Contrary to the claims of my friends, disconnecting my Internet connection at home has failed to improve my social life. In fact, since I also don't have a T.V. anymore, or a phone line, and I'm not really sure that I'm still receiving mail at my erstwhile place of residence, I'm rapidly losing touch with any semblance of "reality" (whatever that may be) and I don't know when anything is supposed to happen anymore. Since I don't have my computer on almost 24-7 anymore, I'm not even sure what day of the month it is half the time.

Somewhat ludicrously, I think my sporadic posts to this blog are the only evidence to the outside world that I am, in fact, still alive.

This entry on f(r)ictions caught my eye, mostly because I am a supernerd who stupidly took the organic chemistry class that only chemistry majors and chemical engineering majors usually take, and the schematic of organic molecules reacting snared me.

But, even more synchronously, I have been using the term "free radical" to euphemistically refer to newly single people in my (increasingly incestuous) circle of friends here in the Midwest. (Skip the following if you have no interest in reading about organic chemistry or biochemistry—which I imagine will be both of my readers) The analogy, while extraordinarily nerdy, is, I think, also apt. Think of break-ups as the splitting of covalent bonds. Depending on how tight the bond was (how strong the relationship was) and how much energy was expended to break the bond (how dramatic the circumstances of the break-up were), you will end up with (1) two atoms that momentarily split apart, then rapidly join back together again (2) two atoms that were loosely bonded anyway even before the energy was applied, and which rapidly drift apart, either calmly binding with other unbound atoms or simply going its separate way as a stable, single atom or (3) two atoms that separate with explosive force, shearing electrons this way and that—in other words, creating free radicals.

Now, just as in a reaction chamber, the result of such a reaction depends on the neighboring molecules. If the other molecules in the chamber are sufficiently stably bonded, the free radicals will eventually shed their unpaired electrons without much ado. But if the other molecules are unstable as well, likely all hell will break loose. A chain reaction will ensue until some stable state is attained, which is typically nothing like the starting conditions.

You squeeze a bunch of molecules tight enough together, and some interesting (though possible devastating) things can happen.

Very few elements actually stay unbound, though. There are, of course, the noble gases, such as helium, neon, argon, and xenon, but even argon and xenon can be induced to bind to oxygen or fluoride, given enough energy. Non-reactive single atoms are very rare indeed.

So I suppose that's either a blessing or a curse, depending on whether you think explosions are a good thing or not.