What Dinosaurs Love!

Dinosaurs LOVE Deer...

And little girls...

And babies......

..... With ICE CREAM! 

After over indulging on sweets, Delilah and Daphne went on a carousel ride. 

Daphne lamented that her arms were to short to ever be an accomplished harpist. 

Delilah modeled her new specs. 

Daphne read Delilah an unfortunate fortune. 

And gave an inaccurate geography lesson. 

They went on another sweet binge. 

Things got weird. 

Daphne convinced Delilah to try some shrooms her cousin got from a man at a bus station in the Midwest. 

And things got weird. Again. 

Really weird. 

Daphne and Delilah are a random, weird creation by myself, Clair Anna Rose, and were made with weirdness and spontaneity at my downtown Flagstaff studio, Muse Miniatures!

All the Books I've Read. Ever. A summary.

I've read a lot of books. Hundreds. I'm not claiming that they were all of any literary value, because, who cares? It's a book. It's like a movie you read... or sometimes it's like a documentary you read. I like the heavy, meaningful stuff too, but 89% of the time I want to read a book that is either going to make me laugh embarrassingly loud, transport me somewhere else, and draw me so far in that I'm a little depressed when the book is over.

I've always been a reader, as soon as I could read, I was devouring books.

It was the summer when I was 15, however, that I started keeping track. My friend Melissa was volunteering at the public library, I never did anything on summer break, so one day I visited her. She gave me a poster for children to track their reading. It had spaces to read 20 books.

I've always been a lister too, so this appealed to me.

I took the poster home and tacked it to our pantry door.

I obsessively wrote down the title of each finished book. In a couple weeks the spaces were filled, but I continued my list in the blank spaces and on the back.

"You're still keeping track?" Melissa asked me a year later.

Yes, Melissa, if you're reading this. I'm still keeping track. 13 years later.

I read pretty fast. I learned how to speed read in middle school and that was one part of 8th Grade English I will never forget. It proved to be very helpful in college.

All The Books I've Read Ever. A summary.

2001

In 2001 I was a Freshman in High School. I never studied or did my homework or payed attention in class, so I had a lot of time for reading. I read pretty much all day, every day, unless I was figure skating or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I read 51 books that year, but keep in mind I didn't start keeping track until June 12, 2001.

Mostly I read Young Adult Fiction based off of the WB TV shows of the Time.

That Summer I read the entire Roswell series. Those were the only aliens I wasn't afraid of because they were hot.

I also read Buffy The Vampire Slayer Novels as often as I watched the show. A lot. Too much. I actually memorized one book/episode verbatim. I could act out the whole episode by myself. And I would. A lot.

I was a Buffy The Vampire Slayer quote machine. I don't know if I'll ever completely rid myself of all the facial and verbal expressions I learned from the show.

I read Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya because I had imagined that I would take Honors English. I changed my mind, but I kept the book. I loved that book. I read it in 2 days. (I also kept track for a time of how long it took me to read a book. Usually I read a book a day. Or every other day.)

I read a lot of of books by Lynn Andrews:

Medicine Woman
Star Woman
Crystal Woman

Then I re-read all the Tamora Pierce Books that I read in 8th grade because a new one came out.

That was another odd thing about teen-aged me.

I had a lot of rules. I made them up myself. One rule was that if a new book in a series came out, I had to re-read the entire series right before the new book came out so I would be fresh.

That's how I read the Harry Potter series 8 times. One was for good measure.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry was sad.

Besides that and The Princess Diaries, I read some un-notable Young Adult fiction and dozens of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Novels.

I also read my first Victoria Holt novel that year.

2002
Age 16
Total number of books read that year: 99

The entire Harry Potter series to date so far (Goblet of Fire)

Lots of Buffy books.

The Roswell series again.

A bunch of witchy new-age young adult fiction.

A Walk to Remember by Nicolas Sparks. (Hahahahaha.)

The Mists of Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The entire Fearless Series to date by Francine Pascal.

Required reading.

A bunch of Victoria Holt Books.

2003
Age 17
Total number of books that year: 81

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, White Oleander and a lot of Buffy, Fearless and other books I already read and some new ones.

Also, Beloved, by Toni Morrison.

2004
Age 18
Total number of books that year: 50

The Da Vinci Code,  Angels and Demons, Go Ask Alice, Tuck Everlasting and A BUNCH OF BOOKS I READ ALREADY, including the entire Fearless series again. What the hell, 18-year-old self? Did they stop printing new books that year?

I must have been following my must re-read series rule.

2005= 14 Books
2006= 22 Books
2007= 10 Books
2008= 31 Books
2009= 16 Books
2010= 11 Books
2011= 18 Books
2012= 31 Books
2013= 10 Books
2014= 9 books So far....

What have I been reading in the last 9 years?

Reading the Harry Potter series 3 more times.

Finally gave up on ever seeing and end to the Fearless FBI series and began to get embarrassed as a college student hanging round the young adult section.

Every book by Victoria Holt. Twice.

Every book under Victoria Holt's other pen names: Phillippa Carr and Jean Plaidy

Every book by Augusten Burroughs.

Every Book by Mary Stewart.

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. More than 5 times.

Brave New World.

Every book by Pam Houston. Cowboys are My Weakness  is really, really good.

I guess I did read The Alchemist. I didn't like it.

You must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oats. Oh. my. good. book.

Adverbs by Daniel Handler. I'm a total fan girl for this writer after that book.

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. So, so, so, so, so good. Don't judge me.

The Road. Meh.

All of Jane Austen's books.

Bossy Pants by Tina Fey.

The Hunger Games series and the Divergent series. Yes. And I loved it. All 6 days of reading them.

And that is all the books I read. Ever. That I kept track of. Plus a lot of new age self discovery books.

Solar Eclipse 2012

Sunday there was a pretty darn almost total solar eclipse near where I lived. Nobody told me until the morning of it. I suppose that's one of those things that I would know, if I watched the News, or wasn't playing hooky from face-space that day. But I was gluing stuff to stuff, so eat my toe jam, I didn't know, o.k?

Anyways, some people I hold dear to my heart didn't get to experience the Solar Eclipse to the extent that I did, and because I have feelings I know how that must have felt, pretty darn awful. I mean, this may be the only time this almost happens here in Flagstaff, and for my friends in Australia, California, Hawaii and wherever the hell else you guys are, I felt it my duty, yes, my duty, to show you what I saw.

I was standing outside noticing how green everything looked.

Now, this is a true story, so I would like to clarify, that though my hair is now a nice muck-colored shade of brown, in my imagination it's still flaming red. The honest thing about this picture is that I am this pale, and my glasses are blue with blue lenses and they are prescription, so when I wear them to yoga class and put them on during class, it's not because I need to feel cool, it's because I need to see what the teacher is showing us.

Anyways...

I was noticing how shadowy everything seemed...

In real life I also don't wear fuchsia lipstick (unless I'm 12.)

I decided I needed to know what time it was.

Then I realized I didn't remember what time the eclipse started.

But figured it either looked weird outside because it had started, or it looked weird because I was expecting it to happen, and thought things looked different.

I decided I needed goggles.

There were none.

I decided to try to look at the sun.

This is what I saw:

I've seen more exciting things in Amsterdam, that's for darn sure.

Across the parking lot I saw people looking at the sun as if they weren't blinded.

I galloped over to them.

"Are those special eclipse goggles?" I asked.

"Yes, would you like to see?" One said.

"Yes!" I squealed and held them up to my eyes.

But this is actually all it looked like:

Now you know. I hope this makes up for what you missed.

Adventures with Pinhole Cameras!

Yesterday I decided to make a pinhole camera. Out of a matchbox. I broke a lot of film rolls, and today, after replenishing my film supplies, succeeded in having something resembling a camera.

Today, after researching how to take pictures with my new camera, I set out to make art.

Here are my masterpiece matchbox pinhole camera photos;

I have no idea what this is.

This was supposed to be the cat. Or the car. It's hard to tell because it is overexposed.

This was supposed to be the cat... but she slinked out of the shot. She's wily like that.

That is supposed to be Bently, he's the blurry white blob at the bottom of the shot, relatively dig-shaped.

I call this one, "Over Exposed."

Over exposed 2.

The yard, also over exposed.

That's supposed to be me playing guitar.

I am not sure what was supposed to be happening... but it didn't.

The end.

Until I develop the next roll.



Chocolate Heart Surprise!

I used to look forward to getting a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day, but over the years I have finally come to the conclusion that, they just don't taste good. I don't even think they are made with real chocolate, and they are all filled with some sort of gelatinous goo that tastes like syrup.

But when I was little, I thought of these sugary confections as an adventure for my mouth.

I had not yet learned to discern between good candy and bad candy. If I liked how it tasted, I ate it. But even some of these little nuggets of pink-dyed raspberry flavored treats were a little too gross for me. But I knew, if I ate enough of them... possibly the whole box, I would find maybe one or two that were actually good. But how to find them?

It was like a game of memory... but if you guessed wrong you had to eat a disgusting piece of candy. When I was little I was still of the belief that if I took a bite out of a piece of candy I had to not only eat that bite, but also the whole piece of candy. Even if it was so gross it made me gag. I'm not sure where I came up with this... my mother didn't like me to eat ANY of them, so she would never impose the "If you bite into it, you have to eat it!" rule.

It wasn't until a few years later I discovered that some boxes of candy had maps on the back to tell you what each candies were.

But as a small child I had to pick randomly... or perhaps a piece that was aesthetically pleasing.

Having found one yummy candy I would suddenly be on a gambler's high, and would think, I can find more yummy candies! I would use the process of elimination to locate the next flavor-satisfying piece. I figured if a candy looked like the one I just ate, it would be just like the other one!

Right?

Wrong.

I would eat the disgusting piece of candy and move onto the next.

I discovered after a few years, if you turn the piece of candy upside down, sometimes they have burst open a little and you can see the inner goo seeping out, and guess what flavor they are.

Orange... o.k.... next....

White? Well, that could either be vanilla or coconut. Is it worth it? Hmm... yes.

Ew! No! Not worth it. Chew! Chew! Chew! Swallow. Bleh. So gross.

I soon had a method of squishing them a little to squeeze out the goo. If it was a color like pink or orange it was normally disgusting.

Caramel was also disgusting.

The only ones that weren't always disgusting were sometimes the chocolate ones. Sometimes.

If it was brown on the inside, it was usually a good sign.

Unless...

Now that I am an adult, I handle the Heart Box full of gross chocolate like a grown up. If I take a bite and it tastes like mutant orange goo, I spit it out.

The end result is my Valentine's Day Candy Heart Box looks like this:

Rejected.

If I'm gonna eat something that could effect the shape of my ass, it better be worth it.

The End.