Nothing is ever finished.

I understand this now.  I don't know what to do with the information yet, though.

Oh, Alberta. What the hell is wrong with you?

Somebody told me this e-mail I sent out was a blog post, and as it's already written, here you go.

Since moving to Alberta, I've been weirded-out by different things.  People speaking English on the bus.  People yelling, "Get a haircut!" without intending it to be ironic.  Straight men wearing cowboy hats.  Some of these things I have mentioned here before.  You can get used to just about anything over time, of course, but every once in a while something still catches you off guard.


So I went out for a late-ish breakfast on Saturday, at Friends & Neighbors, and as is my wont on such occasions I brought along the big biography of Graham Greene I've been reading in bits and pieces since I moved here.  Very thick book, black and white photo of Greene on the cover.  Filled with stuff about Greene completing his first novel and working as a war correspondent and a spy before he was twenty, writing a set amount every day - basically I read it to make myself feel inadequate.

Anyway, as I was paying at the cash, I laid the book down on the counter next to me, and while I was entering the tip (not much, the new waiter got my order wrong at first), a fellow came up behind me and slurred, "That's a cheeky book."

Yeah, I didn't know what to think.

I glanced back at him, a fellow about my height, a little unsteadier than I think one ought to be at that hour of the morning, buzz-cut, red neck.  He continued: "That looks like a really intellect-yual book.  Can't you be an intellect-yual where you come from?"

"Where I come from?"

"Don't you practice...  I mean, you're a muslim?"

My first instinct was of course to call him an ignorant troglodyte and see if he knew what that meant, but we were in a crowded restaurant after all. Avoid confrontation.  Okay.

"No..."

"But didn't you used to be a muslim?"

"What?  No.  Why?"

"But you're from the Midder East, like."

"No, I'm not."

"But you're a muslim.  That's what it usually, a beard that shape usually
means."

A beard that shape?  My beard is beard-shaped, surely.  Fair enough, though, I guess facial hair can mean things, like how having a seventies mustache means you're a skeevy douche.

"It pretty much just grows like that."

"But you do, do you identify with the muslim faith?"

"No."

"But I mean, you identify with the Middle, the Ar...  Terrorists?"

"What?  No.  What are you talking about?"

This has to be the longest it has ever taken anyone to pay for breakfast. Move it along, I want to get out of here!

"You know this guy, Muh-Am-Ar-Uh-Muh-Ar...  You know we paid him ten million dollars, how do you feel about that?"

"I don't know anything about it."

"There are Native kids who got sod...  Who got...  Who got done in the butt, and we only gave them a few thousand, dollars, but this Muh...  Ar-Muh-Am... Uh-Am-Ari, he came and he played our intelligence agencies against each, I mean he played our intelligence against, our intelligence agents, intelligence agencies against the govern...  I mean, he turned our government against our intelligence, and made them give him fif, ten and a half million dollars and a mansion in (unintelligable)..."

I think he's talking about that guy who got sent to a secret prision and tortured.  Who wasn't actually a terrorist, or involved with terrorism, at all.  I really don't know much about it, but it seems like he pretty much deserves whatever he can get out of the government, really.  Anyway, my new friend continued...

"I think that's a problem, isn't it?  Like, it's a sign, our societ...  Our country is getting too liberal, when that happens, right?  Like when my father built this country, as a nucular physicist..."

I am not making any of this up.

"... He wouldn't...  I mean, don't you think, do you agree with that?"

"As I said, I really don't know anything about it."

I finally managed to retrieve my bank card and extricate myself from between him and the counter, but from the way his eyes followed me, I could tell I had failed his test.  I had not managed to convince him that I wasn't a terrorist.  Who could blame him for his suspicions though.  After all, not only did I have a beard, but I had been reading a book.  A thick book that didn't appear to be about wizards or farm equipment.  Speaking of which, as I threaded my way out, he had a parting shot.

"That's a real good book, eh?"

Yeah...  I didn't move here for the culture.