#dlposting

[fruitdaze]

hi friends! i have an announcement: i now have a substack! you can subscribe to DEAD LANGUAGES, & OTHER TRAGEDIES using the link below :')

things you can expect to read about from me there:

roman history, especially the late republic and early empire

latin literature and the translation of it

personal essays on solitude, grief, and day-to-day life

i really do not have a solid plan for what i’m doing with this newsletter, and also i don't yet have a set schedule for posting—but i am hoping to write at least one post a month. above all i’m just there to have fun, to get back into writing, and maybe to have a little emotional crisis that i can write about and share with strangers on the world wide web. if you learn something about a dead roman or find something that resonates with you along the way—even better! i’m glad to have you there.

[lostinhc]

'guess what. impulse and I are in love'

I am going to chew through concrete

[diana-lesky]

I have a theory regarding liminal spaces.

See, they are most often places with heavy human traffic that that are left abandoned at some point. In many of those cases they become liminal - or the effect is intensified - during the period of abandonment. This is known.

Perhaps we are not supposed to see these places during those times. Like peeking into a store before it is open, we are seeing something in a state not intended for us.

Liminal spaces are the locational equivalent of seeing your teacher by chance in a store. You caught them off guard.

What exactly you are catching off guard is another question entirely.

[codgod-moved]

i feel like i should’ve planned something special for 2.5k followers but i hit it way faster than i thought i would after i started dlposting so. oops

[diana-lesky]

In my experience, thrift stores are hit or miss.

When they miss, they are like the consignment store that was down the road for years. It was relatively uninteresting and, despite having a confusing layout, never felt frozen or fallen out of time. Goodwill often feels the same, odd but not unnatural.

When they hit, though... when they hit...

The consignment store across the street was a barn once. You can see it on the outside. On the inside, the building looks completely different and feels slightly larger than it should be. Time is slower there. None of the clothes will ever fit you, even when they are in your size.

In my the town my grandparents live in, there was a thrift store run by an elderly woman. I remember entering the building, I remember exiting the building, but I do not recall anything that happened inside. I purchased a set of over-ear headphones, the old kind, that we're so gently used that they appeared new. Within days they seemed ancient. I still do not recall interacting with the woman at the counter.

There was one store I remember nothing of, just the basement and the fact that the stairs were behind me. The lighting was too yellow. A single, circular rack of gently used clothes from a variety of eras stood in the far corner of the room. On the ground around it were multiple children's toys. I did not look closer. I walked up the stairs backwards.

We always talk about places like WalMart and Target being liminal spaces but what about thrift stores?

[fruitdaze]

i forgot to promo my own newsletter last month, alas. but i just published a new one today and i think it's pretty fun! come aboard for chaos, crossdressing, and crime 👍