Last night I got lost in Hallbrook. Hallbrook is this fancy neighborhood about 300 yards from my house. I like to say to people, when they ask where I live, “You know where Hallbrook is?” and their eyes get all wide and then I go, “Well, I live in the poor neighborhood just south of it.” And then they usually get mad at me.  It amuses me.

One of the girls on Holly’s epic cheerleading squad lives there and last night was my turn to drive. Hallbrook is very dark. It wouldn’t do for the gentle aristocrats who live there to be disturbed in their bedchambers by the harsh glow of streetlamps. There are a couple of big traffic circles, tastefully decorated with ornamental trees and fountains.  I was in conversation with Holly after we dropped her friend off and I went around the traffic circle and kept going and then I saw another traffic circle coming up and went, “Waiiiit. Why am I at another traffic circle?”  And I was seized by the WEIRDEST feeling, like I was going nuts. I had to pull over. Then I panicked because no one pulls over in Hallbrook. They have cameras! I was all out of sorts!

I HAD TO USE MY GPS TO GET OUT OF HALLBROOK.

I think it might have been a metaphor. That’s all I have to say about that.

Someone in the comments asked if Holly had an iPhone (subtext: are you fucking kidding me that a 10-year-old has an iPhone?!?). Yes, she has an iPhone.  Elliot has one too. I do not, because I dropped my phone in the toilet one month before Sprint opened up iPhone purchases to employees and so I had to buy a Motorola Photon which is shaping up to be my favorite phone of all time. Paco does not have an iPhone either, because…I’m not sure why. I don’t think he wants one.

But please, Judgers. Remember that my husband works for a phone company.  Holly’s had a phone since she was eight, because Paco got it for free and we hardly pay shit for service.

Many of her friends have phones – not too many have iPhones, I guess.  Some of her friends’ parents are pretty dead set against cell phones at this age. One of them says her daughter won’t get one until she can pay her own bill and I think that’s fine. I just don’t have that same belief. I don’t give it much thought at all. I want Holly to have a cell phone. I like her to be able to call me.  I will not go so far as to say I like to be able to call HER, because she is hit-or-miss with answering the damn thing. Since she got the iPhone she answers it more because she plays all her games on it so it’s in her hands more.

We installed an app where the phone is silenced during school hours and from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am, if that helps.

Running shit: I had to run inside last night because I drove to epic cheerleading which would have put me back home after dark. I don’t like to run in the dark, because someone might kill me.  So I went to the Jewish Community Center’s indoor track. I expected the place to be packed, because they had a big membership drive last month, to capture all the New Years’ Resolutionairres. I made that word up and it didn’t turn out as well as I planned. Hm.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw no one on the track and EVERYONE at the machines.  Then I realized, shit! All these people on the machines and treadmills and elliptical are staring at the track. Bleh.

I was unpleasantly surprised to find that running on a track feels no better or worse than running on concrete and their track is banked on the oval ends and last night the mandated direction for running was the direction which made my left ankle (the bad one) on the down slope if that makes sense.

HOWEVER. I will say that having a big bunch of red-faced treadmill walkers and elliptical….uh..flailers staring at you will absolutely cause you to finish your three-minute run. HELL if I was stopping right in front of them. I ran longer than three minutes, just to get past them before slowing down to the walk.

I am, however, beginning to agree with Fred who says running is bad for you.  I am going to try buying new shoes, since the ones I’m running in came from Costco, but otherwise, it just doesn’t seem right to go out four times a week and sprain my ankles.