Sarah Steegar
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paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Sarah Steegar
@paperandairplanes.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.3K following 2.9K posts
Writer & sometime Flight Attendant. Technically an anthropologist. I commute across the Atlantic (I know, right?!) Nerd for all things ancient history, literature, linguistics. What’s your Roman Empire?
#pile
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paperandairplanes.bsky.social
My husband asks me to give him the TV remote (for a tv we never use) and I open the drawer to this. He tuts at me because I don’t know which one he wants. Whose side are you on?

CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER
November 22, 2025 at 7:36 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Photo of the hardcover book Boudicca’s Daughter by Elodie Harper. The cover is red with paper cut style imagery of a girl on a white horse and blue half moons behind her.
November 13, 2025 at 7:24 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Even years after his diagnosis, my husband still struggles with the feeling that he’s “not really autistic”, like he’s some sort of impostor.

Anyway, totally unrelated, here he is organising his marble figures and making a spreadsheet with details and information about each one.
Photo showing in the back of a a man with salt and pepper hair and glasses, sitting on a navy sofa, in the process of using his phone to take a picture of a Spider-Man figure. In front of him is a dark wood coffee table with his open laptop and a large number of other figures. In the background is a large branded box, perhaps hip high, containing some enormous (X-Men?) figure.
November 12, 2025 at 7:20 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Even thought there is only 1 level of rowers depicted here, I’ve never seen them placed on a level below the main deck in the Bronze Age. So…what are we looking at here?

IG link: www.instagram.com/p/DQwEuwZCL_...

Photo:
Fragment of a fresco, dated to 1200BC, in faded blue, red and ochre. There is an ancient Greece war ship dated with one person standing at the bow and underneath him, in what appears to be a lower level of the ship, we can see a line of 8 rowers. We only see one line of rowers, so it would not be a bireme (2 levels of rowers crowded together) or trireme (3 levels) but still, I have never seen a Bronze age ship with the oarsmen on a “sunken” level below the main deck.
November 7, 2025 at 10:16 AM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
I needed something to cheer me up today, and then this happened to my sister. She went to BoJangles and asked for extra seasoning on her fries. This is what she got.
A branded BoJangles takeaway bag, plus two entire spice containers (packaged for sale)
November 3, 2025 at 4:11 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Stunning afternoon light at the park today
November 1, 2025 at 7:09 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
I was at ATH airport today, & there’s a photography exhibition about traditional costumes of Greek women across the country. There isn’t much information sadly, but this image is stuck in my head. Brings to mind Minoan/Mycenaean style, no?

Link about the work:
www.facebook.com/share/v/1F7M...
The black and white photograph of a foursome, three women and one man, standing inside (what I’m guessing is) a Greek home, dressed in traditional Greek costume of, I imagine, their region or community. The women’s skirts are long and full and have a heavy dark cloth with light-coloured embroidery on the bottom third of the skirt. Their sleeves are long and fitted and in a light-colour (metallic thread?) that matches the skirt embroidery, and their waists are encased with a wide belt, also perhaps metallic threaded/embroidered. And they wear cross-chest fitted tops, with embroidered edging. All in all the image is to me strongly reminiscent of the shape and style of Minoan/Mycenaean women’s costume, the biggest difference being that the cross chest bodice here encloses the breasts instead of opening around them.
October 26, 2025 at 7:09 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Flights are full and we can’t get out of Athens today. I’ve given up because it could be worse
October 25, 2025 at 11:33 AM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Am I crazy or is my last view of Greece before the airport a painting of Taylor Swift as Artemis?!
October 25, 2025 at 8:58 AM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Kiddo has packed for Greece tomorrow! Well done, I guess?
Picture shows the inside of a cloth duffel bag. There is a random assortment of toys: a rubber duck, a couple of weird feeling sensory toys, some paint brushes, some headphones, some beats for making bracelets (but no string or tools)
October 17, 2025 at 8:46 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
LOL/yikes
October 4, 2025 at 10:14 AM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
October 1, 2025 at 2:49 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
My sister is going to Octoberfest tomorrow. This is a photo sent to her by a friend who is already there. I’ve never been so grateful not to be going somewhere in my entire life.
This is an image that looks TO ME like an enormous pile of garbage - like a tip/dump - and there are small square stacks of something thrown upon the top of it that are connected by a thin pole of something. In fact it is a picture of Octoberfest, so crowded with a mass of humanity that it boggled my mind. The “square things” are a smattering of stalls (selling like pretzels and beer I’d guess?) I don’t know why they look connected unless it’s some kind of overhead structural support or electricity or something. I feel like I’m being smothered just by looking at such a crowd.
September 29, 2025 at 3:30 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
So THAT’S what happened! We’ve been following the wrong pyramid, oh no!
Picture of Maslow’s pyramid/hierarchy of needs, with physiological on the bottom, safety and security above that, love & belonging above that, then self-esteem, and self-actualization at the tip
September 19, 2025 at 2:43 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
This was my favourite part of White Lotus (S3) - body bags being directly loaded onto an airplane.

Can you imagine if that’s how we transported corpses? Just boarded pax looking out the window, watching bare body bags wheel up on gurneys,
sliding them directly onto the luggage conveyer belt 😂😂
In the background of this picture is large airplane. In the foreground is two men wearing hats and high-vis vests labelled “BAGS”. Each man is wheeling a medical gurney with a black body bag on top towards the aeroplane cargo area.
September 19, 2025 at 2:38 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Today’s mood
A sketchbook. Written on the front is “it has always been my desire to be an artist but I fondly it incredibly fucking difficult” The back of the sketchbook showing the name of the artist who designed it David Shrigley (purchased at the Tate Modern)
September 17, 2025 at 2:14 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Next up on my reading list? Another ARC I’m legitimately thrilled to get to preview: Boudicca’s Daughter by @elodieharper.bsky.social. I searched for the ARC for months and had almost given up! So here goes…
A purple and black toned book cover: a graphic with Roman column s across the lower 1/2. A girl with long flowing hair, in a tunic and holding a spear, is on horseback riding along top. She rides between the columns of a large archway as backdrop. A starry night sky is visible behind.
August 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
FINALLY! British food BINGO!

15 years in this country and SOMEONE finally puts actual cheese (not “sauce”) on fries/chips and MELTS it! The wildest thing is it’s a random farm/play park.
A basket of beautiful fries/chips with actual shredded cheese on top that someone thought to melt (instead of pouring over a “cheese sauce 🤮” or sprinkling shredded cheese on top, served cold.)
August 25, 2025 at 3:28 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
It’s gotta be done!
Close up of the front of a 788-300 airplane. A worker in a high-vis vest is hanging out a cockpit window cleaning with a squeegee
August 14, 2025 at 2:16 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
My eight-year-old daughter and I are supposed to be tidying the house, but she has just proudly come to show me her balloon shoe.
A child’s foot with a large, yellow, uninflated balloon stretched around it
August 10, 2025 at 3:29 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
I don’t know why it won’t link properly! It’s working everywhere else! Anyway, check out @pensuniquebyDavid. (My friend and I just fell for his work at an art fair)
August 7, 2025 at 11:08 AM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Oh, also! I got approved for an ARC of No Friend to This House - the newest novel by @nataliehaynes.bsky.social.
(I even specifically don’t care for the Jason/Medusa myth line, but I’m so psyched to read this. Haynes is that good.)

It’s been a good day.
Screenshot showing that a download of the book No Friend to This House Is read to read.
August 5, 2025 at 9:49 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
From the Historik Museum in Oslo. Posting without comment. Ahem.
The Snartemo Sword The Treasure the Nazis Were Denied The sword and the Nazi occupants The grave also included woven ribbons with swastikas, an ancient symbol for the sun and the course of life. The German Nazi Party adopted the swastika as its symbol and used archaeological finds as part of their propaganda about "the Aryan race". In 1939, the Historical Museum's most valuable objects were hidden in a bank vault in Valdres, 200 km northwest of Oslo. Following the German invasion on 9 April 1940, the new authorities tried to obtain the Snartemo sword. In 1941, the museum received a request for an object for "a specific purpose". Several circumstances point to the Snartemo sword, possibly as a gift to Heinrich Himmer, one of Hitler's closest associates. The same year, they wanted to display the sword in the propaganda exhibition "Normannafolket". In 1942, they needed the sword to create a replica. The museum rejected all requests. In May 1946, the sword was safely returned to the museum. Close-up photo of the elaborate golden hilt of the sword as well as a section of the corroded blade.
August 1, 2025 at 2:45 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
Reading this classic to kiddo. I remember loving it but I’d forgotten any details. The Dark Thing feels so relevant today. (I mean of course, that’s part of the beauty of fiction, how relevant it stays. But you know what I mean.)
Photos of the Wrinkle in Time Trilogy
July 14, 2025 at 7:04 PM
paperandairplanes.bsky.social
[*me, clapping and whistling*]
Headline from ScienceFunn: Denmark is fighting AI. It just gave citizens copyright to their own face, voice and physical body. The background is a green-on-black pixellated graphic of a man’s face, taking off sunglasses, which apepars to be from The Matrix. Text: What the new law entails. Demand removal of unauthorized deepfake content featuring them. Seek compensation from playforms tht fail to act. Exceptions for parody and satire built in, ensuing creative freedoms are safeguarded.
July 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM