Apparently she can't find any tin foil
The Washington Post has a feature on the Bush Derangement Syndrome blogging crowd that's amazing in many ways, but the most amazing part is the profile of the poster child for the article, Maryscott O'Connor, of something called "My Left Wing:"
In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.No meds for ole Maryscott.
Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.
She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette.No prescription meds, that is. Skipping more of her bouncing off the walls we come to:
"WAKE THE [expletive] UP," she writes next, and this time, instead of pausing, she keeps going, typing harder and harder on a keyboard that is surrounded by a pack of cigarettes, a dirty ashtray, a can of nonalcoholic beer, an album with photos of her dead father and a taped-up note -- staring at her -- on which she has scrawled "Why am I/you here?"Ruh Oh! This sounds like a classic case. How did poor Maryscott get this way?
"I was not like this before," she says. "I was riddled with empathy for everyone suffering in the world. Classic bleeding-heart liberal."Doesn't sound much different to me!
Before:
She signed petitions. She boycotted veal. She canvassed for Greenpeace. She donated to Planned Parenthood. She read the Nation, the New Yorker, the Utne Reader and Mother Jones. She agonized over low wages for overseas workers every time she bought a $40 leather purse.
And now, "I have become one of those people with all the bumper stickers on their car," she says. "I am this close to being one of those muttering people pushing a cart.A tin foil beanie will cut down on those pesky connection messages, Maryscott!
"I'm insane with rage and grief.
"But I also feel more connected than I ever have."
If you delve down further in the article past some other amazing specimens, you'll find a Freudian explanation:
The cigarettes are because of a personality that she describes as compulsive.Too bad she's a disgrace to his memory.
The nonalcoholic beer is because for several years she drank to excess.
The note that says "Why am I/you here?" is because she is in constant search of an answer.
And the photo album is because of a 25-year-old Marine who died fighting in Vietnam three months before she was born, which she thinks helps explain the note, the alcohol, the cigarettes and the very first piece of writing she ever published online, a rant against the war in Iraq that began, "Every single millisecond of my life was directly affected by the nightmare that was Vietnam."
