Lost
January 26th, 2012Last 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.
I get disoriented quite a lot and it’s totally a OMG THIS IS FINALLY IT, my tenuous grasp on reality has slipped sort of feeling. Akin to the deep, angsty conversations I used to have with my best friend when we were about eleven: “Yeah, but…imagine if someone was just DREAMING us, and we aren’t even really HERE.” I take getting lost to my metaphysical heart, yo.
My seven and five year olds are currently doing the Mount Splashmore on me for iPhones. Not yet, but soon enough I think, to my decadent middle class shame. Ten sounds about right. Also? I never had anything cool when I was young and sort of want my kids to be impressive amongst their peers. I said it. And I already feel bad enough about it so BACK OFF.
Re lessons etc, we are just about to start five year old girl child in Irish dancing, and damn, if it isn’t a scorching hot viper’s nest of stage mothers and primadonnas. Do a post on mothers of girls in extra-cirriculars PLEASE. You know, skating/gymnastics/dance mums. Goldmine! x
Like, not us, obv. The ridiculous ones.
Glad to hear you do not run in the dark…I agree, some weirdo might be out there, even in good neighborhoods. But I’m paranoid.
Cell phones were not available yet when my kids were in school. I KNOW, can’t believe that. The big thing was a pager and I fought long and hard with daughter about her wanting one when she was a freshman in 1994. I remember her snorting “Geez, mom…not like I’m doing a drug deal or something” because of course I thought only people like that had them. heh. Anyway, turns out I loved being able to keep track of her and it was great. I really feel these days it’s a safety thing and I’m all for it as long as their are rules and it is a reasonable $ plan.
And all I have is a regular cell phone and all I do is text. Badly. But that is the only way of communicating these days so what.ever.
Sorry, are we allowed to say we made a spelling error? “there are rules” not “their”. You jumped all over me once for mispelling a word when you recognized me as the 25k commenter so I am scared to death you’ll make fun of me again.
Also, I get lost in my own subdivision so don’t feel bad. We live in an area of circles and ponds and streets that twist and turn and streets that just turn into another one in the middle of the block. Hell, I don’t even know if my front windows face north or south.
I recently made a wrong turn coming home from work. I thought I was already on a road I hadn’t gotten to yet and went right instead of left. After about a quarter mile of WTF? I started to panic. Where was I, how could I get out of here, would anyone find meeeeee before I was a skeleton, etc. Then it occurred to me to turn around, DUH, and retrace my steps. Wheels. Whatever. The dark really does mess with your orientation.
You know, for years I had long highway commutes and I never got off the wrong exit or anything. Now I have a twelve-mile commute on rustic back roads and that? I screwed up.
My husband gave me a gps years ago because he was tired of my leaving an hour early to be someplace and arriving 20 minutes late because I’d gotten lost. I thought it was the most unromantic gift ever, and now I love it and don’t know what I would do without it. The part of my brain that handles directions (it was always a very small part, anyhow) has completely closed up shop, which will be bad if the zombie apocalypse comes because I won’t have any clue about which way to run when the gps fails, but in the meantime it is fine.
We have a treadmill but I will do almost anything to avoid using it, and run outside unless the road is complete ice. Get fitted for shoes — it makes a big difference. (At least it did with me. Your results, of course, may vary.)
I do not have a Jewish Community Center and I feel so ripped off.
All I’ve ever heard is to get fitted for shoes at a running store. Not that I’ve bothered to do it or anything.
i LOVE my gps and i set it all the time even if i know exactly where i am going because you just never know when you might have to take a different exit due to accidents/etc. i LOVE my gps.. i can drive any where now instead of being consumed with worry about getting lost.
For the love of…
Please go to Gary Gribbles and get some shoes!
Ps- I’m proud of your running. Keep it up. The folks at the J were envious.
Personally I’m counting the minutes until PT says I can start running again and ditch spin class.
Run or don’t, but if you do FTLOG don’t run when it hurts.
In my experience, running in pain and running in a way that causes pain are worse for your health than no exercise at all.
Trust me when I say that this, even though it’s going to sound like running overkill: go to a running store and have them watch you run. The number one thing, IMO, you can do to absolutely wreck your running experience is to run in the wrong shoe. So many shoes out there, designed to handle all sorts of running styles and gaits – wearing the wrong one is asking for injury. A real running store will do free gait analysis to see what you really need. (Or don’t need – if you’ve got neutral gait, wearing motion contol shoes is just as bad as not wearing them if you need them.)
Leeloo….hee!
I wanna get the new iPhone
Buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it now!
NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!!
Mom, buy the new iPhone right now!
Jane – couldn’t you just walk instead of run and avoid all these problems? Too simple?
You really do have the funniest commentors!
Glad you’re coming to your senses re: running; do you really want to invest even MORE time and money doing something you’re not enjoying? You’re just trying to get healthy, not run a 5K, right?
I’m another one who will get disoriented in the car at random times. And I’ve lived here so long, my car practically drives itself to work.
TGIF!
If you’re going to cough up the $ for ‘real’ running shoes go to a running store where they watch you run on a treadmill (yes, it IS horrifying, but it does help in the end) and then they can recommend specific shoes for your gait. Try on at least two pairs and find one you like. Then waffle and say you need to go home and think about which pair you really like most and then order the shoes from http://www.runningwarehouse.com and you’ll save yourself a bunch of money.
At my gym I call them Resolutionists, but I like Resolutionairres too.
Hey, I’m the one who asked about the iPhone! No judging! Geez. I just wondered if you had written about it before because that seems like something you would write about, and I wondered if I’d missed it.
I bet if you ran in Hallbrook, no one would kill you. Well, except maybe the residents if you were sullying the look of their neighborhood with inexpensive running clothes.
Okay I am just going to put it out there and say it – it doesn’t matter the age of your kid when you choose to get them a cell phone. My kid got his Iphone when he was 8. It’s a way for us to stay connected to him when we can’t be with him. End of story. It doesn’t matter what kind of phone it is. How much you paid for it, how much the monthly plan, or who you allow him to call or who to text. It’s your decision has a parent and who the fuck is anyone else to judge you for choices about that? There’s plenty else in the world that we get judged on.
Sorry, I get a little hot headed when I even think someone is going to judge me becaused I ALLOWED MY KID A CELL PHONE BEFORE HE WAS A TEENAGER like I am allowing him to go to rock concerts alone or something. Jesus.
Oh and I can’t find my way out of a paperback. I am totally directionally challenged. Tell me to turn left or right. But never ever tell me to go 5 blocks SOUTH and then turn NORTH. Forget it.
I hate sub-divisions. They all look the same, and it’s easy to get lost.
I second http://www.runningwarehouse.com for best prices and selection. In fact, they are the reason I started running – they hold an annual 4th of July 5K that goes right past my house, and I decided my lazy ass was going to run that race if it killed me. That was 4 years and 30 pounds ago (run 1 minute, cry and catch my breath for 1 minute, repeat ad nauseum). Now I’m training for my first marathon (which might kill me, but totally worth it). Run Jane Run!
Why shouldn’t you all have great phones with Paco/Tim working for the phone company? I’d even consider an iPhone if the cost wouldn’t up my bill. You might as well suck up any perk that comes your way-they are too far and few between. That app for school and sleeping is a good thing. They need that for teenagers with video games in their rooms too.
My friend’s son goes to a private school and has a long bus ride of mixed classes. Three third grade boys convinced a kindergarten girl to lift her dress and took multiple pictures of her bottom half. A seventh grade girl took the phone away from them. The boys had been in trouble on the bus before. The assistant principle had the nerve to blame the poor bus driver. How can the man watch the road and control something like that? My friend and other parents were angry but where tuition is concerned bus or cell phone removal doesn’t seem to be an option. The lucky part is that the little girl had on thick tights so nothing much was seen and she has no idea what they were doing. I don’t think everyone should lose their phones but stuff like that incident is what makes the old fashioned parents crazy. My friend feels badly for the kids who did it too because she thinks they have been exposed to too much too soon.
I don’t know which would be worse (for me) tooting on an elevator or running in front of all of those people.
I have a really bad sense of direction too and get lost far too easily. I’m not great with a gps either. I don’t know how to judge feet and I don’t trust them because our first one was messed up and giving bad directions in an area I knew very well. The only time I LOVED it was when it kept telling us to take MY WAY on a drive my husband and I always disagree on. “See Even the GPS woman said I ‘m right!” Also someone I know does newscasts and drives all over. This person said the gps will often send you through the scariest most crime ridden routes. I like my Mapquest directions better. I have lived in my town for 25+ years and still get lost in one area. It’s in the middle of nowhere and the center of a large township. All the township offices are out there and I feel like I take a different route every time I leave there which isn’t often thank God.
My kid is going to have a phone just as soon as she is capable of texting and that is that. I don’t see her every day and I can’t wait until she can communicate through the written (texted) word like a civilized person.
Costco shoes are probably no worse than any other kind. Oh, and I missed commenting yesterday, but stretching is pretty much bullshit. The end. You might be favoring that leg or crossing your legs all day long in the same exact way at work like I do, which often causes one of my legs to be tighter than the other.
“Resolutionaries.”
I have never run. EVER. Now I have fibromyalgia and can’t run. All I know is that my bill’s bil is an orthopedic surgeon and says that joggers have paid for his 5000 sq foot house with a screening room. I do light exercise and drink Atkins drinks except for one cookie, okay two, and maybe a salad or a Lean Cuisine every day and so far, still a size 12, the same size I was 15 years ago, and I know cause I’m wearing the same jeans.