Today's Articles (2/6/2025)

Jun 02, 2025

I Tested My Blood for Microplastics. The Results Weren’t What I Expected.

• Also, there’s no proven way to get rid of the plastics inside us.

• What could be leaching the most plastics into me: filter tea bags I use for my loose leaf tea; tea bags; plastic bags for carrying my breakfast; cracked toothbrush I'm currently using; my plastic utensils for lunch at work;

‘Mom, am I the missing twin?’: the story of two babies separated by the Chinese state – and their emotional reunion

• We very much want to see you and hope you and your family are not afraid. We won’t snatch you away from your family.

Modern Mrs Darcy Round-up (link)

Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later

• But if someone pleads “Never let me go,” they’re not only asking for the impossible; they must know, even as they make the request, that they’re asking for something beyond anyone’s gift. This was why I found these words so moving—why I wished to embed their poignance at the heart of my novel. Because there are times when we human beings wish, from the depths of our souls, for something we know to be beyond anyone’s reach.

Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss

• And then there are the objects that – even if they were made in some anonymous factory and bought in some anonymous shop – seem to carry with them a kind of magic.

• “If it smashes, it smashes” became her new mantra.

• [...] we may be taught that certain possessions are only for best, but what if today is all we have?

• When I served and ate food from the Matsumai platters, I wanted to bring her back so I could tell her that she was right to buy them and that I loved her.

• Most of all, the platters make me feel how fleeting and sad life is. You buy these small treasures, hoping they will come in handy. You save them for something special. And then you die before the special event happens and they never get used.

• Even in our supposedly rational age, this is the power of objects; they keep those we miss in the room with us.

Hobonichi

Double your fun! How we use the Hobonichi Techo Avec

• No desire to buy an Avec but have been trying to use my A6 Hon (Liberty Fabrics: Paysanne Blossom) again after falling off in late-March.

• Paysanne (adj.): : prepared (as with diced root vegetables) in country or simple style (Merriam-Webster). Huh.

• Also haven't tried sticking papers in to 'expand' the writing space but haven't need to either.

• Least useful parts of the A6/A5 covers + Weeks: the string BOOKMARKS. The pencil boards are usually enough.