Tenth Post

He's back!! He's back he's back he's back!!

I am still making negative progress. Well, actually, I suppose negative progress would imply that I've found that I've done something wrong and I have to retool everything. No, I have no had to retrace any steps yet, so I guess I'm making no progress rather than negative progress. And when you put it like that, it sounds positively - well, positive!

Anyway, he seems just as puzzled as I am, which is nice in a way because it means that I'm not a complete idiot. Unfortunately, because of Dave's shifting alliances (I don't know if they're alliances or if they're shifting, but it certainly makes the whole situation sound slightly more exciting), we can't do many of the diagnostic tests that we'd like to do. Things like NMR at all, and more specifically, quantitative C-13, MS, possibly IR but really that's not Dave's domain.

Well anyway, this morning FX came in to visit me and he sat down and said, rather theatrically (for him... you see, for anyone else I'm sure it would have been relatively deadpan but I'm getting used to the way FX communicates), "I have finally returned." Then he wanted to see my NMR which, of course, was somewhat unhelpful.

Then I vacuum-pumped my sample and found that it was two-thirds less than its initial weight. That's always quite disheartening.

My teeth hurt again today. I'm not sure what sets them off, but it does make eating quite a painful ordeal.

Hahahaha okay so FX told me at least three hours ago that he'd be back in an hour. Whatever. I got the GC up and running finally - the pigheadedness triumphs again! - and I pulled another paper for lactonization and I think he might like this one better. They're just all under such dilute conditions.

So I'm sitting here, whiling away the time by reading and trying to actually select useful bits of information from the articles that I managed to find. It's kind of peaceful - and he knows as well as I do that we're pretty dead-ended right now. I could always do the second alkylation again, but he hasn't told me to and besides, the glassware isn't in the oven.

I'm listening to Regina Spektor because Gaby burned me a CD, and my favorite song is called "Human of the Year", not particularly because of the lyrics but because of the melody and the way it changes and somehow, at the same time, doesn't change at all and the way her voice soars through it and then suddenly ebbs away. There's something about her voice that grabs me.

I always feel like there's a sort of sarcastic, maybe even mysogynistic undertone to her songs that I never fully understand. Sometimes I wonder if artists or authors or directors or anyone in charge of any sort of media do that on purpose - bury something too deeply to really be anything but aware of it. Kind of like that huge rock in the ground that you spend days trying to dig out when you're a little kid but you never get any farther than deep grooves in the dirt that always come back to the stone.

But that's an unnecessary metaphor. All I'm saying is that I feel like there's something there that I'm not getting, which usually frustrates me but I think I've come to a place in my life - not necessarily a pivotal place - where I can sometimes just let things go because it's easier. In little tiny ways, like not knowing the layered meanings to Regina Spektor's bizarre lyrics.

Wow. Today has been the most bizarre day ever. FX is back, Dave is being semi-difficult because his instruments are all set up for solids, Chatterjee just cornered me in the hallway to ask me if I thought that if he told kids that he was dropping one of his exams (he only gives three!), it would be more fair (fairer?) than last year. Personally, I thought he was perfectly fair if a little lenient LAST year, so... I guess fair's fair. Abrams cornered me earlier to ask if I'd thought about being an undergrad TA for general chemistry lab.

FX actually asked me what classes I'm taking this semester! I don't know why it surprised me so much. I guess I was not expecting him to be so... small-talk-y. Maybe he still feels like he's on vacation. He just seems more approachable lately (not that I ever shy away from approaching, but you know what I mean) and it's nice. I like it. I missed him a lot and now that he's here I feel so relaxed even though I have only seven more days in the lab and who knows what's going to be accomplished by August 28?

I recently decided to let all of my fingernails grow out. I've been doing quite well about not biting them for quite a long time, but I left the fingernails on my pinkies to be bitten. It was kind of weird I guess to bit only those two nails, but for some reason it worked. Anyway, I decided not to bite my pinky nails - a conscious decision.

They've grown out a couple of millimeters, probably, and they look so funny to me! My hands don't look like my hands to me anymore. I guess that's really weird, as far as weird goes, but those two nails are changing the aesthetics of my entire (two) hand(s)! Because I do, you know, have two of them.

In any case, the day is done.