Well, it’s been a little bit since I’ve written for the blog or anything in particular, but I want to. I feel like every entry, with their enigmatic one-word titles and short descriptions, has been written with the idea that I had to write about something deep. Revelations about life, realizations about myself, or about incredibly important moments in my life. But I don’t think blogs have to necessarily be like that. I will try to be deep and significant and whatever no matter what, but I’d also like to just write about my life and the interesting little things that happen every so often.

Of course, that desire is not unfounded, and probably comes from the fact that I don’t really have anyone to talk to about the mundane things in my life anymore. Which brings us to the first thing I’ve been thinking about. A month and a few days ago (is it normal to keep track of your break-up date?), I broke up with my now-ex-girlfriend. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I didn’t really want to talk about it much, for privacy and (emotional) processing purposes. For the past few days, the breakup has been weighing on me a lot. After a month, everything starts to sink in, and even though I’ve been talking big about being better at being alone, I can’t deny the overwhelming feeling that I want to be in love and have someone to miss. But I’ll just have to try and ignore it for now, because I’ve sworn off any romantic entanglements for a while–at least a year. I even asked a friend to keep me accountable. Even though I feel more pain over my decision every day, so too have I grown more certain that I made the right choice. We are different people, and maybe we could have made it work in spite of that, but whoever I am right now? He isn’t ready to be that person. So we never could have made it work. When I am the person I want to be, and a better, more well-adjusted person, maybe I can make it work with the right person.

At the same time, however, I know it’s okay to be upset and struggling. I remembered recently that she was the best friend I ever had. I had always struggled a bit with friends, but when I met her, I was in a bad place. Instead of friends, I hung out with my history teacher every lunch, and I felt like I could trust almost no one. But then we met and became friends quickly; we can even trace the very day we became friends, since that was the first day we texted each other, and we texted every single day for 932 days. Now we’ve only texted once in the past month. But for about 932 days, she was the person who knew everything about my life and the person I told everything to. So it’s okay to hurt without her and to feel guilty about everything I did wrong. Eventually I will grow and it will pass. Right? In the immortal words and wisdom of the Cranberries, I have to go my own way.

I guess that stuff was a little heavy, so oops. I guess I only have two paragraphs to say about my breakup, but maybe that’s a sign I’ve made some semblance of peace with it. I guess I could say more, but it’d probably just bore me. Anyways, here’s a few of the other disparate interesting things that have happened recently, in no particular order.

Two of my good friends got engaged while I was on my road trip, which is incredible. I knew it was going to happen for a while (they talked about it a lot), but it started to get real when he told me how he was planning on doing it and how much he spent on the ring (spoiler alert: it’s worth more than me). When it finally happened, I was ecstatic. If nothing good was going to happen in my love life for a long time, it’s great that it could happen for someone else. They are definitely young, and I can’t even imagine calling someone my fianceé at our age, but if any couple could make it (especially from our high school), it would be them. So I wish them all the best and can’t wait for the wedding. I have offered to get ordained so that they can elope and I can officiate it, but I don’t think they’ll take me up on it. I might get ordained just in case anyways, though. On the flipside, two of my other friends broke up recently as well. They were also a long-term couple, and it unfortunately didn’t work out, which really hurts me. But one of them is leaning on me, and I on her. Misery certainly likes company.

The other week I also saw my ex as I was driving home from work. I actually pass her street every time I drive to and from work, so that’s a great reminder, but then I actually saw her in her little red truck. She drove a red truck and so did an old friend of mine, so I look in every red truck I see, almost out of morbid curiosity that they might be in it, even though I don’t really want them to be, or even when I’m far away from home and know they couldn’t possibly be there. But it finally happened. It was actually her truck. We didn’t make eye contact, so I don’t know if she saw me, but it definitely made me feel some kind of way. She didn’t look happy, but I hope that was because of a bad shift at work or traffic instead of a lingering unhappiness from me. A few days later I also put a song on my Instagram note, and a few hours later she put the exact same song on her note, even though she had no way of seeing my note. Fate is funny that way, although I don’t believe either of those events particularly meant anything.

Literally as I am writing this, I discovered that there is an option to lock my windows button on my keyboard, which I must have accidentally turned on at some point, and explains why the windows button has been so terribly absent from my life recently, especially because of the Windows + . shortcut for emojis, symbols, and emoticons. So don’t be silly like me and accidentally disable that key…

Back to the topic of love, I watched Voicemails for Isabelle last night with my sister to ring in her birthday (she turned 25, so she’s basically pushing 30, so she’s kinda pushing 60). It was a little vulgar so maybe don’t watch it with your parents or anything, but it was really fun. Was it super predictable? Yeah. Was it perfect? No. But it followed the formulas of so many romcoms I love from the halcyon romcom era of the 2000s-early 2010s. In this past decade, which has been recognized as a dry spell for rom-coms, it’s refreshing to have a familiarly formulaic romcom. Plus, it puts Zoey Deutch at 2/2 for great romcoms (the other being Set It Up with Glen Powell). Unfortunately, it made me want to yearn again because I can’t help but be a sucker for love.

Oh, more movie stuff. The Odyssey movie came out after a lot of anticipation. The trailer did not give me high hopes about it and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to see it, but all of the glowing reviews made me absolutely have to see it. My siblings and I watched it together, and I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t the perfect adaptation, but it was still good. We had a good discussion about it afterwards because my siblings are both purists, while I am more of the opinion that it’s okay for an adaptation to, well, adapt to the times. If I wanted an exact imitation of the poem, I would just… read the poem. Instead, we got a movie that is an incredible visual and auditory experience (though the music was somewhat lacking), bridging the past to the present as it told an ancient, well-known story, but injected it with Nolan’s modern sensibility through its altered themes and characters. I am certain it will age well. Then there’s the new Spider-Man movie, which I absolutely adored. It’s like the Spider-Man movie I’ve been waiting for forever, and plays like a comic book come to life and a love letter to New York. And finally, my sister and I watched the proshot of Hadestown, which we saw live in New York in October. Of course I already knew I loved it, but I bring it up because you should listen to it. It’s a sad song, but it’s also one worth listening to.

Now, something I have not been loving recently is work. We’ve had a new manager for a bit, and it’s come with a lot of growing pains. In fact, two of my co-workers straight-up walked out of the store mid-shift and left me running the front of house alone, which was not a good time. It was absolutely ludicrous to me. I’ve dreamed of walking out of this job and my previous job when things got particularly bad. You know I love being dramatic. But I would never actually do it, because I appreciate doing things the proper way and trying to be considerate of other people. Nothing that bad was even happening, so I maintain that they’re cowards for walking out, and even more so because they didn’t do it in an interesting fashion; they just hurried out of the side door so discreetly that my manager didn’t believe me when I first informed her they left. Another guy also quit after a week and wrote a letter about how terrible and emotionally toxic the workplace was, which I found hilarious but slightly true. On top of those people, just about everyone else (including the person I started working there for) is leaving for college or other reasons, which means I will have to take on more responsibility and get to know new people. I know I love meeting new people and learning about their lives, but the price of becoming a “veteran” worker and being responsible for teaching people correctly is not one I want to pay. Moreover, it’s completely possible that I won’t like these new people, though I realize that’s a pessimistic possibility to invite into the world. Maybe I will click with them, but then there’s the issue that I’m going to be leaving at the end of the year when I move to Utah.

On a more positive note, I’ve started writing down my recipes. I don’t have too many right now, and there are some I know too well to need to write down, though I might later (such as Korean tofu stew), but I hope to build up a catalogue of recipes I like and the ways I like to make them for easy reference in the future, and so I don’t lose my own secrets. I mean, last year I pulled off the most incredible Thanksgiving turkey and I’m still not sure exactly how, so I’ll have to try and replicate it this year and see if it’s good enough to write down. My most recent creation which I wrote down was a fennel kumquat salad. Peeling (which apparently you don’t need to do?), de-seeding, and cutting the kumquats was a nice and tedious task, but they were so wonderfully sour and tangy and balanced the anise-y earthiness of the toasted fennel. Pair that with the sweetness of navel orange chunks, the brininess of green olives, the brightness of a pomegranate vinaigrette, and the depth of olive oil? It was beautiful. I hope I can re-create it someday, and maybe even improve it. But kumquats are a rarity, so I accept that it may have been a special treat, as good food often is.

Well, I think that’s about it. I hope this type of update is interesting. I certainly enjoyed it. You also probably already noticed this, but I’m abandoning the one-word nomenclature for my titles. It’s a fun little constraint sometimes, and I won’t completely abandon it, but I don’t think I need to be strict about it. There are only so many words (that was a joke–I hate how many words I don’t know or use) and I don’t want to sound like I’m repeating myself, or be too vague.

I’m going to be buying my cousin’s car soon and I believe my parents and I will be going to the Redwoods in the process, which would be great, since it’s one of the most achievable things to do on my bucket list. I just adore large things. But with that, the summer will be ending, and who knows if anything will be going on with me. My friends will all be leaving in the next month, save a precious few, and all I’ll have left is work as we trudge toward the misery of Idaho fall and winter. All that is to say I might not write anything substantial for a while. Hopefully I will instead focus on my creative writing and reading. I recently picked up Ulysses by James Joyce, which I’m looking forward to tackling. I did start it, but haven’t even made it through the court decision that precedes my edition (pertaining to lifting a ban on the book)... I also got a book about the history of Chinatown in Idaho, which I became curious about from my road trip. It’s so interesting how an entire people group used to be so significant in the state (1/3rd of the population at one time, I believe! Or maybe just in a specific region. But still), and their footprint now has almost completely disappeared. There is no Chinatown, nor big festivals in the street, or even many classic Chinese restaurants around the valley. And many of the Chinese in the valley, such as my Taiwanese-American mother, are not from this old vanguard of Chinese workers, but are rather from the modern, Bay Area types of immigrants. Anyways, I should read that book soon and hopefully recount it a bit here.

Thanks for reading!