Walking among the remains.

I started my morning by running around in my underwear, screaming "DINOSAURS OH MY GOSH DINOSAURS!" The running included an impromptu little jig atop my mother's bed while she stood in her bathroom brushing her hair. I was so excited I just could not finish getting ready. Because today I went to the new dinosaur hall at the LA Museum of Natural History.

Walking among the remains of the dead sounds morbid. Staring at their disconnected vertebrae in a display case sounds sick. Standing beside their skulls and smiling for a picture is just plain disrespectful. All this I thought about as I walked into the exhibit, and completely disregarded as soon as the first creature was seen, raising its head over the crowd of jumbling humans.

It was like a dream. I knew I was seeing and yet it seemed unimaginable. These beasts had to survive in a world of violence and natural catastrophe. I stood entranced, enthralled, overwhelmed. I think I could almost sense the dedication gone into uncovering their skeletal remains, and it made me love them though I was terrified. I am a sucker for the complex and beautiful machinery, and nothing is so beautiful and complex as a dinosaur.

"What happened, you guys!?!?!"
To begin with, fossilization blows my mind. Minerals filling in the bone cavity as it decays away and staying preserved like that beneath the ground--I just feel like someone left it there, just knew we'd want to see it 25 million years later. It feels so unlikely, the whole process, doesn't it? When we are really left with so very few human remains from the first of us to evolve 4 million years ago. But dinosaurs, who roamed the earth long before humans made their first steps, are scattered over our continents. And I am so glad they are.

There is something so extraordinary about them. What the hell happened to them!? I kept hearing the most popular theories of their demise, but none of it really explained why so many are found in clumps, does it? Or why they are found with things inside of them, like fetuses, partially digested food, rocks even.

And we have to speculate about their bone structure because the bones aren't found all nicely connected. We get things wrong, and correct them, and a whole understanding of a certain dinosaur, previously accepted, becomes irrelevant. When I got home I watched Jurassic Park III, which has a spinosaurus in it, a dinosaur I assumed Spielberg or someone had made up. According to the Discovery Channel, however, the dinosaur is real. The problem is, the only known complete fossil of it was destroyed during WWII. Which is why you don't really hear much about the spinosaurus, as our entire understanding of it is based off of the German scientist's journal.

Knowing this does not dilute my fascination with them. Personally, I trust these paleontologists, and admire them for their years and years of dedicated study. But more than that, I can't forget these beings, these creatures of goliath, of terrifying beauty: they are true excitement. They have never faded but have stretched their existence across millions of years. They are perhaps the truly eternal, and I respect them for it.

Night drive.

Sometimes when I'm driving home late at night, and there is no one on the road, I like to pretend that orca whales are swimming in the lane next to mine, jumping in and out from the asphalt, and, because my car is black and small, they think I'm one of them and they accompany me home.

Velociraptors: Cats in scales.

I recently finished watching Jurassic Parks I and II. I was watching the crew members behind the scenes, creating from bones creatures that had been dead for 65 million years (give or take) and they based the dinosaur movements off of relatives of dinosaurs that are alive today: elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, and rhinos. (It was awesome; they were all running around committing to being the animals.)

Anyways with this in mind I was watching the scene in the second movie where the velociraptors are hiding in the long grass (like the clever girls they are) and I immediately giggled out, "CATS!"to which my sister agreed. Its the way they whip their tails about and crouch down, stalking their prey. And I knew that the film was trying to be accurate and therefore that is definitely how raptors move and I am positive that cats are distant relatives of a direct line.

It makes sense. First, cats enjoy killing for fun. Second, cats stalk their prey. Third, cats eat things while they are still alive. Fourth, they walk on the balls of their feet (and would love heels).

I'm looking into their ability to hunt as a horde (as raptors are known to do).

Raptors wear heels.

Thinking about the fashion show made me think about velociraptors walking the cat walk. And to be honest, that would be more entertaining than anything else coming down the cat walk.

But this leads to the problem of what velociraptors would wear for a fashion show. And I decided they would wear heels. And this is based solely on the way the raptors march around in Jurassic Park.

They're always up on the balls of their feet, right? Which obviously means that they're like Barbie and have feet perfectly molded for heels. Heels are really the only thing that you could be wearing on a night out that wouldn't inhibit you in a fight but actually help you. Personally, the first thing I always say after sliding into my leather heels is "Bam. Ready for damage." You don't want to be on the other end of my heeled boot if I'm on a rampage, and I'm just a tiny lady. Think of the raptor in heels. On a rampage.

Yeah.

So, a velociraptor fashion show would consist of raptors marching down the catwalk in heels (probably brown, because black heels would just clash with their scales, you know? Got to accentuate the scales, not overpower them with a stark black heel. OMG I could totally be a velociraptor fashion designer. Dream job.) And of course the cat walk would be white (at the beginning; later there would more than likely be blood spattered on it--new art!) and the smarter people would be farther away from the catwalk (for safety reasons) but of course the raptors would be on leather leashes that matched their boots. But, you know, they're clever girls, raptors...

It would be the fashion show of all centuries. Obviously.

Oh, it happened.

What you all don't realize is that the Rapture thing was a front. A front. A distraction from the bigger problem. Yes.

Yeah.


Bigger.



Raptor'd.



Across the world people have been raptor'd today in numbers far exceeding the smaller attacks that I have been telling of before now. And we saw it coming. But death is inevitable. So to distract the news, they (whoever is telling you it didn't happen is a 'they') put up a show foretelling the "rapture". A play on words you say? Wouldn't someone be suspicious? No. Because it is best to hide the truth in the open. It is the last place people will look for it.

But I submit to you now a call to arms. The raptors were not just attacking humans. They were attacking larger threats. Is your heart racing? Even if it isn't, those of whom we fear above all else will be able to hear it. Because...THEY'RE BACK. Not just velociraptors: from daemonosauras chauliodus to pterodactyls--and the t-rex should be the least of your worries. The real war has begun.

Join me. I have a few velociraptor prodigies with whom I am working to create a machine of some kind. A living, terrifying, blood thirsty machine.



Hope is useless. Action is all we have.

Velociraptor Pet

Blogging is weird. People, sharing little anecdotes of their life, not face to face, not via published narrative, not like a memoir or a autobiography, just little notes on daily activities that others might find interesting thus they are shared.

That being said, I would like a velociraptor for a pet. (I'm actually surprised I haven't written about pet velociraptors before...I guess I was too concerned with destroying them.)

Reason #1: Better than pepper spray, tasers, and hand guns. Concerned about walking around LA at night? No big deal, I'll have my velociraptor escort me home.

Reason #2: Transportation. I'd make a special saddle for it and we'd run about on the freeway at 50 miles/hour. And if a car cuts us off, my velociraptor eats it, one door at a time. Velociraptors are like tanks. We'd jump over traffic, running along the tops of cars, snapping at the semi trucks just to piss them off.

Reason #3: Vigilante work. (An added benefit: blood is on the creatures teeth instead of your hands.)

Reason #4: No one else has one (that I know of...).

Reason #5: Writing about having one is better than doing homework.

Reason #6: They're sneaky. Like if Gollum was a beast.

Reason #7: Clever girl.

Reason #8: If I had one as a pet, and I got attacked by a horde of them, it would protect me better than my bazooka ever could, and it would probably convince it's horde to join my cause, and then I'd have my own velociraptor horde, and the government would be mega jealous. Of course.

Reason #9: They may not have survived whatever disaster struck earth all those centuries ago, but having been brought back they can tell me what it was and in the off chance it happens again I'll be better prepared.

Reason #10: Scaling buildings.

I know, I know, ten reasons? You only needed one to justify getting one for a pet. Not that I'd ever give away the secret of obtaining a velociraptor pet. Not that I have one...

A Velociraptor Happy Eatser

Yes, Eatser. Today, for these harbingers of death--because they are the last thing you see before actually meeting Death herself--is a day of feasting. Be careful where you are letting the children wander.

Once upon a time, in a grand old land...

EATSER SUNDAY!

(Well, I made Christmas bloody, I'll try my hand at Easter).


Today is a dream for the velociraptor horde. They make their way across the green field, strewn with baby daffodils and dandelions, skipping upon their three toed feet that have foot long curved claws, their tails whipping gaily in the breeze and sunshine, chomping down on the furry creatures running for their lives, skipping some more across the field...if they had lips, they would be whistling.

Life is but a dream...