Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
21st Anniversary: T minus 3 days
Karen and I met during my last year at Berkeley. I had recently changed my mind about my future. All of those pre-meds I had despised for the last three years — well, I still despised them, but I decided maybe they knew something I didn’t know. Mind you, I had zero interest in patient care, but that (my counselor told me) wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. There was this new creature, see. All the rage at places like Hahvahd or Stanford. They called ’em MD-PhDs. I’d get to live in a lab like a PhD (something I wanted at the time) but I’d get paid like an MD, and NIH would rain grants down upon me, a veritable golden shower . . .
Anyway, this change in direction meant I had to take a hard look at my appearance on paper. The one thing I lacked was research experience. And so, in Fall Quarter of my senior year, I cast around looking for a lab, and soon found myself with Professor Sung-Hou Kim.
I was years-young and world-stupid enough to get deliriously excited over the prospect of twenty hours work per week with no pay, and in that mood I first laid eyes on Karen. I left Melvin Calvin Lab and skipped over to Hildebrand Library. (I did a lot of skipping in those days, skipping and moping. A sure target for the Moonies.) I had to tell someone of my stunning good fortune. I ran over to a table where my friend Stan sat with two girls I didn’t recognize. I began to effuse, but Stan would have none of it.
“What?” I said. “Are you still mad at me?”
He was mad about something, and it was probably me. He’d dropped in on me at my apartment earlier that week, unexpected, and I hadn’t been too welcoming.
“Should I be mad at him?” he asked Karen and Suzie. They both kept quiet. You couldn’t really answer a question like that.
Later, he told me that Karen and Suzie were roommates, and I could take my pick. Later still, he found out that Karen had a boyfriend and retracted his offer. (Stan was like that back then. Different.)
This bummed me out. He’d hyped her to me — told me how smart she was, how she took math classes for fun. (Karen denies this. She says all of those math classes had a purpose.) It didn’t take much hype to keep me interested.
It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even lust at first sight. No, what I felt was far more ominous.
Kismet.
D.
For fun I looked you up on the Google Scholar search engine (actually, I only just found out Google had a scholarly search engine – where have I been?)
Anyway, both times, the search caused my computer to freeze up. I can only assume your research was top-secret.
I’ll be shocked if you find much. If you really want to see my stellar academic career, check this out. (Warning: boring!)
Aww, how sweet!
M
Oh, it gets worse, DM. Stay tuned.
[…] 13. Karen. Long-timers here know the whole story (here, here, and here) of our courtship, but I thought I’d add one detail. After my friend Stan and I crashed Karen’s apartment two or three times, I called him one night. “What do you think?” I said. “Does she love me yet? Why is this taking so long? Gaaaaaaaaaah!“ […]
[…] A modest proposal By Walnut We celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary on Friday. I’d like to pick up the story where I left off last year. Hmm. Let’s see. We had just done the narsty, but I hadn’t proposed. […]