I’ve realized that I have a hard time looking in the eyes of people I can’t stand.

It’s as if I don’t want to be dishonest to them. That no matter how much I hate them, I still feel like they deserve to know the truth. At least I can be…honourable about this, independent of how I feel about the person.

I hold honesty at a very basic level of human integrity. I can’t believe how many people I know who pretend to be friends with people they can’t stand. It all seems so phony, unless they’re forced to be friendly due to specific circumstances (such as being married into a new family, moving in with unknown roommates, etc.). Sometimes the false friendliness gives people the wrong idea, and they start to hang around even more, and everything just gets worse.

I’m glad that I find it hard to lie to someone, although I’m also a little scared by the fact that it’s so hard for me to hide something such as this. I’ve always been a terrible interpreter of body language, and in turn have never had much luck with hiding/manipulating my own. Of course I can hide it when I really want to, but it’s a lot harder when I don’t give a shit about the person. Most people, I don’t care enough about to actually hide anything.

And it shows.

Aaron and I tried a “non drinking” test run at the Honest Lawyer yesterday. I’ve never really needed alcohol to have a good time around people like Aaron and Trolley. For some reason I already get pretty hyper and already act crazy around them, like I’m an energy sink. I’ve always viewed alcohol as another tax that I was shelling out for, like cigarettes or lottery tickets for some.

It was good to be more conscious about everything going on and not have to feel like shit the next day. Aaron wants to try giving it up altogether or drinking every other time we go out, but I’m pretty fine with cold turkey. I doubt I can completely give it up, especially since red wine goes with my beef spaghetti so well and the fact that so much alcohol tastes so good by itself, but I’ve never really felt the need to swig the liquid courage. The craving for an occasional binge will always be there, of course, but those are few and far between.

I’ve always been a person who, rather unforgivingly, either loves or hates something. It doesn’t matter what, it can be a movie, a person, a haircut, anything. There is rarely an in-between for me.

All the things I dislike just make me appreciate the things I like more. The more I dislike something, the better the appreciation.

I once thought that this was a bad quality, but now I actually prefer to be this way. I know so many people who either enjoy everything, or can never be pleased by anything. Every time I meet one of these people and ask for their opinion on something, I can never trust it.

It ends up being that I only trust the opinions of people who love and hate like me, Trolley for example. This may be the only bad part. I hate to think that I may be becoming more closed-minded by exclusively listening to people similar to me. The only way that I can try to keep an open mind is by understanding that everyone has their own opinions, no matter how much I do or do not respect the person themselves. No one is ever right or wrong.

And it doesn’t even matter if they agree with me.

I’ve been enjoying the ritual of writing every other day. It paces me well for what I have to say, without a flood of information. I’ll probably try to keep it up for the rest of the month.

Patches pissed all over Nick’s new lily-white futon matress yesterday. Somehow it soaked through the matress and even reached the bottom. He’s been inconsistently incontinent the last week and threw up twice over the weekend. I’m bringing him to the vet for a check up to make sure it’s not a bladder infection or sickness. I hope it’s something health related, as opposed to a mental problem, such as fear or nervousness with Dolly running around. That way it can be fixed, whereas a mental problem is much more difficult to cure. Dolly is still attacking him, half playfully and half forcefully, but Patches doesn’t like any of it. He’ll sleep on my bed for protection at night, usually on my ankles but sometimes on my pillow.