Irene Peterson's Blog

Picture this. You're watching Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dwarves? Which is right? Skip that for now. You're watching the movie.
Now, according to the plot, the evil queen, transformed into a hag of a witch with warts, out of nowhere arrives at Snowy's door and gives her an apple. Snowy is not the brightest bulb on the marquee and takes the apple and, at the behest of the witch, takes a bite out of it.

Immediately she falls down, dead.
The little guys return home and find her there and since Doc isn't really a doctor, they load her body up and somehow have this glass covered coffin made up for her in the woods nearby. They are standing around crying, yes, even Grumpy, and along comes the prince (it is Someday, I guess) and when he sees Snowy, all beautiful and dead in the glass coffin, he wants to kiss her dead lips. Somehow the lid comes off the coffin, he kisses her and, well, he must have tongued her because the bit of poison apple is dislodged and whoopee, she is not dead but alive!
She sees her prince, he is already very hot for her (after all, he kissed her dead lips just seconds ago, so he MUST love her) and he picks her up and carts her away on his white horse.

The queen is unable to transform back into herself and flees to the top of a mountain where she is either struck by lightning or hit by a boulder and dies. Nobody gives a crap about her...and since Snow White's dad died a long time ago, nobody really gives a rat's ass about what happens to her. After, all, she's no longer a great beauty but as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside.

I was thinking about the kiss thing, though. If I were mostly dead with a piece of poison apple somewhere in my mouth, and some guy I don't really know sticks his tongue in there and the poison apple moves and...now, what am I gonna do? I'm alive again, having had a good hour's sleep or so before being put in a hastily made coffin. I wake up, feel this gob of half masticated apple in my mouth and I have to get rid of it. So, I do a hack, patooie to get rid of it.

Apparently, no one in the Disney Studio back then was capable of thinking the way I do.

This was taken at my very first solo book-signing. The store no longer exists, but here's the proof that if you put your mind to anything, it can happen. I proved I could have gorgeous kids who are smart and loving and very talented...just like their parents.

Hey, I am one.
It took me three miscarriages and six years of shots and pills and doctors' appointments, early morning runs with a jar of fresh sperm stuck in my bra for warmth and tears to have my beautiful babies. It took enormous determination and will and prayer (yes, I prayed, but not to St. Gerard) and the science of the good folks at the various hospitals...and look what I got.

There's an old saying that goes something like, "Everybody has one book in them."
I don't know who started it, but the older I get, the more realistic this becomes because the world of publishing has changed so drastically.

Anybody who can string together enough words can put their words up on Amazon and the other easy-pub places. It's a hell of a lot easier than going through the pain and suffering of locating a agent then an editor and going through the motions of sending and getting rejected repeatedly until someone decides to agree with you that your words have great meaning and should be shared with others. You get offered a contract, sign it and you're off as a published author after numerous rewrites and editorial discussions.
Now, this very minute, if you have enough words, you don't need the editor/agent thing. All you need is someone to format the book correctly, come up with some kind of attractive cover and submit it to anywhere that takes these submissions and makes them into books. Heck, you can even get print on demand for your precious words and buyers can get a paperback book to hold while they read those golden words!

Such a difference in the world.
But, I have digressed.
I wanted to write about the idea that everybody has at least one book in them.

I believe it.
I've listened to people at book signings and street fairs and libraries and bookstores. So many of them start out with "I have a story you should write" and then the proceed to tell me, at length, their story idea.
It's usually supposed to be true. Their uncle or aunt or mother or father or cousin or the guy down the street had this adventure that I "wouldn't believe". And usually, there is some kernel of a great idea within the tale, but I tell them it is not for me to write. They should write it as it is their story.
I wonder if anybody ever has.

Yes. That family story that has everybody laughing around the table at Thanksgiving is probably one that lots of people would laugh at. But they need to see it in print. They need to know it happened and it is up to someone to write down the words.

If you say you can't write, well, writing is something that can be learned. Take a night school class. Join a writing group. Go to conferences where published authors do their best to give workshops that teach just what you want to know...how to write well. Sit down at your computer or grab a pencil and notebook and put down the words. Your words.
Tell that story, that tragedy, that mystery, that romance, that farce, that unbelievable turn of events that's burning inside you to be written.

But don't tell me I should write it. I have enough ideas of my own. If I should steal yours, I'd be a thief and we don't need any more thieves in this world.

I keep reading about women wearing yoga pants instead of jeans or slacks because they must be comfortable.

I sincerely doubt they make yoga pants in my size.
And, why, for heaven's sake, does one need special pants to do yoga?

Freedom of movement.
Jeans, no matter how well they fit, restrict movement unless they have a certain percentage of Spandex in the material. Slacks are too nice to be worn to roll around on a yoga mat or the floor.

So, why?
And where does one get yoga pants? In a sporting goods store? Hah!

Yoga is not a sport. Perhaps there are specialty shops, located near yoga gyms (is that correct? Are the places where yoga is practiced gyms or temples? I do not know.) I myself have never seen one, but then again, I've never looked for one.

The mental image of me trying to twist and turn this ungrateful body of mine into a position makes me laugh.
I can't even walk without a cane.

I am sick to death of political shit on FB. I am sick to death of it on television...already the ads are starting up after only a few months' respite.
And what's more, I do not care whether you like a current office holder or not.
Do not litter my pages with your venomous shit.
Half of what you write about is unwarranted, most of it is a lie.
If you believe the horseshit you post, you are not only ignorant, you are pathetic.

Do not attempt to get me to change my mind when I can go on Snopes.com and prove you wrong, please.

If you want something changed, rather than carp about representatives on FaceBook, why don't you run for office yourself? Start small. Go for town council. Then go for a state position. Move up to congressperson, then maybe, if you can find enough people who agree with you and have money to give, you can make it to a national position where you can vote against someone else's stupidity and claim your own.

Don't make me realize just what kind of asshole you are on my FaceBook accounts.

Especially not my author page. Stay away from that. Please.

Your pure conscience will be your reward.

It's over. She suffers no more.

After the trip to the oncologist on Monday, I've been thinking about getting one of those surgical weight loss things...the lap band stuff. I know nothing about it except for what I've seen on ads on tv.

She said, "think of what you might be able to do without the extra weight."
So I've been thinking and so far, I have not come up with anything. Not really. Walk better? Maybe, except that the ankle and leg really don't have anything to do with my weight.

Aching joints, maybe. Pain in side? Maybe. I just do not know.

So, I was talking with Karyn about the possibility of having it done. Now, Karyn has issues, but I didn't expect her response. She said, "You'll still be old."

Yes, that's right. I will still be old. The flesh that has stretched out will hang, probably. No bikini anyway, but still and all.
I Will Still Be OLD.

Will weight loss magically cure my problems?
Not really. But I might be able to fit into smaller clothes. I could dress chic. I could wear boots. Ankle, Irene. Oh, well.
I will still be old.

My friend has gone into hospice care.
She is a beautiful person. Please make her passing gentle, God.

All right. Three dead so far in Boston over this horror show. Another horror show in my country. I'm pissed.
So, the news on television has only been about this. The broadcasts missed the senator from Mississippi getting an envelope with RICIN, a deadly poison, in it. That also was the mark of a saboteur or a crazy.

Theories abound.
Many false stories have been reported. YouTube and Facebook allow people to put up anything and no one can know for sure if it is true on not. Snopes.com finally put up a rumor/conspiracy fact list, but not everybody will bother to look at that. I did.

Now...I have a personal theory. This is mine, maybe shared by others, maybe not. But after some consideration, I realized this: If an outside the US group had done this, they'd have claimed responsibility for the bombs along with some sort of reason for what they did and how they hoped everyone would die who got caught with their deadly schrapnel.
So far, nobody has done this, unless the police/FBI/State Police/ATF are keeping it quiet.
The month of April is full of anniversaries that are pretty ugly. Waco, Oklahoma City to name just two. Tax day was yesterday and everybody hates the IRS. Who knows what else happened in April that crazies might want to avenge?

So, I think whoever made and planted those bombs was an insider, a crazy, someone with a grievance against someone or something in our country. Not somebody from the Middle East. Not somebody from Russia. Korea, why, they want to blast us out of existence with nuclear warheads...why would they settle for a pressure cooker bomb?
See? Everybody who hates us outside wants to cause mass destruction, like the kind experienced in 9-11.
This, serious as it was and will be, is piffle to what these maniacs want...this was hardly utter destruction to the United States.

I don't know who really planted the bombs. I have no real clue. I just used my writer's brain and came up with this stuff. The logic part of me vs. the illogical part of the crazy or crazies who put those bombs together.

A long time ago, Karyn made me watch some German movie starring this guy she likes...and for now I cannot remember his name. It concerned a group of dissidents living in Berlin when it was divided. They planted bombs in some derelict buildings...the bombs were made with pressure cookers. Some of the bombs never exploded. Then, with the unification, the buildings where the UXBs remained were set to be torn down and the group, widely separated and living "normal" lives, realized that the bombs could go off and hurt innocent people now. There were also taped recordings of the group and their threats that were in the hands of the police. So if the bombs did go off, the cops would know where to find the makers who no longer quite felt so dissident.

The essence of the movie was them getting together now and trying to get to the bombs and get the tapes from the police. This all was in German and I do not remember how it ended, except that the hero got caught and had to escape and his old girlfriend had to help him, even though she was married to somebody else and had a kid.

Similar bombs? Did the perpetrator get the idea from this movie?
According to the news, there are websites that detail how to make such a bomb.
I don't know, but I wonder, just like everybody else.

Bless Boston and the people who suffered at the hands of these crazies.