In Case You Still Had Doubts About My Nerdiness

2008-03-31T14:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, I was reading Fish's blog when I should have been writing my report. Because this is what I do now. I feign productivity and assurance with procrastination and later, quiet panic. As the conclusion of this program rapidly approaches, though, my tolerance for studiousness and focus declines. Thus, the following commentary was born from the instruction to "Write a short essay about the Perkin reaction," with permission to "be creative." The fact that Fish blogged about cheating today helped. A lot.

"My Relationship with Anion," as told by Benzaldehyde

It wasn’t like I didn’t know what to look for. My mother always used to tell me, “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” I just never thought that a sweet, stable girl like me would fall for a negative guy like him. But, I did.

To say that it was in his nature to be a cheater was an understatement. His grandmother was a phenylacetic acid from Sigma and his grandfather, an acetic anhydride from Fisher. Together, they had synthesized his father: a mixed anhydride who spent his life trying to attract the nearest cute amine that caught his eye. At his conception, it had been Triethylamine. She was a bulky, unattractive amine, but all the anhydrides liked her. And, why wouldn’t they? She was simple, easy, and ready to bond with almost anyone who could handle her. She was so unlike my family. We’re stable, aromatic, and pleasant. His mother was just some stinking fishmonger with big bosoms.

He was always so pessimistic. “Mr. Negativity,” I called him. It was like he always had so much to say about everyone, and it wasn’t ever positive. Well, except when it came to me. He always liked me. He said I gave him what he was missing in life.

When we moved in together, though, things were a little shaky. Something about being near him made me think that I was going to lose a part of myself. And, I feared that it wouldn’t be for the creation of a common good. Still, I was seduced by his neediness and wrote off any reservations I had. Unfortunately, we did lose something—an acetic acid molecule shortly after we got together. “A combination of all the bad, and none of the good,” is what I would tell him. “Our bond couldn’t hold the stress of an acetic acid and it was for the better that we lost her,” I would say.

Eventually, our first molecule was successfully created, and I’d hoped he’d forget about the acetic acid. We were living in a town brimming with acrid attitudes and opinions, but Anion fit right in. He had vowed never to have his children anywhere except in such an acidic environment. The doctors said it was for the best, though—crystallizing what had been a chimeric pregnancy and yielding our little bundle of joy, Zoe. We call her Z for short. Sure, she had to be bathed in a little ether to loosen her stiff limbs up, but after separation from the rest of the acidic world in a safe, aqueous, incubator with lots of friendly bases for a while, she had been fine.

Like I said, though, I shouldn’t have trusted him.

While I was making sure my little Z had been carefully washed with water and then isolated with plenty of potassium hydroxide flowing into her incubator, he was bumping around behind the nurses making sure that he had his hands on the rest of our creation—the alkaline extract that had also resulted. We were going to make more molecules later, as we had discussed. We wanted to start our family one molecule at a time, or so I thought.

The alkaline extract was his, he said. It was half of him and deserved the same privileges as Z—full development of her structure and the right to smell beautiful and live a life being every perfume maker’s desire. As if he even had a right to think that! Without me, Z and his alkaline extract would just be some rank acids, obvious byproducts of their father.

I know he did it to spite me. Running out and finding of all people, some girl who looked just like our acetic acid. He knew it wasn’t my fault that we had lost her. He had always grieved her loss, though, and said that it was like losing a part of himself.

His new woman was wretched. Smelly like Anion’s mother, and so sour! She claimed to have been fermented from red wine, but she was as common as vinegar on a well-stocked supermarket shelf. Still, something about her acidity must have been attractive to him, because with her help, E was brought to fruition.

Because of this woman’s behavior, I used to call their love molecule, “Easy.” But it’s not their love molecule, it’s my molecule. I helped to create that alkaline extract, with her mellow, only slightly basic, personality and a spirit as beautiful and aromatic as Z’s.

That jerk, Anion, will thank me someday that our children are the delight of every chef and perfumer. “Spicy, but sweet,” is the description people use, actually. My girls may be acids, but they will never be negative like their father. I taught them better. And, for that hussy woman that conveniently showed up to “help E along”…well, we never saw her again. Five minutes with E and she was gone.

Still, I don’t regret the relationship with Anion. I know it was important, if for nothing else than the creation of our two beautiful isomeric daughters. I knew getting involved with Anion would be a condensation reaction and I should have been prepared. I just never knew that the creation of something so beautiful would be so hard. (And it was sort of hard, since our reactions didn’t work!)

First, Do No Harm

2008-03-29T14:34:00.002-07:00

The package had been unsolicited. They always were.

It was in his nature to send gifts, however. Handwritten notes with imported chocolates and infused tea for purposes unspecified. He would say it was because I told him I was having a bad week. Because he knew it was impossible to fly home when I really wanted to.

Before the trip to New York, the package contained a new type of black tea and two Ben Harper CDs.

“One of the songs is your ringtone on my phone. Guess which one,” he goaded.

I didn’t guess, but instead, promised to give the CDs a thorough analysis when I returned.

It was when I was in New York and he was in Chicago, however, that further dissolution of the relationship that was not would occur. He would say it was my fault. He always said it was my fault.

For the year and a half I’d known him, I was always somehow in the wrong, hurting him intentionally, he said. Our conversations were more often than not in a state of apology. It was the reason that his tokens of affection had availed naught. Anyone can buy gifts. Not everyone can love a person as they are.

And so, it was then, in New York on Sabbath afternoon, when an ex-boyfriend and nothing more came to lunch. I had asked the permission of my aunt and uncle, but had been unscrupulous about the details of the relationship past with my cousins.

“Oh come on, it was just lunch with the family,” my mother told me when I told her that the ex’s presence had probably reached his ears.

“That’s what I thought,” I replied.

But it’s not what I thought. I knew that word would travel through the grapevine. I knew that he would suspect cruel intentions, indicative of my character, he would say. He would judge me, then condemn me. As usual, I would be expected to offer an apology for hurting him. This time, I wouldn’t.

I would listen to the CDs instead and make conclusions about his former intentions. I would decide that the song was “Forever” and pity his loss.

The Hot Virgin

In Case You Still Had Doubts About My Nerdiness

First, Do No Harm