iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anybody else fattening up for the winter? It's fat bear week at our house.

Some days you read the news and it takes every fiber of your being not to burn in anger. Righteous anger and the unmet desire for justice must find its outlet. Radical imagination is the first step to a more useful path. www.everydayactivismnetwork.org/archive/radi...

everydayactivismnetwork.org

How to Use Your Radical Imagination to Envision a Just and Equitable World — Everyday Activism Network

What is radical imagination? It sees the world not as it is, but as it could be: a healthy planet that is just and equitable for all. Radical imagination is the engine of social change movements. Rad...

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 30/09/2026

Made a brilliant start to the day when I texted my husband that I loved him & hoped he would have a good day with a heart emoji. Except I texted man with same name who was a building manager for my workplace. Just killer that he responded "thanks, but". I've sweat through my bra. This day is done.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 30/09/2026

I think about poverty all the time. How it defines and limits a person's world and how increasingly difficult it is to escape it. How hard it is to sleep, think, engage in the world when you don't know where your next meal is coming from or how you're ever going to get out from under crushing debt.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 27/09/2026

The "you live in a bubble if you don't know xyz" discourse is a conversation stopper, a salve for someone's unrequited enthusiasm for whatever thing they like at the moment. Happily there is so much art & creation in the world that our interests may not overlap. But when I'm excited about something,

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 26/09/2026

I'm fairly astute about internet bullshit, but took an online political test since someone I followed did. It was then shown to be linked to a weird ass race scientist substack. It's a reminder to fucking slow down with the clickety-clicks - even in this so-called "echo chamber". I'm mad at myself.

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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 26/09/2026

"Ever wonder why women over fifty become invisible? It’s not because society no longer values them; it’s because they’ve changed into superior lizard beings who can smell misogyny and then wedge themselves into a tight crevice until the threat passes." buff.ly/F8vQT1N

buff.ly

I Can’t Wait Until I Turn Fifty and Morph into a Lizard Person

“Ever wonder why women over fifty become invisible? It’s not because society no longer values them; it’s because they’ve changed into superior lizard beings ...

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United Farm Workers @ufw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Javier" is packing raspberries in Salinas CA. "The pickers bring them in buckets and we transfer them into the plastic baskets you buy at a store-making sure each one has the correct weight. We only get 6-7 hours of work a day and that affects our families' income." #WeFeedYou

A table where workers are packing raspberries

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 23/09/2026

Working on not sliding into a depressive abyss and giving up writing altogether. Saw George Saunders at a reading/talk last night. I usually find my way clear when I get into the swampiness, but maybe not sharing the air with great writers should be the plan for awhile.

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Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"I am a writer and my faith in the world of art is intense but not irrational or naïve. Art invites us to take the journey beyond price, beyond costs into bearing witness to the world as it is and as it should be." ~ Toni Morrison

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 22/09/2026

Make it a "Never clink the heart or comment until you read the article" Day. Celebrate wisely.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 22/09/2026

The perfect crossover of my love of linguistics & birds. My Spanish teacher asked me to show her a few of my bird photos for class & I could practice describing them. I've spent 8 hours in the last week learning obscure bird names & body parts. I'm having a blast. I suspect she will have regrets.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Community is needed and can be good but it is often invoked in a way that serves a deskilling agenda in terms of labor and jobs.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 21/09/2026

This is one of the few podcasts I listen to. Engaging, informative, and a balm at a time when it feels like all the dipshits are winning.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 21/09/2026

My new reply guy mode: I hate AI AND golf courses. I learn so much about myself on here.

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Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"Just do it, badly. Just write the thing you need or want to write, that you are avoiding. That avoidance is costing you greatly, isometrically, and in general well-being. So can you find one measly hour, to write, badly?" ~ Anne Lamott

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 21/09/2026

Thinking about the hungry girls this morning. Reading the title story "All This Want (and I Can't Get None)", T Clark's short story collection, I vividly recall going to school hungry, being ravenous at friends' houses, jealous of full fridges & the vulnerability in that want. tinyurl.com/59ytpz9f

tinyurl.com

All This Want (and I Can't Get None) - Penguin Random House Library Marketing

Curated lists of Library Marketing titles by theme and category, find your next community read and resources to design your program.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 20/09/2026

The pleasure of nonfiction is the journey to more ideas & sources. The Overseer Class by @thrasherxy.bsky.social has me madly taking notes on resources to read. Great footnotes & suggested readings if you're educating yourself on social justice issues. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

harpercollins.com

The Overseer Class

The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass (one of Kirkus Reviews best books of 2022) is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what ...

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 19/09/2026

Every time I read about someone's partner being radicalized into the red by YouTube, I lean over my husband's shoulder. I'm relieved to see that he's usually watching videos of old farmers working on their tractors or baby animals being rescued & returned to their moms. He's my kind of dude.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 19/09/2026

Kudos to the lady who walked into the bookstore with a t-shirt that read "I'm not angry. I just don't fucking like you." Same, sister, same.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 18/09/2026

My joy in human performance & creation, whether it be writing, dancing, acting, painting, etc. is in the awe & admiration of what humans can do. The "wow, how did they do that?" is absent from computer generated pablum. Generative AI is a literal thief of human work & joy. Be human, create harder.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 18/09/2026

True old lady moment: yelling at squabbling squirrels outside my study window to "Knock it off!"

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 17/09/2026

Early morning reading with coffee and a big warm blanket.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 17/09/2026

TIL the difference between asocial & antisocial. So many words get used casually & incorrectly - I've been wrong in describing my need for solitude at times as antisocial. In an age where everyone is self-diagnosing & using psychological terms, it feels important to get the terminology right.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 17/09/2026

Yesterday my mother asked if AI could actually feel anything. As much as I loathe generative AI, I also hate the media and techbro coverage that has people believing it can do things that it cannot do. It's all a huge fucking grift. Educate your oldies.

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The Tyee @thetyee.ca · 16/09/2026

A military base in Washington state, bird handovers at a gas station, a slew of permits, thousands of volunteer hours, nest boxes — and a whole lot of tiny, wriggling mealworms. Here’s the story of how the bluebird came back. thetyee.ca/News/2026/09...

thetyee.ca

Bluebirds Went Extinct on Vancouver Island. Now They’re Back | The Tyee

Seventy landowners and many other volunteers have helped return their gentle, chortling song to the Cowichan Valley.

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Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

A lot of people seem to take it as a fact that the private sector has secret efficiency magic the public sector doesn't have. It doesn't. It pays workers less and charges more for the same service. That's like 99% of private sector "efficiency." And everyone's worse off, except shareholders.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 16/09/2026

You walk through life repeating some ideological pablum or platitudes until someone shows you differently. Because I'm a book nerd, that someone is usually a writer. About to change again, because @thrasherxy.bsky.social's The Overseer Class is hitting hard. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

harpercollins.com

The Overseer Class

The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass (one of Kirkus Reviews best books of 2022) is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what ...

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 15/09/2026

I think about how tedious it is to do housework this morning and then I chuckle in appreciation that I'm not currently explaining to members of Congress why I want goatfuckers in my FBI.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 15/09/2026

"...We make them reveal the brutes they are by the things we make them name..." Solmaz Sharif, "Dear Aleph", Customs www.solmazsharif.com

solmazsharif.com

Solmaz Sharif

Solmaz Sharif is an American poet and author of LOOK and CUSTOMS.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 14/09/2026

We all have little internalized rules for our social media accounts. I try very hard not to say the president's name or repost anything that would force followers to see his face or those of his butthole minions. I don't think "exposure" is an issue. I use alt text. I rarely make "ally" statements,

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 14/09/2026

I just spent a few days at Voyageurs National Park. It was beautiful. I saw cool mushrooms, amazing lakes, and great trails. You'd think I'd have some gorgeous photos. Alas, my best pics were rodents. Always rodents.

A chipmunk with pretty full cheeks standing on its hind legs. You'd never know there was a huge national forest and amazing lake from my photos.

A tiny red squirrel so intent on eating a pinecone that it did not mind the casual observer fumbling with her zoom lens trying to get a shot.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 11/09/2026

I feel the same way about political party loyalty as I do about patriotism. If you're quashing critics instead of asking "How can we do this better?", I assume your defensiveness is from a position of weakness. Strength means you can hear criticism and think on whether there is a truth to address.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 11/09/2026

Finished reading @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social's A Man of Two Faces. I don't think I've ever read a memoir that has churned up so much fear as a writer - the understanding that those things we avoid are the things we should be writing. Amazing work. #writingcommunity groveatlantic.com/book/a-man-o...

groveatlantic.com

A Man of Two Faces | Grove Atlantic

The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide...

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 11/09/2026

I have a moment now, when someone talks about writing prompts, of not being sure I need to go on a rant or to just nod my head. Are they talking about entering them into some garble machine or talking about the usual writing workshop prompts? "Is it AI?" is plaguing everything. #writingcommunity

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 10/09/2026

I spend an awful lot of time going through friends' & family's systems & apps to shut down all the AI shit. I also bristle at ChatGPT and people who suddenly think they're artists, writers, and filmographers because they typed a prompt. Being insufferable is a skill. Use it wisely.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 10/09/2026

What's it like inside your head?

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 10/09/2026

Equivocating about human rights is not an ethical stance. It's a political one that buys you nothing & potentially loses actual supporters. Bird in the hand & all that. Politicians don't belong on pedestals, no matter the desperation to win - most especially white men with claims to religiosity.

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Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"Sing and do not stop. March and do not stop. Work and do not stop. Write your story across the sky and don't despair because despair is the most powerful weapon of the dominant." ~ Luis Alberto Urrea / @urrealism.bsky.social

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 10/09/2026

I'm so glad that we have all these video records of this administration. I want these grinning dipsticks who stand behind the demented pumpkin at his various circuses to be constantly reminded of what utterly empty husks of humanity they are.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 10/09/2026

A yellowjacket rode my windshield all the way home from work. I was on 35mph roads most of the time, so of course was wondering how fast they fly on their own. Their average speed is 7mph, with the fastest being 30mph. He was probably having a pretty good time.

Yellowjacket wasp taking a lift home on my windshield.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 09/09/2026

Years ago I read Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice. I'm a fast decision maker surrounded by slow decision makers. The anxiety around making the "wrong choice" lends itself to a paralysis & it is not made easier with the number of choices we have to make. What kind of decision maker are you?

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 08/09/2026

Had particularly funny moment in my Spanish lesson today when she asked me why I liked to read fiction. I wanted to say to "escape life" using my terrible Spanish and ended up telling her I wanted to commit suicide. When she explained, I could not stop laughing. There is something wrong with me.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 08/09/2026

I had to report & block an account for incitement to violence on someone's timeline. Adult dysregulation trotted out into the public square. I have my moments of indiscretion (not violent, just vulgar), but it makes me think a lot of us need constructive anger management strategies. What's yours?

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Citizen.Coping @propcazhpm.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Immigrant women AND women of color primarily hold these jobs. More women— carers and daughters/mothers— will be harmed by this policy. How can they care about the family when they so readily destroy them with deportations, cutting food benefits, healthcare, and now wages and home care. Heartless.

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 07/09/2026

I realized this morning that I plagiarized myself. I have the exact same scene in a short story that I have in my novel. I really like a delapidated convenience store scene, I guess. Never thought that would be my motif. What's yours? #writingcommunity

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Michelle @thegreenstudy.com · 07/09/2026

Spent last night's dreams in a book club where I had not read the book. Neither had anyone else. We sat there, a room of 20 some people in complete silence, occasionally punctuated by the facilitator looking at me and saying "What did you think of the narrative structure?"

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United Farm Workers @ufw.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Mo Jourdane spent his life overcoming multiple tragedies by finding new purpose in changing the lives of underrepresented people and in devotion to family. He is best known for getting California to ban use of el cortito, the infamous short-handled hoe. www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...

Photo of Mo Jourdane holding a short handled hoe

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