So, let's guess what Gwen may be doing on her vacation right now.. It's 12:30 so I'm hoping she's knocking back that tequila, rearranging her tiger print miniskirt and on the way to the dance floor, to bust a move. Go Gwen! We miss you......the guys at the porno mag shop have been asking about you....*G*

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

Answers

If you go to Gwen's journal, you can read and see what she did on her vacation, since she got back home on Thursday.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

Tiger print underwear -- maybe. Skirt -- no way! I'm a neutral outerwear girl.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

Hey Gwen, I read your vacation entries. It sounds like you had fun even without the tiger-print miniskirt. But I have one question: What are Timbits and pouteine? I've never been to Canada -- hell, I can count on one hand the number of places I've been north of the Mason-Dixon line -- so I'm at a loss here. Please explain for the Canadian-impaired.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

You know the apparent difference in friendliness? Well, it's the same way here (northwest U.S.) But see, it's not about not being friendly. It's about being suspicious. If someone yells out their car window to you, you assume that they're either trying to pick you up or making fun of you. It doesn't matter what they yell, your instinctual feeling is the same. Although, I must say, that the country is different from the city. We've just moved to a rural town, and everybody waves when they drive by! I just think that's so cute! And it helps quell my anxiety over being surrounded by rednecks driving massive pickup trucks.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

To elaborate on the friendliness thing - this also changes in Canada from province to province - the friendliest/most laid back folks being Maritimers and the most uptight, rushed folks being out west (I've actually read studies on this - real estate values soar from east to west too, as do murder rates, go figure). Native Torontonians are, however, notoriously conservative, even for Ontario. This is changing with increasing multiculturalism etc...

Oh, and Gwen, I hope you don't mind if I answer the poutine/Timbit thing? Well, poutine is french fries covered with gravy and cheese - extremely bad for you, but a really great treat if you can get past the concept. It originated in Quebec and is only recently popular in Ontario. Timbits are basically doughnut holes, called Timbits at a chain called Tim Horton's (which also has really excellent iced capuccino).

I know way too much about snack food.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2000

I think I need to go make myself some poutine.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

Is there really so much more crime in the Northeast, though? Or do people think that Southerners are "too dumb" to be properly suspicious?

When I first moved from Houston to this semi-rural area outside of Austin, I was amazed that neighbors (but still strangers) would wave at me. Now I think it's bad-ass and I've appropriated it for myself.

In Houston, guys would wave if they thought you were cute. There's nothing wrong with that, to me. I'd rather be waved out than screamed at. It's not like I'm gonna wave back and be giving someone permission to rape me.

I dare all of you to wave to your fellow citizens today.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

I used to think my neighbours were really stuck-up, because they hardly ever said hello to me when I was outside, or seemed to totally avoid me. I put it down to them being elderly English grouches. And then when my friend Karri was leaving after her visit here, we were getting in the taxi and all of my neighbours were shooting the shit outside my next-door neighbour's house, and Karri was like, 'Bye! I'm leaving! Thanks for having me!' and they all laughed and smiled and said bye, asked if they could come back to America with her, etc. I was like, 'Did you talk to them this week while I was in the house or something?' and she was like, 'No, I was just being a dork.' Since then, they go out of their way to talk to me. So chances are they thought I was a stuck-up American biznatch.

But waving would so not go down well here. Ian cringes if I even smile at people I pass on the street.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

I don't think suspicion is something you can choose because you are intelligent enough to understand the choice. I think we are conditioned to feel suspicious on an intuitive level, it's not rational at all. I don't know, I really don't have an explanation. Is southern society traditionally more homogeneous than northern society? Maybe the suspicion comes from culture shock, from being surrounded by too much diversity, too many different systems of rules. That might explain why people are more friendly in the country, because it's totally homogeneous here. You've got farmers, white-trash, and rednecks. They all come from the same stock, though. They understand each other on a certain level.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

When I grew up in northern NJ, my dad used to wave at people in our neighborhood when we drove by, and some people waved back and some people gave him the stink eye. My dad grew up in that area, so it's not like he was from another part of the country and didn't know how the locals did or didn't act. Some people are cold to strangers, and some are warm to strangers.

When I moved to VA, I only waved to people I knew. Then I spent some time in the mountains and everyone waved to everyone else - I realized that in Rockbridge county pretty much everyone knows each other or is related to each other. Now I wave to people in my neighborhood and everyone waves back - actually, this morning I was driving down the road and a jogger waved to me before I could wave to him. But if I was in downtown Lynchburg or some place similar and someone waved to me, I wouldn't wave back unless I knew the person. I would probably just stare at the person real hard and wonder if I really do know the person and just don't remember it.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

Hmm. I don't know. I only live in a semi-rural area, not the actual "country". If I ever move to a place where all my neighbors are half Mexican and half white, just like me, I'll let y'all know if we wave to each other more.

Nicole, next time we hook up, you're gonna have to wave. If you don't, I'm gonna point to you and yell, "She says hi!"

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

Hmmm...waving is my main form of communication with our neighbours, most of whom do not speak English (some are Chinese, some East Indian), and I'm in Toronto. I don't wave at anyone else though. Wow, Gwen, how polite of the guys to just wave instead of catcall - it really is the "genteel south" isn't it?

Last month we were visiting my in-laws, who live out in the country, and while we were standing on their front lawn, several cars waved at us (just DH and I). We were all like, "gee, they must think we're someone else". It was so weird.

I agree to a certain extent that people become more insular in a larger (and consequently more divers) population (i.e. urban). It's too bad, because it's the attitude that cities are dangerous ("lock up tight, better get a security system and a gun"), that actually helps make areas unsafe. We're lucky to live in an old community that was eventually swallowed up by the city; it's definitely not high income, but we know our neighbours and folks are around most of the time (unlike the suburbs of monster houses where no one's home during the day and no one seems to know who lives next door).

Think I'll go wave at my neighbour, who seems to be burying something in his garden (!). Maybe I'll have to get back to you on that safe community thing.

Kate

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

If we're out for a walk or ride in our neighbourhood and we pass other walkers or riders, they always say hello, so we say hello back. However, we are some of the younger members of the neighbourhood, so I think it is an older person thing to nicely greet people.

I waved at the 96 year old dude who marches around the neighbourhood regularly. I haven't spoken to him because our neighbour, in his 70s, told us that the 96 year old guy was a grouch.

When everyone was at my house last week, the old dude walked by and Gwen wanted to invite him in. We decided against it because such a big group of women in their 20s and 30s would have killed him.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

Gwen, Regis called. He said you're getting an automatic pass to get on the show for using the phrase "high quality, super bad-ass tiara."

I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal that phrase for my very own. Totally great diary entry on the trip (and you do not look "greasy" in that one picture. You're just "glistening.")

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

Where my parents live, everybody waves all the time. They live on a farm so there's a lot of drive-by honk/waving and the proper response is to quickly raise an arm. Also, when *any* car drives by on the road my dad does a heads up from the living room to see who that is. And he does this at night too -- even though he's mostly unable to tell (I say mostly because sometimes my dad can tell whose car it is by the shape of the headlights).

Here it's a mix. When we go for walks we wave to the other pedestrians. I like to walk around the place where I live. It keeps me connected.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2000

Maggie, you never know. I say he could have taken us.

Lisa, thanks. You're sweet.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2000

I live on a pretty friendly street, so I wave to my neighbors all the time. I usually will say hi to people walking or jogging down my street, but if I don't feel like being friendly, I'll just pretend I'm picking off dead flowers or something.

All in all, I'd say San Antonio is a pretty friendly place.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2000