My thoughts on the Periodic Table of the Elements

There are the elements with clearly demarcated functions and

characteristics; the metals over by Potassium and Magnesium--and then

opposite, our friends the halogens, and then of course, the inert (noble)

gases. And until advanced chemistry or physics classes, all that crap in the

middle of the table are just collectively the transition metals. The only

thing we are required to know about those guys, like Silver and Copper, is

that they are unpredictable. But really, their dynamism is grossly

understated in such broad definitions. Because these are the metals that

want so earnestly to fill their valence octets that they have the

adaptability to reveal themselves with various charges, sometimes as many

as three different suits (such as FeI, FeII, and FeIII), all dependent on

whom they are bonding with.

Sometimes either disregarded as fickle and unreliable, or ostracized for

being the hermaphrodites of metals, we overlook the driving distinction of

the transition metals that is Will.

And then there's Hydrogen, floating around self-sufficiently diatomic.

Instead of wearing various shells of atomic orbit in order to attract a

mate, the others--both metals and nonmetals alike--come to hydrogen; she

is everywhere, but on her own terms.