living and dying in LA

... because really, dying is what I felt like I was doing last night. And most of today, too. After a pickup game yesterday, I found myself doubled over coughing on the side of the field for a few minutes before I could make it to my car. I made it home fine though, and thought it would calm down. But it wound up getting worse throughout the night, and this morning I felt like an elephant was sitting on my head. My whole body was aching from hacking the whole night through.

Anyway, I went in to urgent care today to see if I had pneumonia, and it turns out I've developed asthma. My body seems to be rejecting living in LA.

relative adulthood

Hmmm... for more on the recurring theme of "adulthood," start with Becky's post on Twixters (but don't forget to come back!). Emerging adulthood is actually a recently acknowledged stage of development (I had to answer a bunch of questions about it for a final last week). So it's been on my mind, and I actually hounded my prof about research into urban tribes for a while (there's not much).

One "official designation" is that emerging adulthood lasts from 18-25 (I disagree). The hallmarks of emerging from emerging adulthood are when one begins to make commitments. Maybe that means marriage or kids, maybe it just means picking one job and sticking with it for a while rather than trying something new every six months. It means being able to engage in intimate relationships (friendships or otherwise). It means entering a period of (relative) stability.

So do we count as emerged? What does it mean to make commitments in the current urban landscape, where even if I choose to stay, maybe no one else will? What if "starting a family" looks more like an urban tribe for an extended period of time? And why is just deciding to be present somewhere (instead of mentally being where we were in the past, or where we want to be in the future) so much harder than it sounds?

They say we're commitment-phobic, and perhaps in some senses we are -- but I don't think it's because we're always waiting for something better to come along. I think it's because we don't know how to say yes to anything. First, we have too many options, which should be a blessing, but winds up being a paralyzing curse when we fear squandering any of them. So one day we figure out that ultimate choice is not ultimate freedom, and we think about making some commitments. But we can't afford houses, or condos, or even monthly parking spaces, which precludes the physical aspect of attachment to places we're trying to call "home." Marrying someone no longer just means that we have to compromise on which movie to rent this weekend -- now it likely means we have to compromise on which state to live in. And TV news (which you should all stop watching, if you haven't already, unless you need to know the weather) has us convinced that if we have kids they're going die by some obscure petrifying household scenario, like suffocating on a teddy bear. So we put it off, we live in limbo for a while. That's our relative stability.

I think many of us are the model of the new"emerged" adult, where changing jobs every few years is part of a developed career path, and where intimate relationships are no less strong for lack of blood ties or civil sanctions. Or maybe I'm really full of crap, and I know nothing about commitments and we really don't have any.... But I don't know a single person who doesn't crave roots, depth, and commitment of sorts. We're wired that way. So I think what we're really afraid of is vulnerability, which is a necessary byproduct of hitching your wagon to something outside of yourself, like spouses and kids.

I'm down with heresy, yeah you know me

Being that Fuller is a non-denominational evangelical school, there are a few key things everybody here agrees on and we have (mostly) healthy disagreement on just about everything else, from drinking and dancing to doctrines of atonement. Basically, everybody thinks that what somebody else thinks is heresy, but we do a pretty good job of dialoguing about our differences and hanging onto our commonality. Recently quoted in the Semi, the campus newspaper:

"I'm a heretic, you're a heretic, we're all heretics. Can't we all just love the baby Jesus?"

question:

In department stores, why do they call it the "sportswear" section, when it's full of skirts and satiny things, and there's not actually anything there that you could play sports in?

It's a rough winter

Becky's battling 7-degree weather with 88mph winds in Boulder, Natalie's buried in snow in Boston, my family's drowing in Seattle. Come visit! It's cooled down to 70 degrees here in LA and beach ultimate runs all winter!

Shoes

OK, I've gone and done it. Filled my brain full with details about the major theological themes in the book of Luke, and John's relationship to the Synoptic Gospels. So I'll talk about shoes.

I was invited to a Christmas party this weekend where lobster is on the menu. I do not think that I own any shoes nice enough to eat lobster in. I have "sensible shoes" useful for running around shooting weddings -- they're quiet (no squeaking) and low (no falling over), but they are also no fun. So I went shoe shopping.

Ladies with small feet, I do not ever want to hear you complaining about shoes. At least they make cute shoes in your size. When you wear an 11 1/2, you get stuck with men's shoes and the leftovers at Nordstrom Rack, usually mustard-yellow pumps. Every once in a while I find cute shoes in my size, but the problem is that they're not really cute in my size. I look like an oversized four-year-old playing dress-up. And in the rare case that a shoe exists that is cute, even in my size, nine times out of 10 it has a four-inch heel, and until I start dating a Laker the last thing I need is to be 6'2".

Can I hear a little sympathy, folks, for the tall women with big feet?