the chemistry of love?

today was our first day of real class, not immersion stuff. we're in intro to geology, which means we started today with introduction to chemistry. chemistry is what i get. chemistry was always my favorite science, and frankly i am surprised that i was not assigned to chemistry as a fellow. the first part of the day i felt like a rock star, remembering all the specifics about s-p-d-f energy levels, stuff like that.

during our review, it started to become evident to me that there are things in chemistry that very much resemble relationships-- specifically lesbian relationships, but definitely holds true for other folks as well.

when we discussed chemical bonds and their relative strengths, i began making the connections. the long-term relationship lesbians, the serial monogamists, the u-haulers who hunker down as if the world is a combat zone and their love is a foxhole-- those are the covalent bonds. they are formed when properties, or dogs, are shared and can be very hard to break. their relative size once bonded also shrinks due to the inward pull of the combined charges, which any of us who have ever been to Relationship Island can vouch for.

then there are the ionic bonds-- these ladies are the ones who get together because they want something from each other, whether it is a rebound relationship, regular access to a ride, or just because they think the other person is cute. these bonds form much more loosely than their covalent counterparts and take only the slightest amount of effort to break. when exposed to a little heat or water (read: summer, alcohol), these molecules bust, joining readily with any neighboring and complimentary charged atom. the funny thing about these ionic bonds is that they are so easily formed that if the bonds are broken, but the system (read: bar) is saturated (read: dead, or everyone is hooked up), the bonds can re-form until the system is heated again. spring and summer in seattle is the best proof that i think i have ever seen which tells me that this law is true.

then there are the metallic bonds-- multiple atoms of the same element chain together in a way that allows them to conduct heat and electricity through each other without actually having to form new molecules. i believe the other term for this phenomena is lesbian friends.

lastly we have the Van Der Waal's bonds-- these are the kind that i have been experiencing most recently, the weak attraction resulting from a completely random and quickly fluctuating arrangement of electrons around a nucleus. situational girlfriend might be another term for it, but i believe there is a formula to express this bond, this attraction, where the strength of the attraction (A) is inversely proportional to the distance (D) from the other person, comme ca:
A= 1/D
everyone with me?

it also occurred to me that lesbians are kind of like elements in their classification column in the periodic table of life. the halogens, the ultra-reactive, dominating, steal-electrons-from-other-elements substances? tops, obvi. the alkali metals, the ones so close to being complete that they freely, and easily give up their lone outer electron? bottoms, you guessed it. i think that i classify myself more in the metalloid category-- metalloids are also often semi-conductors either freely taking from or giving up to another element depending on what that other element is and how it behaves.

it all makes sense.
there will be a quiz on monday, class dismissed.