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德化白瓷 Déhuà báicí/dehua white porcelain

Dehua County, located in Quanzhou, Fujian, China, is renowned for its white porcelain.

Its kilns flourished during the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song dynasties(960–1279 CE), peaked in the Yuan and Ming periods, and remain famous today, particularly for their white porcelain. Fired at high temperatures, the unglazed porcelain exhibits a smooth, jade-like texture, appearing crystal-clear and pure white.

I have a gift for falling in love with random objects. One time, my aunt got me a little rubber chicken, and whenever I squoze it, a little egg thing popped out. Very silly. Except that chicken became something like my best friend. I carried it with me to school, and I kept it with me in my pocket, and whatever social hazards there were about Being The Guy Who Got Stressed Whenever His Rubber Chicken Was Missing were far outweighed by being The Guy Who ALWAYS Had a Rubber Chicken On Him. There's a lot of comedic opportunity that comes with always having a good prop on your person.

Of course, the chicken did eventually. Explode. And such was my grief that I did not eat for 36 hours. This was very stressful for many people. Mostly my mom. I was a very strange child to work with. She took parenting so incredibly seriously, and then I'd pitch her these curve balls like refusing to eat for a day and a half because my rubber chicken died. No parenting book tells you what to do when that happens. You just have to feel it in your heart.

A less tragic story of an object that I fell in love with was a large, foam toad that I found in a trinket shop. The toad was the size of a very large grapefruit. Much too large to carry with me to school (thank god) but enough that I could move it around the house, to keep me company during my solitary pursuits. If I was reading, the toad was there, and if I was tinkering with legos, the toad was there, and even when I slept, I would wrap the toad up in layers and layers of blankets, and then spoon it. I did this until the rubber coating on the foam started to wear out, and the foam started to get brittle and break down and leak this repulsive yellow powder. Then I simply put the toad in the playroom and would consult it on matters of great importance. Eventually I stopped doing that, and someone took the opportunity to dispose of it. Not sure who. By the time I noticed its absence, too much time had passed for me to actually be sad. As an adult, part of me thinks I would have maybe liked burying the toad, but part of me also thinks I might have refused to part with the toad, which would have resulted in it leaking more repulsive yellow powder into the house. So I understand why that decision was made. 

I want to state that this does not happen often, and it does not happen on purpose. I don't choose to fall in love with random objects. And it's always a little bit embarrassing when it happens. 

Which brings me to my wife. 

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

Which is advice written directly by Chuck Palahniuk about how to write like Chuck Palahniuk, which is a style that OP doesn't want to emulate.

Popularity ("one of the world's best authors") isn't necessarily the same thing as writing well. Eragon was popular. I couldn't make it past the first few pages because it was poorly written. Anne McCaffrey told beautiful stories about Pern, but I always found her writing itself to be dry and difficult to swallow. Steven King is hugely popular, but his writing can also be dry at times. James Patterson has his name on a lot, a LOT, of popular stories that.... Well. Aren't really his, or at least weren't actually written by him. Would I take advice from any of them about how to write? No, probably not, unless it actually suited my style.

It's common right now for TV series to have 8-12 episode seasons, when we used to have 22-24 episode seasons. To tell the story in the shorter period of time, a lot of the "fat" gets trimmed, but if you've ever cooked meat you know that the fat is where the FLAVOR is. I desperately miss 22-24 episode seasons. I miss the trope episodes that don't particularly affect the plot. I miss that style of storytelling, and it's largely been sacrificed for the go go go trim the fat style OP references.

And the thing is, their advice isn't necessarily bad advice. But the message often comes out like OP says: "this is the only good way to write, and if you do x or y or z, it's bad writing."

And that's not necessarily the case. Maybe it's writing you don't like, and that's fine! Not every piece of writing is for every single person. But there are people who enjoy styles that aren't necessarily popular. That don't do what that advice orders them to do.

Do yourself a favor and check out Swanson's Fabrics! The physical location is in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, USA, but the online shop will ship to you!

I can't remember who first told me about Swanson's, but they're a textile thrift shop that collects and repurposes donations of unused sewing supplies. Their physical location, The Stash House, offers community sewing resources and a studio. For non-locals (such as myself), their online shop offers fabrics, patterns, and notions. The shop restocks on Thursdays, and they have a constantly-rotating collection of items. If you like thrifting secondhand craft materials, Swanson's is for you!

Via their official "about" page:

Swanson’s Fabrics and notions are gifts from retired sewing stashes. They are the fabrics and supplies that sewers and fiber-artists naturally accumulate. I had a suspicion that the reason we all collect so much is that we didn’t have a place “good enough” to take it. So I made the place. Turns out I was right, and thanks to my community (and yours) of makers and crafters, I can resell these fine materials at a low, approachable cost. ALL FABRICS ARE $5.00/yd, NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE MADE OF. REALLY. I MEAN IT. I KNOW. UNBELIEVABLE BUT TRUE! As we come to grips with the climate crisis, interrupted supply lines, and our dependency on slave-labor in far away countries to produce our cotton and fiber goods, we need another way to approach the fabrics in our lives. We have a massive resource of textile goods in our country and it is time to tap into it. Our attics, basements, thrift-store donation bins, and dumpsters are brimming with discarded fabrics. It is time to start making and trading for the things we need, and stop buying so much new stuff we don’t. We need to see ourselves as trash-rich. Customers at Swanson’s can pay for goods and services with goods and services. I accept trade of sewing and fiber supplies/materials, and trade for help in the shop. I hope to inspire you to make your own clothes, to mend the ones you have, to shop second-hand and alter things to your taste. There is a lot of power in dressing yourself. Custom is king, and you can’t have a revolution in your master’s clothes…. ❤️💪🏻 -Kathryn

The CovidSafeCosplay blog and its admin are unaffiliated with Swanson's Fabrics, and are simply sharing the resource.