Ruth's Journals

              The people that you decide to travel with can make or break the trip. In some cases, though, you can’t exactly choose who you want to spend your vacation time with. That was quite unfortunate for Riley as she watched her dad throw the last heavy overflowing suitcase into the trunk of the family SUV. Riley’s mom, Melanie, sat in the passenger seat, a grin on her face. The Swanson family never was able to pull off a family trip well. Especially not family trips where Riley’s dad, Paul, forced the family to drive 12 hours into the middle of nowhere North Dakota to visit his hometown.             But somewhere beneath all the chaos, the Swansons made it work. Melanie had a calming effect on her husband, telling him to cool off if he was driving too aggressively, she’d always talk to him regardless if he was listening. For Paul was hard of hearing, and he enjoyed...

  For this journal I decided to build off of one of my discussion posts. Today was like any other ordinary day working in a big box retailer. There was only one slight exception--it was the night of Thanksgiving, and I was stuck at arguably one of the worst places to be in the store: the returns and customer service counter. Along with two other coworkers, we manned the counter, making tedious redundant returns, fixing a cashier's "mistake" if the customer thought they had gotten the wrong price, and just watching the chaos unfold around us. You could say someone was burning a tire in the back of the store and we would've remained unfazed.  Tapping my fingers on the dusty old cash register that stood in front of me, I waited with much anticipation for the clock to strike 1. Yes, I was finally coming to terms that I had skipped Thanksgiving to work on arguably the busiest day of the year at our store. Instead of a warm meal of mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, green...

Since my story, The Femme Fatale, is supposed to be written in a future timeline, I thought it would be interesting to research different people's visions of the future.  The website I checked out was an interesting project called the "Future Views toolkit". They include three different viewpoints to check out: where we are currently, how we see the future, and how can we get to the future we envision? I thought that was an interesting take. You can check out the website here: https://futureviewstoolkit.com/ It is also important to note that the people interviewed for the Future Views toolkit reside in England, but I think that these ideas are worldly and could be applied to the situations of many different countries. They discuss many internal factors and external factors that could affect the future. Internal factors would be things such as not getting enough encouragement from parents, societal prejudice, and the stereotype that young people are lazy. Some external fac...

              Southern Illinois was in a different dimension. Compared to the sprawling suburbs and the bustling Chicago area that resided in the northern part of the state, southern Illinois was a hell hole. Poverty and racism ran rampant down in those parts. Driving through the countryside, one would encounter a never ending field, dry grass that ran all the way down to the tip of Kentucky.             So how did Marvine end up all the way down there? She had ten children, a husband with a good government job, and a desire to unearth the otherworldly truths of planet Earth. All of those years spent raising (well sort of raising) her children had caught up to Marvine. Her long silver hair was tied up in a beehive-like contraption. Marvine never bothered to let her hair down, letting it get matted, and it truly did begin to resemble a beehive.     ...

                  I am not paranoid. I am most certainly not paranoid. No matter what Kelly says, I swear to the gods, I AM NOT PARANOID!!!             In the beginning of the school year, I was a wide eyed hopeful freshmen. My high school teachers told me I would never function in a college setting…yet there I was, standing in front of the large brownstone building that was going to be my new home…Kennedy Hall. Mom had arranged everything for me, from the bus ride up there, to my new roommate that I would be living with.             Everything was going smoothly. I was so excited to be a first year student I rushed up the creaky wooden stairs and up a few stories to the new room that was to become my home. Upon entering said room, I felt a dark disturbance. A very dark disturbance.  ...

              Growing up in a place that was usually referred to as the “slums”, the only thing Michael ever wanted was to have a home all to himself. Yes, a two-story home with a long winding driveway, and an ample backyard with enough space for oneself to breath in. Sure, where Michael had ended up wasn’t exactly his childhood dream, but it was close enough.             The small town of Maplebrook stood on the outskirts of New Brighton, a city which had deteriorated considerably over the years. The residents of New Brighton were just itching to get out. Maplebrook, with its small-town charm, and ample farmland just waiting to be developed. And so, Michael had finally found his escape. Everything was perfect, everything had checked out with the bank, and Michael had just signed the mortgage for his slightly less than perfect dream home.      ...

              Years and years of etiquette training never made the Winter Gala easier. Lacey always found herself hiding in the corner, judging everyone from a distance. This year would be no different, the Queen, Lacey’s mother, would mingle in the center. Then she would go on to make a speech. And every year that speech was remained consistent, the Queen just absolutely adorned her subjects, so long as they were willing to line her coffers with their blood and sweat.             The entrance that the Royal children made to the Gala had commenced, and Lacey had endured the boring procession into the swanked out receiving hall. She was quite pleased with her dress this year, a floor length deep blue gown, the corset adorned with jewels, her normally straight hair was tangled into an elaborate updo. A commoner would seethe in jealousy if they saw what Lacey and her siblin...

              “How are you going to live on your own if you can’t even remember the last place you put your coffee cup?” Ginger’s words had stung Loretta with the sharpness and precision of a killer wasp. Sure, some things were more difficult to remember than usual, but Loretta did not want to admit to her dear Ginger that something in her brain had gone awry. She knew what that meant.             The nursing home.             In the 70 years that Loretta had spent on Earth she had been able to do so much, see so much, and experience so much. 70 years down the drain, all because her brain was refusing to work. There wouldn’t be many chances left for Loretta to prove herself before Ginger would conduct the inevitable. Loretta had heard many horror stories over the years about the dreaded “nursing home”, being confine...