Yesterday we had the good fortune to be invited to lunch at the home of a local couple. Annette knows the wife through NYC foundation work.

The greatest part of the day was meeting the husband’s brother. He is a doctor visiting from Winnepeg. He’s here doing something or other at he U while on an unpaid leave from the University of Manitoba for six months.

In other words he’s another visitor to the twin cities. I liked him immediately. He seemed to be one of those quiet, scholarly types whose main concern is the search for facts, and where possible, truth. It was a joy to be in his company.

My discussion with him was the seed that allowed the supersaturated gunk in my head to crystallize. Here, now, are my final thoughts on where I currently find myself.

Myth : Minnesota people are nice. This is completely and utterly false. Minnesotans are, at best, “coffee shop nice.” Beyond that they are a collection of paranoid backstabbing, passive-aggressive (pardon my language, I’m quoting) “motherfuckers.” I have now heard this said by two entirely different people world’s apart in temperament and job field (verbatim by one, in essence by the other). The only similarity of the two speakers is they are not from here. Minnesotans will lie to your face to avoid confrontation then proceed to unmake whatever brought about the chance of confrontation. In a job setting this means an underling (or a supervisor) will “yes-man” you to your face, then once your back is turned, do whatever they thought should have been done in the first place.

Snippets told to me:

“They’ll never come out and say you’re wrong, but you’ll get the message. Or you’ll get some kind of message that something’s not right and you’ll have to figure it out.”

“It’s the same with friends. They’ll never come out and tell you something is not right or you’ve made a faux pas or something, but pretty soon you won’t get invited to things and others from your circle stop calling. You get the message eventually.” I call this behavior mean-spirited and largely psychotic.

I could feel ice on my spine as he said this. For me this is the worst situation possible. There is no hope I could live like this over time. I am way way too honest with my opinions. I sometimes even enjoy provoking or shocking people by being deliberately blunt or patently facetious. Being overt is my way of engaging people, of trying to get them to play with me. I don’t see that going over well here.

The good news is the weather is breaking records. The winter is over (it hardly happened at all) and spring is here. The news idiots keep warning another snow storm could descend upon the town, but who cares? Even if we got a record breaking blizzard it would only last for a few days.

I have registered for the Minnesota Century Ride (they insist on calling it the “Ironman”, but I feel that’s a misnomer). The ride happens in late April. I have that long to attempt to get into better shape. Sitting at this stupid keyboard and not having a job to go to has made me more than a little soft.