Can it really be that we have been married for five entire years?!? But we're so young! (or are we?? I remember a time when I thought 28 was ancient) Where did the time go? Where does it keep going? And when are we going to have time to finish all those projects we started so many years ago? Why do people think they will have more free time once they are out of school! What a big fat lie! Its just a myth people tell you so you won't stay in school forever...
And so, in this the year that was, Alan finished his PhD and started a post-doctoral research position at a certain snotty east coast university with the name that has no "R"s in it if you pronounce it in the local dialect. Sarah is still gainfully employed (surprise!) at Northeastern University as a post-doc. Next year, we'll both have to face the real world and try to get real jobs to begin in September of 1993. Don't you just hate it when you have to face reality like that?
The fact that we are both no longer students, but are productive, contributing members of society (or at least getting paid more money to do the same stuff we were doing as students) is probably our biggest news. That big piece of news brings with it smaller but still important pieces, like the fact that we moved into our own apartment, where we can run to the bathroom dressed in whatever we like, without thinking about it! (Now if we can just get Alan to take off that leather bikini and put on something decent, perhaps we can invite people over for dinner...) Instead of having to rush to the bathroom in the morning, we now lie in bed discussing whose turn it is to make coffee, or complaining about the jackhammer next door. Our only problem now is getting to work on time! Our new apartment is much closer to both workplaces than the old place was, so we are doing our cardiovascular systems a favor by riding our bikes to work (at least when there isn't any ice on the roads),
Anyway, returning to Things We Did This Year, we had a whole slew of people come for Sarah's graduation in May (Sa_rah's family, as well as Alan's family), and so we all went up to Acadia National Park in Maine. It was cold, but it was beautiful with all the wildflowers and the rocky sea coast, Alan's brother Denis came to visit in August but really only visited Sarah because Alan was getting ready to defend his thesis on August 16th.
This year, it was Alan's turn to be a homebody, while Sarah went gallivanting all over the known universe (well, not quite the entire known universe, but certainly, at least, the U,S. of A.). Funny how finishing his dissertation just made Alan want to stay home whenever possible... So, in Au- gust, Sarah went with a friend from graduate school (Cindy Lahar) on a wild diving tour of America from Boston to Los Angeles, via Rochester NY, Ann Arbor MI, some water park in Missouri, Deepwater MO, Elk City OK (for the best lightning storm EVER), Albuquerque NM and the Grand Canyon, In a week, Can you say "I get my kicks on Route 66"? Best sighting on the trip was the Missouri Bank and Trust in Tightwad, MO (Tightwad Division), and best overheard conversation on the CB was about favorite trucker vegetables ("Breaker 1-9, pardon, but there is no question but that the best vegetable is black-eyed peas.").
The final installment in the Visiting Across America segment of this letter had Kelvin (one of Alan's brothers), Jennifer (Sarah's sister) and Matt (Jennifer's Significant Other) coming to visit for Thanksgiving, at the end of a crazed (for Sarah) and quiet (for Alan, as Sarah left him behind to feed the cats) month of conferencing.
We look forward to a relatively calm new year, and we hope that you are happy and well. Our new address is 25 Mount Hood Road, Apartment 9, Brookline, MA 02146-1315. Our new phone number is (617) 277-0318. You can reach the cats at the same number and address. So any time you have an urge to come visit, give us a call and you can sleep on our new futon couch that weighs a ton (Sarah's father made it as a graduation present from a wood called purple heart that is denser than a black hole (well, OK, maybe not quite that dense. But certainly at least as dense as Geraldo Rivera.)) Bye bye now! December 1991