I came to a depressing realization last night, while cleaning up dried vomit from my floor. I no longer expect nice things from people.

Let me back up. I just got back from a week long vacation in North Carolina with my family. I got back last night, brought my things in, went into my room, and found a dried pool of what appeared to be human vomit on my floor next to my bed. I immediately envisioned my roommate having people over while I was gone, getting really drunk and stoned, and someone (not my roommate, because if you have to live with someone, you don't usually throw up in their room and leave it) couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. And instead of feeling terribly sorry and cleaning it up, just left it. Perhaps forgot about it. Though my guess was more along the lines of "well, it's not my room, so I don't give a fuck."

As I cleaned it up, I realized that I wasn't surprised. Not that I expected to come home to find that someone had done something destructive and insensitive to my things, it just didn't surprise me. People don't tend to do bad things to me, don't get me wrong. But they don't tend to go out of their way to do kind things for me either.

Maybe it's partially my fault. Maybe I don't demand niceness. I feel like I used to. But once I realized that you can need it and want it and demand it, but that doesn't mean you'll get it, I stopped expecting it. And I can't even really be mad about it. I mean, I was appalled to find my room the way it was, but without a name and a face to put to the misdeed, it's just unchecked unchanneled anger. And I try to avoid feeling generally, unspecifically angry.