The moon is beautifully full and it feels like it could be one of the last cool nights (75 degrees) of summer before the hell heat of august rolls in. I get in my car and head back to campus. My car, Roxanne, “the fuckus” feels like it could break down any minute (don’t worry baby, I’ll take you in for your 90k check up soon – next week – maybe)…or maybe it’s me. I’m sloshing around in the sullen attitude I’ve acquired during the day, probably having some part to do with the angsty-hater coffee break I took with T, part because there are still roaches in my house and the front office closed before I could tell them to send the exterminator tomorrow (thursday is bug day), part because my brain feels fried already and I still have the worst part of the “hell experiment” ahead of me. and it might have something to do with the 6 cups of coffee I’ve had since 6 am. that, and I hate driving and I think my car is shaking…but again, that might be the coffee.

coffee. smooth, bitter, nerve jolting, conducive-to-cynical-discussions coffee. T and I took a hate-on-the-government coffee break. T is bitter and hates grad school, and is quitting…to go to law school. We hate on the adminstration’s shrouding of the CIA leak, of the 911 report and how it took an absurd amount of time to assemble due to administration bullshit like executive privilege claims. T and I swoon at the idea of a transparent government. We will probably never see one, because administrators would have to answer to the people for all the shit they put their hands in, the fuck ups, everything, and that would be scary. but it would be grand to behold – a philosopher king, a reluctant ruler. the best person to have in charge, of course, is the person who is reluctant to rule and doesn’t want any power. power can be taken away. it’s unfortunate that people have apparently lost the ability or will to control the government, because that’s the way it was supposed to be.

T and I wonder about the next depression. It will inevitably hit, T thinks. I wonder if it already has. I wonder, when history looks back, when will it determine that the depression began?

I hate driving extra bad right now. I-183 used to be so much more desolate in the later hours, everyone already having left the metropolis. I bet this resounding traffic has something to do with the gas price factor: everyone takes the bus into the city now. It’s getting ridiuculous – sometimes it’s hard to find a seat, even before or beyond the rush hour – I can’t remember it ever being this packed before: the entire aisle is jammed, the air doesn’t circulate even though the crank the ac, and it smells like BO. It’s like being in mexico. Now’s the time, I’m betting, when everyone is running their after-work errands, since they can’t stop and pick up groceries on the way back from work – the bus doesn’t make grocery store runs. I wonder what things will sink next in the depression. I wonder if the depression will ever end, or if, when history looks back, it will deem this as the beginning of the end of the industrial age. or maybe the end of the world, if what’s left after the industrial age crumbles falls into such darkness and disintigrates into the poisoned planet. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll see the apocolyptic collapse of the industrial era and if what lies beyond will be smokey, dark, and metallic…like in terminator 2. God, I’m sullen today. I wonder if it’s the moon, giving off an eery vibe. then again, my mother let me watch terminator 2 when I was 10 years old – it kinda made a strong doomy impression on me. Or it could be me.

When I was little, I thought the end of the world would come when the sun exploded. When I was 4 years old, I learned the sun was a star, and caused quite the tizzy little quarles with fellow pre-schoolers when I told them that stars are actually round. Then, when I was about 6, I learned that stars can die, that they can actually explode, and eventually may become black holes. My parents quelled this fear in me by telling me that the sun won’t explode for several millions of years. I guess I never stopped wondering about the end, or at least my end. there was the fear of being eaten alive by the aligators under my bed (fiction), dying in a volcanic erruption (after reading about pompeii, I devised emergency escape plans for me and all my stuffed animals). Then I saw T2, and have ever since been sure mankind would hasten the end upon themselves.

I pull into the parking lot outside Welch. Risdorf, another chem grad, is walking out just as I walk in. I wave hi, roll my eyes and make the “shoot me in the head please” gesture.

“what’s wrong,” he asks as we pass eachother
“going back to work at 10:30pm,” I say, over my shoulder.
“So?”
“Yeah. exactly.” That’s pretty much how it goes. Risdorf is a fifth year, and he’s jaded. when do I get to be jaded, I wonder at the moon. probably never, I answer to myself. I suck badly at being jaded. I’m an excellent whiner, however, and I’ve been told I’m highly entertaining when I’m angry or drunk. Sometimes, I think, I’m just trying to entertain myself.

I go into lab, all the lights are still on. I wonder who else is still at work – Welch hall never sleeps. I need to change the water in the 4 liter tank which holds a membrane-sack containing my nanoparticles. The dialysis proceedure, the purification of the particles takes 24 hours – I started the experiment this morning with a perfect synthesis. The water needs to be changed half-way through, replaced with fresh water to draw out the impurities – salts and such. I grab an unused 4 liter tank and march accross the hall to the water filter. The tank slowly fills and I do pot du berrets and pirouettes across the floor and around the side of the room, checking my form in the glass that shields the chemical hoods. Not bad. I grab my water and head into another lab. Approching my sample in the hydrogenation hood, my eyes narrow in on the hydrogen tank regulator – and it’s like tunnel vision – the bad kind – the kind that has ominous theme music. The regulator reads zero with 12 hours to go. I mess with the valves and the hydrogen line and outlet to encourage the last bit of hydrogen to flow. I watch as the bubbles grind to a halt. flatline. mother. fucker. It’s not the worst screw up, at least I get to sleep tonight, it would’ve been way worse if the tank had run out tomorrow, but still, the day’s work gone to waste. Buuuuut, my samples might still make it if I can keep air out of the water. Either way I wont find out until tomorrow morning. I need something to cover my tank. I find a large erlynmeir flask. the semi-round bottom makes a decent fit on the tank. other creative uses of chemistry glassware: flower vases, hookas, and bongs. Just for kicks, I snap my gloves off like a TV actor playing ER doctor who just lost a patient. And so it goes. I feel stupid, potentially having fucked up my samples. I should probably grab a new tank and start over tomorrow anyways. This – by the way – is one of the reasons why a PhD takes 5 years on average to complete.

It’s midnight, I’m going home, I could probably still call Alex before I go to bed. Goodnight, nanoparticles. Goodnight empty hydrogen tank. Goodnight.

…alright, Roxanne. I have to live to repeat this stupid day, get me home.