Moomin.

I had no idea, until relatively recently, that the Moomins were Scandinavian in origin, or that they had such a long history. This is probably due to the fact that when you are five years old, everything you know is assumed to have originated in your home country, hell maybe even your home state, sometime within the era you have been alive. Up until the age of eight or nine, I figured that every Beatles album my dad gave me had been produced that week. Also, when I began writing historical stories at the age of six or seven, all of the events took place sometime between 1980 and 1985. Why? Because that was as far back as my six- or seven-year-old brain could fathom, so it must have been pretty damn long ago.



Some of these assumptions lasted past the age when I should have known better, simply because I never had the opportunity to reconsider them. My understanding of history, thankfully, was one of the first that did get reconsidered and corrected. But we didn't learn about Moomins in Social Studies class, so I never knew ... until now.



It turns out the Moomins were created by Tove Jansson in 1945. I owned the book Moominland Midwinter, published 1957, and because none of my elementary school classmates had ever heard of the Moomins, I figured they were obscure, perhaps known only to me, my dad, and the author (or maybe my dad was the author? Twist!).


It also turns out that the Scandinavians, specifically the Swedish and the Finnish, are nutty for Moomins, and have them plastered over just about every available surface in their respective countries. That may or may not be an exaggeration, but this is definitely not: there is a Moomin theme park. Repeat, there is a Moomin theme park in Finland. Also, the Finnish name for the Moomin phenomenon, or "Moomin boom," is muumibuumi. After reading that I'm not so sure that the entire country of Finland isn't an elaborate hoax on the part of my dad.



Seriously, though, how would you feel if you found out that every book you read as a child was actually a national phenomenon in some other country? I'd like to see the nation badass enough to make The Stinky Cheese Man its personal muumibuumi, or stinkycheesemanbuumi, or whatever.

All pictures come from Moomin: The Moomiest Blog by Underfundig.

Tara Lynn.

Today I was enraptured by these pictures from the French Elle of Tara Lynn, a plus-sized model who is kind of awesome: according to Jezebel, she "is 27 and has modeled for two years, earned an M.A. in linguistics, and co-owns a restaurant in Seattle with her boyfriend. She once spent two years in France as an au pair, and speaks the language fluently." Linguistics? Seattle? France? Holy geez. Apart from that, she is also a fantastic model. Behold:








My favorite outfit is the preppy one with the bike. It makes me question why J. Crew doesn't feature bigger girls in their catalogues more often ... or at all, really. And by "bigger," of course, I mean "not very, very thin." Sure, they did the whole "Who's that Girl?" catalogue recently, which was cool, but although I'm sure that all of the women they chose are awesome people, I don't really buy the whole "we handpicked nine women - friends, associates, acquaintances - whose effortless style and creativity regularly give us pause (and a twinge of envy)" - and they just happened to all be model-sized! Nice try, J. Crew, but featuring a woman who is pregnant (but still ostensibly thin) doesn't count as "body diversity."

Now, if J. Crew featured Tara Lynn in a catalogue, among other women of different shapes and sizes, that would be something I could get behind. Unfortunately (for J. Crew) Tara Lynn's a bit out of their league. You know I love you, J. Crew, but you just have to try harder.

M'Schwat.

a.k.a. Hamlet
1992-2010

Muskrats.

Today I had a chicken sandwich. This is notable because it was very good. It had pesto mayonnaise on it and was on whole wheat bread, so there.


But that is not the most notable news of the day. That came later, when I was walking downtown. I came to a swampy area near the river, and saw two enormous, furry, wet creatures with long skinny tails bathing themselves on the bank. What were they? They were muskrats.


I got pretty close to them and took some pictures. When I took a step closer, however, they both flew into the water and took off down the river in opposite directions, as if saying, "Okay, yeah, we were in the same place, but not together! Not together, okay? IT WASN'T LIKE THAT! So don't read into it!"

Survey says

I stole this survey from Kennedy Holmes because I felt like it. I tag anyone who's interested.

1. What is your current obsession? The HBO show "Oz," or as I like to call it, "Summer Camp for TV Drama Actors." It's where, from 1997 to 2003, every single actor you know from "Law and Order" and most other prime time shows went to earn their merit badges in Violence, Dropping F-bombs, Being Naked, and Having Sex with Chris Meloni. Toward the end, there were even musical numbers. No, really. Since the show ended, everyone's had to find something else to fill their summer vacations, and it's just not the same. The small subset of actors who are required by law to always either play hardened criminals OR federal agents are back to playing federal agents, which isn't nearly as fun, you know.

2. What is your weirdest obsession? Teller. Or maybe fat babies. No, it's definitely Teller.

3. What do you see outside your window? Only the vast darkness that Chris Meloni must have felt in 2003 as he faced into a future of acting exclusively with clothes on.

4. What is your favourite colour? I like blue and green, but my favorite color to wear is gray.

5. What is your weakness? Sometimes I get a little too emotionally involved in things. For example, I just told you that my current obsession is "Oz," but as of right now I've had to ban myself from watching it because it was giving me too many feelings. The same thing happened with "Fringe" before that; I allow myself to watch new episodes, but I refrain from re-watching old ones because the whole Peter/Walter arc is threatening to set my emotions on fire. I'm not sure if that's possible, but it will be on "Fringe" soon anyway, I'm sure.

6. What animal would you be? A magpie, because they're pretty much the most awesome thing that can fly, and I'd like to be able to fly.

7. What would you like to learn how to do? Sleight-of-hand tricks, although I feel like I'd be really bad at it.

8. What do you want to never happen in life? Fire. Argghhh. I can't even think about it. Any kind of fire, anywhere.

9. What is on your bedside table? Journal, alarm clock, lamp, pen, book.

10. What's the last thing you bought? A sammich.

11. What do you think about the person that tagged you? I cheated; I wasn't tagged, but the girl whose blog I stole this survey from is pretty cool.

12. What was your favourite children's book? I'd have to say Outside Over There for ages 0-5, A Wrinkle in Time for ages 5-10, and The Golden Compass for ages 10-14, because I'm a loser who can't pick one of them.

13. Who do you want to meet in person? The characters I've made up. All of them, except for Apollo, because go screw yourself, Apollo.

14. What did you want to be as a child? A writer.

15. What did you dream about last night? Chris Meloni. But it wasn't sexy. He had some sort of vein-exploding disease, and I was trying to hide the fact that I wasn't really a doctor, despite the fact that in the dream, I was a doctor.

16. Which do you prefer, day or night? Day, because that's the best time to spot cats in the backyard.

17. What's your favourite piece of clothing in your closet? For sheer whimsicle fuckery, I'd have to go with my sweater with whales. For comfort and utility, my black J. Crew skirt(s).

18. What's your plan for tomorrow? A sammich. Then I get to pick out the next book I get to read as part of my Reading Books Because It's Spring Break Bitch Extravaganza; I've finished three so far!

19. What would you like to get your hands on right now? A hot, steaming hunk of ... academic scholarships.

20. What is your must have of the moment? A big gray Teto and cereal.

21. What's your favourite tea flavour? Peppermint.

22. If you could go anywhere is the world right now, where would you go? In a week I'll say Iceland. But I just got home, so here sounds pretty good right now.

Dreaming of a log cabin.

I forget exactly how I stumbled across the website for Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado, but I did, and quickly became enamored of the sweet little log cabins. When I was younger, I yearned to build a pioneer-style house of my own in my backyard, but I could never find enough material. Living in the suburbs might have had something to do with that. I had planned to fill my pioneer house/log cabin - or, as I referred to it, my hovel - with a mixture of real and reproduction old-timey things, and to harvest crab apples as "food."

Admittedly, these log cabins are a bit ritzier than the one I envisioned in my youth (actually I think it was like five years ago), but they still manage to inspire the pioneer in me.










Someday, maybe, I will have a log cabin or a yurt of my own, and I will populate it with children and cats. Some of my peers may aspire toward living in something called a "house," but as I am probably going to become an "archaeologist," that is ... how do you say ... "out of the question."

Home and My Schwat.

I've been home for a few days now, and settling in. I finished two books (more on those to come, hopefully) and started a new knitting project. Additionally, I have been eyeing the backyard with hopes of an archaeological dig, sometime in the future. When my father dug out a small patch of earth for a garden when I was little, he found a bunch of broken plates; my mother has found old toys out there, and when the house itself was built by my grandparents in 1960, the builders found a pair of very old horseshoes buried in the ground. The plot of land that our house is now on was once an empty lot used by my great-grandparents, who owned the house next door, as a dump. Before that, it was part of a large area of farmland, and before that - who knows? Revolutionary War battles were fought nearby, and there were Native American tribes. An excavation in my backyard might actually yield some interesting things.

The idea of a dig - and my plans for the summer at Cornell - gets ever more enticing as the weather continues to get warmer. Miss Che-Cho has been enjoying it immensely:


Just look at her sweet little paw:


The weather has brought about huge changes for me: wearing no leggings, for example. Sure, I still wear the same exact things I was wearing before, but without leggings. It's different!


Except when it gets cold and then I put on the leggings again.


Meanwhile, my bangs are in a horrible growing-out phase. I don't like to pin them back because my forehead feels naked, but they're seriously getting on my nerves.

In sadder news, M'Schwat has been diagnosed with renal failure. It's hard to say how much time this gives him as he's already outlived his life expectancy by ... quite a few years. In cat years he's approximately 98.

L.L. Bean Signature Collection.

You may count me among those who love the new L.L. Bean Signature Collection, although I'm not entirely certain if it's the clothes or the idyllic Maine backdrop that entices me so. I flew over Maine on Tuesday. It's very sparsely inhabited, you know. That makes me feel like there must be a place in Maine for me somewhere.






Another fun story from my flight: I got "How old are you? Where are your parents?" once again. In fact, I think it may have even been the same woman who asked me the last time I flew out of Heathrow. Don't worry, flight security lady, I will be 21 in three months. Now get back to your job, which is to make sure that no one has been poisoned with a toxin that will turn them into a seven-foot-tall porcupine-bear-creature on the plane.

Ducks.

On our last full day in Oxford, my dad and I went for a walk through the University Parks. It wasn't as stunning there as the English countryside - it could use some sheep, for one - but it was still very beautiful. It wasn't warm, but it was very sunny and nice. I can't imagine how lovely it will be when the leaves on the trees come out. Everything looks so excited and expectant, like it just can't wait to burst into spring.








On the way back, we came across a pond filled with ducks and other birds. There was this lady and her two gentleman friends:


And lots of these cute little black-with-white-face-thing birds:


Plus these cute little black-with-red-face-thing birds:


All together in one big pond:


Although it looks beautiful, it wasn't really warm. New York, on the other hand - we have some lovely, warm weather this week. Back in Oxford, I was all dressed up in layers - observe:



In New York, I have put away my coat. Mainly because I have spent the last couple of days inside sleeping, but I don't wear it outside, either.