My neighbourhood...

I live in a small section of Winnipeg called "Wolseley," named after Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount, Baron Wolseley of Cairo and of Wolseley. Despite its rather assicipious namesake, Wolseley is regarded throughout the city as the "granola belt" for its Birkenstock sandals, hairylegged women and 3, count 'em 3, Organic food stores. Wolseley prides itself on being friendly, the friendliest place in the already abundantly friendly Manitoba. People greet each other on the street with warm smiles and earnest "Good mornings." "You're never alone in Wolseley," a neighbour told me, "there's always someone to talk to." Coming from Toronto, where making eye contact with someone can be akin to pouring a drink in their lap and questioning their mother's virtue, I find the whole thing just a little forced. I mean, it's a system based on lies that prevent us from actually engaging with other people. At least in Toronto you know the rules - you don't want to talk to them, they don't want to talk to you." Simple, easy, direct. Here, they seem like they might want to talk to you, but are really asking the most superficial of questions that repeal people, keep people at a distance.

"How are you?"
"Lovely morning, isn't it?"
"Are those Birkenstocks?"

People say these things EXPECTING you to answer positively. "Fine, thank you, and yourself?" Most don't even wait for a response before they start walking away. Just once I would love to answer, "Horribly! It's an awful morning. And no, these are the most environmentally antagnositic sandals in existence made out of styra-foam, old polyurothane Big Mac containers and baby seals." I wonder if there'd be even a glimmer of confusion before they grinned their Stepford grin and walked on to the one of the 3 Organic food stores.