Amateur weird: or, how it's hard to be a hippie chemist

I feel a little like galileo some times. This is not to say that my friends and fellow doofers are close-minded, but they're certainly differently minded. I am a spiritual person; this much is true; but I find it difficult to nod and smile politely when close friends are asking me whether or not I think it's a placebo effect that they feel stronger energy from meditating with one crystal rather then another. Likewise, when people very close to you are telling you qabout their experiences seeing ghosts, spirits, faeries and demons... Well, I'm not going to say that you're lying. I like to keep an open mind about the potential for mental expansion through the sue of psychedelics and the possibility that you're using a higher part of your brain that allows to to see these otherworldly beings. it's possible. But highly improbable. it's awfully, awfully hard to not tell them to stop taking acid and get a bloody catscan because they're fscking bonkers.

I believe in chemistry. I rely on the scientific method. I feel a strong conenction with the earth and the planet and feel very strongly about the environment and protecting what we have left. I am anti live aniumal exports, anti old-growth logging and anti whaling.

but then again, i'm pro nuclear. I'm pro choice. I'm pro stem-cell research, and pro-CERN.

It's hard being the only guy in the spirit circle who knows what a wolf-kirschnerr reaction is, but even harder when a friend says that 'the mushrooms whisper to him' to say they're psychedelic; when the ehrlich, melzer's and iodide testing says they're toxic...

A scientist's lot is not a happy one. I love all of my friends, but some of them are pretty fucking nuts.