Sometimes when I'm sitting alone in my apartment, I can forget that all the people I've met out here are probably ten times smarter than I could ever be. But then, there are those other times, when like I'm talking to, oh, say anyone, that I remember CLEARLY that everyone here is smarter than me. Like for example, last week...when I was talking to this guy Jason, who asked if I had found a job.

"Yep, I work at ....It's a pharmaceuticals company."

Jason got a look of relief on his face, like..."thank goodness, I'm talking to one of my own...a smart person." I hate to see people living delusional lives, so I told him...

"Na, na...don't get your hopes up. It's just a desk job. It's not like I'm sitting around mixing carbon and oxygen all day."

Now, in any other region of the country, people would take that statement for the pretty hysterically funny joke that it was and laugh and we'd be friends and that would be the end of that, but here, you can never be sure if you're talking to a Nobel prize winning chemist, or some brain surgeon, or worse, someone who went to MIT.

Jason thankfully had his wits about him, and pointed out that, actually, the process of breathing involves combining carbon and oxygen. Danny, who was listening in on our conversation and recently finished his masters in bioengineering at MIT agreed that I, in fact, spent my entire day at work, combining carbon and oxygen.

Not to be outdone, I said..."Fine. Nitrogen...I don't mix nitrogen and oxygen."

Who knew that a portion of the air we breathe is nitrogen?

Well, if you answered Danny and Jason, you get the gold star.

Finally, I was able to remember a chemical element that wasn't from the top row of the periodic table...besides pleutonium because I wasn't sure if it was really an element, or just something I remembered from "Back to the Future."

"Boron. I don't mess with Boron."

And that, folks, is how it gets done in New England.