Peter Pan should have been a cosmologist. I mean, if you want to stay forever young, nothing puts things in perspective like contemplating our place in a fourteen-billion-year-old universe. You tend to take a long view of things.
But eventually, one must grow up and start acting like an adult. Did you realize, for example, that many grownups participate in an institution known as “marriage,” which apparently involves tying your entire future history (and let’s be clear about this — I fully expect to be immortal) to that of another person? Someone, obviously, who you better like an awful lot. And who better be able to put up with you. Trust me, you really don’t want to interact with me before I’ve had my coffee in the morning.
How in the world is one expected to find such a person, in a world full of interesting but flawed characters? Well, there’s always the blogosphere. Two kindred spirits, tapping away at their matching MacBook Pros, could find each other across thousands of miles in a way that was heretofore impossible.
All of which, in a fumbling and hopefully-charming way, is to say that it’s happened. I’ve fallen hopelessly for the beautiful and talented Jennifer Ouellette, science writer extraordinaire and proprietess of Cocktail Party Physics. I first plugged her blog (completely innocently! honestly!) back in March, and we met in person at an APS meeting, of all places. Best conference ever.
And, various cross-country jaunts and countless emails later, we’re engaged to be married. If it’s clear that you’ve found the perfect person with whom you want nothing more than to spend the rest of your life, you might was well get the presents, right?
Expressions of astonishment that I could have done so well by myself, and wonderings aloud concerning what in the world Jennifer must be thinking, may be left in the comment section. You needn’t tell me how fortunate I am — I know.
Comments
97 responses to “Love and Blogging”
(meant “and/or cosine waves”)
Wow :-))) CONGRATULATIONS to both of you!
Congratulations to both of you! I hope the two of you are very happy together, and I wish you all the best for your shared future.
I was tempted to insert an entanglement joke, but I guess that would just lower the tone of the whole comment section.
Sean, that piece and Jennifers over a Cocktail Party Physics were beautiful. Congratulations to both of you.
Robin (3QD)
Congrats! Are your families bugging you about kids yet?
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
Ok then, only the regular CV posters are invited 🙂
I don’t want to sound like I own marriage or anything, but I tied the knot a month ago. So clearly you are copying me.
Congratulations!
Hey, congratulations!
It takes a lot more than liking to be in for the long run…and way more than enjoying each other’s company…but given that it is Sean, I have confidence that he knows what he is doing…the world probably needs some little Sean Carrolls running around…And LA and Tech are the best playgrounds for young minds and their parents…
This is definitely Sean Carroll’s year. First he escaped a terrible place and was sheltered in the best place on earth. Then he got Feynman’s desk. Then those supernova things got him excited to the point that he decided to get married…
Journey happily on…
Big congrats, Sean!
Congratulations!
Great news! Congratulations and all good wishes to you both.
Hooray Sean! Congrats to you and Jennifer! I’m a bit envious because I wanted the bag of plagues. 🙂 One learns a lot from one’s advisor — perhaps I should mention my plush burnt loaf of bread in my future dates?
Hey, congratulations! My husband and I also met in 1994 here in the invisible raum, which could back then, have passed for a secret room inside our imaginations. For several months we wrote back and forth across the Atlantic and out of a question-asked, a question-answered grew a warm, romantic friendship. A year later, I quit my job, packed my big ole hounddog, and 10 boxes of books and moved from the Midwest to Stuttgart, Germany.
In the midst of all that chaos and adventure it was really just a short step to falling deeply in love. We celebrated our 10th anniversary last April, and wish you both the happiness we have found.
Hi there!
I may be a wee bit prejudiced, as your intended has been my closest female friend since, oh, pretty much the dawn of time [a dangerous phrase to use around a cosmologist, but hey-I live for adventure]-but Jen is the most talented, lovely, kind, brilliant, loyal and generally GOOD person I know. (Except my mom, and she’s taken, fellas.) I have never seen her more radiantly happy.
Long may you both wave.
Big congrats
love
peri
Being Sean’s Mom has been an indescribably wonderful experience and I am now thrilled that Jennifer will join our family. Sean and Jennifer, you are wonderful people and I know you will make each other very happy (therefore me, too). Love, Mom
Congratulations!
My wife is a full-time Physics professor. I’ve been an adjunct Astronomy Professor.
We met at a Science Fiction convention, on a continent other than the one where eaither of us had been born or brought up.
Yesterday, 14 Feb 2007, we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary.
We still do research, even sometimes together.
We’ve managed to publish (a lot), raise a son (who’s about to get his double B.S. at age 18).
It can all be done.
It isn’t easy, but it is worth doing.
Best of luck to you both.
[…] In the short term, I worry that the most obvious effect will be a deleterious one for the bloggers. For the most part, I don’t think that hiring/tenure committees care if you have a blog, occasional anonymous scare-mongering notwithstanding. (It might even help.) But blogging about the process might be the kind of thing that makes committees nervous. Personally, I would never blog about a major occupational transition while it was going on; when it’s all set up and the ink is drying, it makes sense to let people know, but in the middle of the process I would be (with good reason) worried about stepping on people’s toes. (Same thing with getting engaged.) […]
[…] to Jennifer Ouellette the owner of Cocktail Party Physics a few days back. Read their announcements here and here in their respective blogs, to know more of how science blogging featured in their […]
First of all, sorry for my english.
…reminds me of… Well, my wife and I met at a FirstClass BBS (an old-style one, not internet-based until later), and spent months knowing each other by public forum messages and by private mailing before we met in person. No pics sent. No real-time chatting. Lots of literature, cinema, theatre, and trivial issues discussed, debated and chewed between us (in Geneva, 10 or 12 pt. text), just workin’ to know each other better each day.
When we first met in person we were already in love. 10 years and a few days have passed since. A lovely daughter expanded our family. We’re still in love as we were a decade ago, and this lovely dream still continues.
Happiness does exist. We bear witness to that. And we’re glad you decided to join the club of the “happily married”. Perhaps it’s not an overcrowded one, heh, but it’s lovely, and especially when served –and when given the chance to serve– breakfast in bed.
Yeah, online communication is cold, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Go figure.
[…] to Jennifer Ouellette the owner of Cocktail Party Physics a few days back. Their announcements here and here talks about how science blogging featured in their […]