To my great shame, I have three public fanfictions under my belt. Not that I feel shame about having written them, specifically. Rather, it’s the fact that all of them are unfinished. The most popular is a lengthy slow burn set in Forks, Washington, where Twilight’s Charlie Swan and Harry Potter’s Remus Lupin meet and fall in love—with my self-insert. I think I’ve hit a niche with that one, because it gets the occasional like to this day. I guess you either age out of Twilight or realize Charlie was the only one worth giving the time of day to, and by then you're the prime age to be scouring AO3. For 60k words, the story hobbles along, growing increasingly seriously committed. And bam, after a good fourteen chapters of yearning (and a surprisingly intense detective plot) they kiss. On the mouth. Wild.

It has come to my attention, following some very concerning conversations with friends, that not everyone was as enthralled by Apple's Pluribus as I was. This is, for lack of a better word, unacceptable. It's shocking and appalling. Did we even watch the same tv series? I was glued to my seat every episode, at once frustrated with the slow plot development and utterly convinced of its purpose.

There's an irony here which tempers my usual hotheadedness about tv a little bit. After all, if Pluribus is about anything, it's friction. The slight discomfort inherent to most human interactions, where we give up a tiny bit of our convenience for intimacy to work. In On the Inconvenience of Other People, Lauren Berlant talks about the paradoxical desire to be inconvenienced by others, and I think it's an interesting reading for this series.

I have finally managed to get an expert to weigh in on how spinning silk is best done! Thanks to Tineke uit den Boogaard's patience and time, I've come to learn that I was spinning with far too heavy a spindle, not to mention that my pre-spinning prep needs some work. 80% of spinning is in the preparation of the fibre into an even thickness, and this prevents many of the bumps and irregularities in, specifically, silk hankie yarn. An illuminating experience! I'm practising on commercial silk hankies for now, but my own 14g of home-processed silk lie waiting.

With any luck, the goal of a knitted piece of clothing made from my very own caterpillars' silk is on the horizon!

A third batch of cocoons was messily processed today. For about an hour, a little pan full of soapy water and mushy silk simmers away, filling the air of my studio apartment with the leafy smell of silkworm. Not that any silkworms were harmed in the process! The cocoons' original inhabitants long since vacated the premises, spending their final days fluttering and mating to their heart's content. Still, the cocoons' architecture leaves no doubt as to its creators. Their earthy smell always brings me back among the silkworms.

The silk harvesting process involves more fiddling with scalding water than I'd like, but after being stretched over a little wooden frame, soaked in a special wool soap, and then rinsed a final time, the result is glossy silk that's (hopefully) ready for spinning into proper yarn! I'm still working on a spinning strategy, as my attempts with the drop spindle have been less that ideal. Big names in the industry are being approached for their expertise!