I don’t know what to write, but I feel like I should write something.

The semester started the week before last, and the two classes I’m retaking this semester shouldn’t be too challenging. I’ve taken them before, I basically know what’s expected, and I know what my mistakes were last semester- I just have to get them done, and hopefully get good grades. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m working on the job search front, but no progress yet. 

Last weekend I made banana bread, and the recipe I found online called for all-purpose flour and vanilla extract. While making the banana bread, I realized that I didn’t have vanilla extract or flour, and after “Googling” substitutes I found that rum, apparently, can be substituted for vanilla extract. Another thing that was mentioned was vanilla flavored soy milk, and I had vanilla almond milk, but since I had rum in my fridge I decided banana bread with rum sounded interesting.

I did have some gluten-free flour, but the recipe I was using called for 1.5 cups, and I only had about a cup of the gluten-free flour, so I decided to go ahead and make it. I thought the banana bread was good- you definitely can taste the alcohol, and I think the gluten-free flour also affects the flavor and texture.

I mention the banana bread because my ex hasn’t contacted me yet, though I did ask her last week if she wanted any banana bread. I hadn’t heard anything from her since early July. She said “No thanks”, so I think that’s her loss. Unfortunately, I keep thinking of things I could say to her, but if she didn’t want banana bread, I doubt she’d want anything I’d offer her. I haven’t asked, but there’s always the possibility (though she didn’t say anything about it last spring) that she didn’t return for her final year of university, though I doubt that. It seems much more likely that she’s simply uninterested in seeing me.

When I was thinking about writing this entry, I was thinking about how I could write a sad entry, or a more positive entry. The sad entry would have focused more on “I’m not actively trying to find someone through online dating”, or something along those lines. “Sometimes I’m lonely because I have nobody to talk to and no friends,” perhaps, to be overly honest? There are times, as I’ve probably written here before, that I do miss my ex, and always having someone to make plans with and do things with.

I’ve been thinking recently, for example, about how this is the first Labor Day weekend in several years that I don’t have a girlfriend to make plans with. In the past, I remember my now-ex wanting to spend the weekend together, while this year I have a few days off work (always a plus), and at least I don’t work on Labor Day, but I don’t have a date, girlfriend, or any sort of romantic interest to make plans with.

However, I have been thinking about fun things I can do this weekend. I’ve already gone out to eat (yesterday) because I had agreed to meet a friend/former coworker for lunch, but then we had a miscommunication and I ended up eating tacos by myself and we had to reschedule for later today. So I’m going to get tacos 2 times in 1 weekend- definitely muy bien, haha. I could probably let him know that I already had tacos yesterday, but I kind of plan to drop it on him as soon as we’re eating – I’m open to trying something different from the menu. Maybe I’ll try a street taco or a burrito or something instead of the tacos I usually get at this restaurant, haha.

I’ve been thinking recently about how I should be working on my story ideas- it’s been a little bit since I’ve worked on those, but if I could finish those I could actually work on whatever the next ideas/goals are. I’ve also thought about revisiting Duolingo – I know for a week or so I was actively using it every day, but then I stopped for some reason.

There are probably other things I could be doing- cleaning my apartment, laundry, dishes, and other boring stuff like that.

In other, more positive news that I was going to include under the “positive” entry, I’ve recently rediscovered several games from my Steam library. Not only have I resumed playing Stellaris for the first time in a month (I’m not sure why I didn’t touch Stellaris for most of August), but I’ve also resumed playing Mount and Blade: Warband and last night I played Europa Universalis 4 for the first time since, if I remember correctly, December.

It’s sort of weird thinking about the different scales- in Mount and Blade you have your band of, say, 3-50 people, then in Europa Universalis you have armies of thousands, and in Stellaris you’re controlling not a band of medieval warriors or an Early Modern kingdom with thousands of soldiers, but the population of your “star nation” could number in the billions and your armies and fleets could consist of millions (or more), though in Stellaris that depends on your own personal headcanon more than a fixed number.

In other news, recently I’ve been working on Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder character ideas, because building characters is always fun. At one point a couple months ago I built a character that I thought might be interesting to integate into my post-apocalyptic Ozarks story idea, and in the last couple weeks I’ve been working on a specialist wizard (a female human evoker, specifically) and a (female half-elf) barbarian, which has been interesting. I haven’t decided what character I’d like to do next- maybe ranger or sorceror or something. It would be nice if I had an opportunity to use some of these characters sooner, haha.

I’m having trouble thinking of anything else, so this seems like a good stopping point. I should resume writing here more often, for all the good that will do.