Sara Ryan

It has come to my attention that I have not blogged about thrifting or an estate sale expedition in, like, months. So here are some photos, each suitable as a story prompt if you are so inclined.

Label on trunk in mildewy basement at estate sale. Who traveled on the Cunard line? Where did they go?

There [...]

1. First I have to repost these great work-in-progress photos that Erika put up of the story we’re doing for the Snow Stories anthology.

It’s about getting lost, and getting un-lost.
2. I don’t have a gym story this week, but I have a couple of snippets:
Dude on treadmill, breathing heavily, to his trainer: “Now, I expect [...]

…because I yearn for the days when thrift stores weren’t trying to “reposition the nature of the merchandise.” But this Washington Post article profiling the DC area Goodwill’s various marketing strategies also links to the marketing manager’s blog, DC Goodwill Fashionista, which I really like, possibly in part because she looks like a shorter-haired Katrina [...]

Since I’ve started taking pictures at estate sales, I don’t buy as many things.

National Secretaries Week.

Golden Anniversary.

Actual butterfly.

Plate from which the previous photo was a detail.

Flowers. Made from feathers.

TruType teeth.

I like that it’s going to give you both physiology AND technique.

This is what I came closest to buying, but the book had been pretty seriously [...]

Snag, inside the flat file that is perhaps our best estate sale acquisition ever. Sixteen drawers, big enough to store original comics pages. Snag is in the zines drawer.

So it’s a good thing that I didn’t buy the Kindergoth bag, because then I wouldn’t have still been looking at Goodwill the other day, and then I wouldn’t have found this one:

Which, when it’s not at Goodwill, nicely broken-in with some schmutz on the bottom, possibly makeup, that proves to be mostly removable with [...]

When you go to an estate sale, you don’t expect to find CDs from the Pixies and The Primitives, but we did: Bossanova and Pure. It was a bit disconcerting.
This person had apparently been a commercial photographer, mostly of weddings. There were a few heavy albums documenting the glossy, wholesome-looking nuptials of the well-heeled. At [...]

So the other day anarqueso was in town and she was up for a trip to the Bins. The Bins have moved since the article (which I should warn you has some gross bits) linked in the previous sentence was published, and I hadn’t been there since they moved, so it was actually sort of [...]

Because I find things like this sweater.
(The colors are nicer than they look. One of these days I should get a camera that is not also my phone.) It’s from here. I know this because the original tags were still on it.
One of said tags looks like this:

I do not know what that says, but [...]