Reader’s Journal: Meeting Hubert H. Humphrey

By Laura Elizabeth

In the early 70’s I was a child at the age of 12, full of life and heading towards being a full fledged teenager. Full of vigor worrying only of when summer would arrive, what time my favorite shows were on television, when winter was going to come so I could continue figure skating lessons and what I was going to do the very next day.

Little did I know the magnitude of wonderful event that would occur in the summer days ahead. My Grandmother, (Whom we called Nanny) was scheduled to come from Wilcox Pennsylvania to visit with us and along with her she was bringing my cousin Lori Carlson. Since we are the same age and we were close this was going to be fun for the two of us.

Neither had ever been to Minnesota and I was sure the time spent with them was going to be fun and adventurous. My mother Mary Phillips had migrated to Minnesota immediately after high school to continue education and become an airline stewardess. She had met my father when they were both in college which and their relationship became a marriage, thus keeping her in Minnesota.

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Don’t Let a Spoiled Relationship Spoil You Too

By Halima Khan, Asst. Editor

To forget the relationship after falling to pieces of the relationship is easier said than done. Our mind goes back to analyze what happened again and again, but that just causes additional pain. One should just let the whole period of relationship drop from the mind as if it on no account existed. Sounds hard to do, but if endeavored with sincerity, you can do it, here is how:

Get rid of reminders of your EX
The primary thing singles can do straight away, without delay when a relationship crumbles is to do away with of all those sentimental, over-romantic items you have laying around. That includes deleting his number from your cell phone, throwing out memories of you together, literally. Custody of any such item of you past relationship will only put you in a condition of prolonged nostalgia; don’t torture yourself with constant reminders.

Let yourself to be angry and sad in a healthy way.
Anger and sadness repeatedly come but often in alternating circles after you are going through the breaking down of a relationship. It is all right to feel both these emotions as they are a natural offset of any situation such as a relationship coming to an end. However it is not satisfactory to cause a little or a lot of harm to yourself; being destructive to yourself or others, is unacceptable. Acknowledge your anger and/or sadness by understanding it and giving it an outlet in a healthy manner. Everyone has their “safe” outlet use it to focus your anger and other feelings in a positive manner.

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Are You Ready to Live Together?

By April Lentini

So you’ve been dating a while and have decided it is time to take the big step and move in together. Before you start furniture shopping and getting comfortable in your love nest, you may want to consider some very important details of co-habitation.

Image: Foxtongue (Flickr)

Are you are ready to live together?

When couples move in together, they see all aspects of each other’s lives – even the not-so-pretty side. If you have been on an extended trip with this person or have spent the night at his or her home more than a few times, then you probably have a better idea of how your boyfriend or girlfriend lives and the little habits that are bound to follow when you move in together. If you have never traveled with your partner or you have never spent the night (more than once in a row) with your partner, then you may want to hold off on your decision to live together.

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Reader’s Journal: Living With A Sports Fan

By Johanna Sandev

When my husband watches sports on television, his personality changes. He seems to be out of reach at these times, and I often wonder who is that guy sitting on my couch, he looks familiar but… My husband is normally very responsive and talkative, but when I speak to him during a game, I’m lucky to get a response consisting of a few syllables- that usually make no sense, by the way- and that’s when his favorite teams aren’t even playing.

If he is watching any of his favorite teams, on the other hand, and I happen to talk to him, I’ll often get brief and strange glance- without the syllables- which makes me want to escape somewhere, because my very existence suddenly appears to be a nuisance. He is so caught up in what he is watching, that I think even if the house caught on fire, he would have trouble turning his gaze away from the TV. I should mention that he used to be a professional athlete at one time but still, how can sports take over your brain?

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Sex In the City… Any City

By Kandace Campbell

Ladies and gentlemen, I know that I’ve left you patiently waiting while I continued my quest to find the most intriguing beings walking the face of the earth. Well I’ve found them and I promise that this story is not only tantalizing but ear-worthy. We’ll call this couple, Mr. and Mrs. Gottahaveit.

I met a woman at the Amtrak station in Plattsburgh, NY prior to the New Year. She was about 6 feet or so, athletically built, Julia Roberts red lips with Mick Jagger’s fullness, Shirley Temple’s curls that reached half way down her back, icey blue eyes, high cheek bones; I mean, this woman was a stone cold fox. I had to talk to her. I asked her if she was traveling alone. She informed me that her husband was in the restroom. I totally missed the bolder she had on her left ring finger! It had to be about 26 carats. But I’ve digressed. She and I began a bit of small talk right until she said, “My husband and I take trips every weekend to wherever the money throughout the week allows us to go.”

COME AGAIN? I needed her to elaborate. She explained to me that she and her husband do not work on the weekends. They’ve been married for 15 years and every 1st of the year, to enhance the spice in their bedroom, they create a asexual mission to achieve throughout that entire year. She further explained that during the work week, whatever money they took from the ATM’s for lunch, gas, etc, the remainder is placed into a jar at home at the end of the day. On Friday evening they count what they’ve saved, head over to the Amtrak Station Friday night or Saturday morning and ask the attendant how far they can travel on the funds they’ve saved. Whatever city they arrive in, they either purchase a hotel or take a risk and have sexual excursions in multiple areas of the train station.

I couldn’t believe my ears!

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Reader’s Journal: My New Beginnings

By Laura Elizabeth

After the holidays every year we tend to make New Years resolutions that after time we tend not to follow anyway. We dance around and announce that we have made the choice to commit to weight loss, finding the right job, man or even opening our own businesses or writing a book.

Since I have finished my second manuscript for a novel and it is off to a major publisher for approval I have entered into the phase of being an author who is playing the waiting game. After deciding in December that I must stay on siesta from writing until the manuscript is approved I have decided to accept the fact that maybe I have put on too many pounds over the last six years and it is time to commit to losing them.

January is my start date and I will dig my roots into the world of the dieter and workout fanatic. For me this is not a task that comes as easy as it is for others, though there are many women going through the same dilemma that I am.

Thirteen years ago, after having a second child, blessed to give birth to this child was not an easy task. I did not find out I was pregnant until I had a miscarriage, then finding out it was twins and I was still carrying one at the age of 36. I was sent to bed by the specialists and warned not to leave my bed and much less my house unless I had the approval of one of three specialists or my physician.
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Reader’s Journal: Thinking of My Mother on Christmas

By Johanna Sandev

This is my second Christmas without my mother. I remember how she used to love the holidays, decorating and celebrating, and giving to everyone more than she ever expected to receive in return. She usually invited friends and family to her home, which was always filled with music and heavenly aromas of home cooking. I know I will forever think of her this time of year, especially.

My mother passed away sixteen months ago, yet I still can’t quite fathom it. I tell myself that she is gone but somehow I ‘m not listening. I often need to force myself to think rationally, and for a moment the idea of her death will manifest in my mind, before it again dissipates into the unfathomable. The finality of her death has been too difficult to grasp, yet deep down inside I no longer believe in its finality.

Grievance is a strong emotion and I’m sure people deal with it in different ways. Maybe my way resembled denial to some people. When my mother’s house was sold and her belongings distributed amongst the relatives, and her clothes given to the poor, I should have gotten that she is gone, but to me she is still here in a big way. Actually she is everywhere. Like an omnipresent spirit, she surrounded me, right after her passing, and I often thought that the spark of light I sometimes caught a glimpse of, was my mother. I felt her presence many times during the day and sometimes I heard her voice inside my head, speaking in our native tong. She spoke words that I thought I had long forgotten, in her familiar way, spiked with humor, which often spurred me to laugh out loud.

She recited an old song before she died,“ I will see you again, I don’t know where and I don’t know when, but I know that I will see you again.” I think she already has. Since my mother’s passing, I have come to believe, without a doubt, that death is the end to the body but not to spirit. The lack of a physical body makes it harder for the departed to reach us, but if we truly try, we can sense their presence. And as we grow older nearing our own imminent departures, we will sense them even more. When my mother was at the brink of death, she repeatedly called for her own mother, and communed with her. I think she wanted her mother to help her slip through the veil between the worlds, after all, my grandmother had brought her into this world, so it would only make sense that she would be the one to help my mother out of it.
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Reader’s Journal: My Amazingly Ridiculous Life

By Paula Whitfield

I have trigeminal neuralgia. Most people have never heard of it, and that’s ok because I’m a nurse and I never heard of it until I got diagnosed with it a few years ago. Here’s the condensed version: it causes excruciatingly painful spasms of the trigeminal nerve, which is the main facial nerve. It feels like being stabbed in the face with a bolt of lightning every minute or two for several days. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, most of the time I’m able to control the pain with rest, medication, or large amounts of vodka. Last night was a different story. At about 11pm, I decided to go to an ER that will remain nameless for the purposes of this story.

Wait, let me back up for a minute. I forgot to mention that when the spasm hits, my eyes squeeze shut, my face contracts, and I yell “Arggggggh!” This may be why, after 10 minutes in the ER waiting area, everyone else had strategically placed themselves close to the nearest exit. I think they were afraid. As if I were the scariest person there. Not by a long shot. There was a lady on crystal meth, a teenage boy carrying on a conversation with an invisible person, an 80ish year old man with his pajamas on (the pants had a peep hole), and a very large lady lying on the floor screaming something or other about her eyes.
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