso de mascarilla, ¡pero no es obligatorio!

Domingo, 27/9 en Connexion (149 Broadway, Somerville). 13:30 a 15:30.Confira nossas oficinas de consertos que acontecerão neste mês de domingo! Junte-se aos seus vizinhos para aprender (ou ensinar!) a cerzir, costurar, remendar e reparar roupas — não é necessária experiência prévia. Você pode consertar roupas para a loja gratuita ou trazer seus próprios projetos! O uso de máscara é recomendado, mas não obrigatório!

Domingo, 27/09, na Connexion (149 Broadway, Somerville). Das 13h30 às 15h30.Vin gade sesyon nou yo k ap fèt dimanch pou pataje konesans sou jan pou fè reparasyon! Vin jwenn vwazen ou yo pou aprann (oswa anseye!) kijan pou rakorde, koud, rapyese, epi repare rad—ou pa bezwen eksperyans. Swa ou ka repare rad pou magazen gratis la, oswa ou ka pote pwòp pwojè ou yo! Nou ankouraje w mete mask, men se pa obligatwa!

Dimanch 27/9 @ Connexion (149 Broadway, Somerville). 1:30-3:30 PM.
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 22/09/2026
good light update
sunset with streaky neon pink and orange clouds against blue sky fading toward gold at the horizon
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 22/09/2026
how could you imply that i’m not ready for my onsite meetings tomorrow. i know exactly what i’m going to read on the subway.
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