maybe it’s in poor taste to say that I actually use these posts as reminders to self from time to time, but I needed this one and maybe you do too rachelhands.com/2025/06/28/y...

the other day I was in a cab with the radio tuned to some end-times evangelist horror show and it sounded …. a lot like this thread

okay I just got to the end so any of you who care to yell about this non-vaguely in DMs, hello

good light update

agenda

shoutout to the Chiharu Shiota Home Less Home exhibition at the ICA Boston Watershed this summer

I have been a bummer so here are things that also mattered today: -seeing friends -incredible weather -first good leaves coming in -eating the requisite annual fluffernutter -Darian Donovan Thomas’s latest album ddt93.bandcamp.com/album/a-room...

with alt text (honk bands, you were made for this)

quick break from the horrors to appreciate the ace pride hoodie my bestie sent because I was gently complaining about illegibility

the description of the problem.

this was verified by the local ICE watch, 2 neighbors taken by agents in 2 cars

Just now at Broadway and Hathorn St. #iceout

I doubt they’ll show up in Union but if you’re heading to Fluff Fest today and you’re not at high risk of 🧊 taking you, maybe consider a walk through East Somerville to make it harder for them to take my neighbors.

🚨 HOMELAND SECURITY IN EAST SOMERVILLE 🚨 I’ve received a credible report that Homeland Security appears to be staging near the East Somerville Community School by Pearl and Glen St. Community members are asked to show up. I am on my way over right now.

extremely fuck this. four neighbors gone.

Rosa, who has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a lap cat, seems to be fine with this

I have four things that I have to get done today and they would each take five minutes EXCEPT that the app I need to do all of them is down

Canceled your streaming services and need a book? Here are a few of the books that have recently transported me out of time and space: The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller Nicked by MT Anderson Cinnamon & Gunpowder by Eli Brown Hild by Nicola Griffith Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel

Ethan’s newsletter is good and you should sign up for it Zapier’s ai sentiment evaluation rubric is bad and they should feel bad

ICE agents just took one of our fellow protesters inside the facility after we stood up to them kidnapping our neighbors.

it’s Donate to Water Conservation Day here in the Hands household, so that more New Mexico nerd dads can teach their kid to skip rocks. rest easy, Dad, we got this. www.amigosbravos.org/donate/

congratulations to the new mayor of the bike path!!

I went to the meeting, much to the dismay of the cat

I have a meeting in seven minutes and my extremely non-cuddly cat just settled onto my lap (I can count the number of times she has done this in 17 years on one hand) I have to cancel the meeting, right?

if you find this difficult to imagine, I can tell you it is fun

I have to do a bunch of Professional Thinking about ai today so I would like to hear about something neat you did or saw recently or are excited about that requires human beings l’ll start: I reread Time is The Thing a Body Moves Through and it sparked some thoughts/conversations about art-friends

it is hard to explain how delightfully bonkers this is but the incumbent mayor, who may be okay at parts of the job but who is abysmal at communicating, will NOT be standing in the general because the queer, black, polyamorous, DSA, pro-psychedelics city councilor CRUSHED her in the prelim

!!

multiple people texted me to make sure I caught tonight’s sunset, which is one way I know I’m living correctly

having some pretty grim thoughts about what kind of internet we’ll have via Marc Andreessen’s tiktok

this book is in the (very short) list of further reading recs at the back of my Leading in Times of Crisis zine — good for folks of all backgrounds as a tool for thinking about how to address harm you cause when you’re in a position of power.

for those of us in tech, btw, there is a very clear “the least we can do”: PledgeNoHate.tech (simply put: we won’t do business with hate/extremist groups, as identified by the SPLC.)

You love to see people protecting their neighbors like this

needed to hear this:

good light update

Second wave of ICE presence in this neighborhood in four days. Somerville pals, please be on the lookout. (I’ll be copying/folding another batch of @meganpiont.bsky.social ‘s “How to report ICE” zines tonight, neighbors lmk if you want some)

speaking as a non-bookseller, if your work is at all connected to the sharing of ideas, you should probably read Josh’s essay and think about what your “the least we can do” is

I’m late in getting around to Death Takes Me. did I miss the part where everyone screams about how good this is? some things happened, I know. but I feel like there hasn’t been enough screaming. so here is some: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH (I’m only halfway through so if you finished it pls only scream vaguely)

good light update (yesterday, elsewhere)

Is there someone whose way you could ease today?

someone baited a rachel trap

thinking about the genuine message I’d have written for the customer in NJ who, when I handed over her decaf grande mocha, said “oh, it’s a GIRL.”

not a single one of you told me about the chapter of Death Takes Me that’s 50% a list of 17th and 18th c castrati. how did this happen.

I know we are talking about Big Things on here still but I am also unable to let go of the image of a pigeon I saw today, lying on its belly in the exact middle of a parking space as if it had found the comfiest spot in the world

the kind of tired where if my takeout gets delivered next door I will accede to the universe’s desire for my neighbors to have that ramen

ICE is outside Connexion in East Somerville this morning, neighbors. stay safe. I’ll be heading over there in about an hour.

do me a favor and use the guy’s whole name so I don’t have to mute posts about Star Trek: TOS, thanks

here, you deserve this

oh MAN i needed some good news today