Paranoid Nut

At a birthday party last night for a good friend, we had the pleasure to meet Claire. A nut.

At first I was intrigued, like I am by all nuts. She was direct. Chatty. Ready to tell me whatever was on her mind. A journalist and political commentator, at first she seemed very informed and professional.

I mentioned Ebay and Claire went off on how Ebay collects information about me and how Americans need to rise up. The government has no right to invade our privacy like that.

She then went on and on about the internet, credit cards, banks, etc. I agreed with her. But the emphatic nature of it eventually lead to Claire telling me that she truly felt we are living in a fascist state. No irony. No seeing the moderate side. She meant it. She also did not seem to be someone who was open to any reasoning since she seemed to have a hard time believing in anything other than the thoughts in her head.

At one point, making a joke about how ready I was for something new in my life, I said, “We don’t know what we are going to do next. Maybe go to Nepal?”
Claire told me why it was not a good time to go to Nepal. Above all, the weather this time of year. The commercialized cities. The bad government. I even explained to her that I was just making a joke. And she continued about the problem with Nepal. Odd duck.

She was either heavily medicated or had a mild form of autism. She told us she was a journalist, but left her latest job because she was having trouble with them. I asked her, “What is your outlet? Where can I hear you?”

She vaguely mentioned a podcast. So, I imagine she is doing her “show” or her “column” from her home. (No judgment there...)
So, I figured she was just this wacky type, like me, sending out opinions and blurbs on the internet to a small audience. But oddly, she had an intern. An assistant, who was there at the birthday mix, too. A young woman. This was her first “cocktail party.” She wasn’t drinking because she was too young. And, it appeared to me she was the driver for the night.

Such an odd relationship. This young woman hitching her wagon to this wacky, older loon. The assistant was cute. She had a little purple hair action growing out. She seemed sort of normal. But I think the hair was the tip of some odd iceberg. I didn’t get to talk to her too much. But, she did seem disaffected by her short past. Who knows!

The interesting thing about Claire, like many nuts, is that she was very intelligent. And she did say something I found very fascinating. “You and I are nice people. We think everyone else is that way. We don’t think there is evil out there. But there is. Both families that Bush comes from, the mother’s side and the father’s side, have been involved in war profiteering since the middle of the nineteenth century.”

From the mouths of nuts---comes the truth. I like meeting these kinds of nuts.