I hate when people talk about working out, tell you how many miles they ran or how many push-ups they did.  

Writing about it, however, is a whole different story.

I can’t even remember anymore why I exercise. I’m pretty sure I stopped liking it years ago. I have no idea how to calibrate calories when I eat, so I definitely don’t know how to subtract them when I work out, and I don’t believe it when the treadmill does it for me.

I would say I do it for my health except that I’m so sore most mornings that I make squeaking noises, so I’m not buying that so easily either.

I do know that it makes me feel productive somehow, particularly when I’m not feeling so much otherwise. But then I can turn a load of laundry into a constructive experience if I really try hard enough.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I exercise in the morning, mostly so I don’t have to think about it, just go and get it over with. Also, I think I have less chance of throwing up with less in my stomach, though I’ve never researched that thoroughly.

Tonight, I went to the ‘Y’ because my daughter Amanda wanted to use the elliptical machine. She would like us to buy our own elliptical machine for the house, but much like her wish for a Cadillac Escalade to replace our embarrassing minivan, we ignore her.

My husband Rick wanted to take a walk, which we often do at night during the summer. And Alec, having no conscience at 11 to bog him down, simply wanted to eat another snack and play his new Wii game.

Our compromise was to all go our own separate ways.  

Exercising with your kids can be fun. I especially love it when the women in our aerobics classes bring along one of their cocky (re: cute and skinny) college-aged daughters and halfway through, the kid drags herself out red-faced and has to wait by the snack machine.

I didn’t watch Amanda tonight as I was busy hyperventilating on the treadmill while listening to Campbell Brown interview Whoopi Goldberg on CNN. I like watching TV while I am in extreme pain and don’t know how people managed in health clubs before each treadmill had its own little set attached.

I especially like watching Oprah and feeling very haughty as she and Dr. Oz talk about avoiding cardiac plaque build-up with exercise. But more often than not, I’m tuned into the Today Show watching Matt and the gang scarfing down Emeril’s jambalaya at 8 in the morning and feeling very jealous that they have such great jobs.

Amanda listened to her i-pod, which I embarrassingly referred to as a Walkman (they tell me this is not unlike when I leave the room in the middle of something good on TV and ask my kids to “freeze frame” so I won’t miss anything).

Then, after lingering just a little too long near the cute guy doing stomach crunches, Amanda and I debated how hungry exercise made us.

We all met up again, as we so often do, back home in the kitchen. There, we bored each other with our tales of exercise while watching Alec eat a giant bowl of ice cream.

It’s just not right.

Until about an hour ago, I thought the meanest thing my husband and I had ever done to our son Alec was not buying him a dog.

But according to an article in Social Science Quarterly – What? You don’t read that? – we have also given him a terrible burden to bear.

A friend sent me a link to a segment from the Today Show (always on the lookout for new ways to depress us in the morning), which cites the article, saying that giving your newborn boy an “oddball, girly or strange first name may just land them in jail.”

First on the list of top 10 “Bad Boy” baby names?

Alec, of course.

My husband points out that the list is in alphabetical order, like that helps. The other names are Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell and Walter.

Now I don’t know what jails the good people from Social Science Quarterly are frequenting, but I have yet to see a prison movie where any of the convicts are named Preston, Walter or Garland. That said, put me on a playground with an Ernest when I was a kid and yes, I would probably have tripped him for no good reason.

And Kareem? Are there really a lot of those running around, other than Abdul-Jabbar?

While the article says  these “unpopular” names are unlikely to be the direct cause of crime – Gee, ya think? — Shippensburg University Professor David Kalist and his associate Daniel Lee (sure, David and Daniel) write that the social pressures of being given a god-awful name “increase the tendency toward juvenile delinquency.”

The research was based on a study of approximately 15,000 names given to baby boys between 1987 and 1991. Apparently during the time span, there were kids on playgrounds all over America sending little Alec’s down the road to no-good by calling them “Smart Alec.”

Thankfully, our Alec was born in 1998, so he might be OK (unless, of course, anyone gets wind of the fact that I like to call him “Alley Cat” sometimes, and then he’s doomed).

When I was little, girly boy names like Lesley or Adrian or Ira were not good. But oddball? Are they kidding? Have they read People Magazine?

Apparently, there are no bullies in Hollywood or all the celebrity kids there have their own bodyguards. Is anyone tracking Gulliver (Gary Oldman’s son), Hopper (son of Sean Penn and Robin Wright), Kyd (David Duchovny’s and Tea Leoni’s), Ocean (Forest Whitaker’s) or the ever-popular Pilot Inspektor (actor Jason Lee) to see if they turn to a life of crime?

I’m more than a little offended. Names that will go to jail? How about much lower than that? How about Osama, Attila, Idi, Bernie?

There are no rules now. Emerson, Grayson, Carson. Mackenzie, MacKinley. Caden, Teagan, Boden. Carson and Cannon.  Asher and Finley. Boys, girls or puppies, it’s impossible to tell.

My son Alec just walked in and wanted to see what I was writing about, so he read the article and was insulted. He cited two Alec’s he knows personally, including himself, and said both were good kids.

But he claims he is not angry at us for saddling him with such a liability and really, why would he be? We could’ve named him Garland.

“You’re still playing softball?” my daughter asked incredulously tonight as I hunted for my crusty cleats, as if somehow being too old, too slow and, well, bad would suddenly stop me from playing in our co-ed softball league this year.

I mean, why should this year be any different?

Playing for our Red Star Tavern team isn’t about being the best or making every play or, in my case tonight, any play. It’s about the camaraderie, the joy of competition and the drama of seeing how many of us are going to end up in the emergency room each week.

Tonight, Sean and Betsy left the field with deep, bloody gashes in their respective knees. You can’t get that kind of entertainment sitting at home, particularly since ER is off the air.

Betsy bought it rounding third, her cleat sliding across the damp base and sending her face first into the mud about a quarter of the way toward home. Later, most of the other women agreed they would have crawled back to third at that point. I said I would have simply stayed there, called my husband and had him bring the car around.

But Betsy is a trooper. Knowing the score was tied in the bottom of the sixth and also being somewhat influenced by Sean barreling around third behind her, she picked herself up and actually slid under the tag at home, thus shredding whatever skin still remained on her lower extremities. Sean would score on the next ground ball, also sliding and being the nice guy that he is, coming up with a matching wound suitable for suturing.

I should point out that we were at an unfair advantage tonight. Normally, we are one of the more competitive teams in the league. Tonight, however, we played against one of those teams that is particularly galling in the adult softball world, and that’s the opponent with players younger than yours.

Their clean-up hitter looked like he was still in high school. Their women were sneaky good. And their secret weapon was the player you really hate – the short, squat middle-aged guy who needs a pinch runner to get to first on a walk and looks like he should be bowling, only to rear back and hit a screaming 400-foot home run to clear the bases in the seventh.

By this point, I was playing catcher, after having already booted two balls in the infield, moved myself to right and now was needed to replace Betsy behind the plate since she could no longer bend down.

Let me pause here for a second to say something on my behalf. I used to be good. I swear. Softball was my best sport when I was younger. OK, much younger. But I had a good glove and an above-average arm and OK, so I could barely hit my weight. That’s not important right now.

A few years ago, when I joined the Red Star team, I guilted my husband and kids into coming to a game. I thought it would be a fun time for them, make them proud even, as they saw me streaking across the field making diving catches.

Afterward, as I limped to the car, my husband couldn’t help himself. “Gee, honey,” he said, not trying nearly hard enough to erase the condescension from his voice. “You’re kind of, um, slow.”

I was incredulous. I mean, of all my qualities as an athlete, I was never slow.

“Slow?” I asked meekly.

“Yeah,” he replied gently, “really, really slow. Like you were running in slow-motion slow.”

After punching him in the arm, I had to admit I had noticed certain changes as I got older. When you’re young, you see a ball and you run after it.  But then one day you notice that when a ball is hit, your legs must first have a brief conference with your brain. During that one- or two-second delay as you consider moving, your brain is now having a discussion with your central nervous system. At some point, your legs enter into the equation and by this time, the ball is dropping and your pitcher is yelling at his shortstop and leftfielder as our pitcher Andy did tonight when he shouted out, “God, are we old.”

He spared our third baseman Melody, who – no lie – gave birth six weeks ago. Andy is nothing if not a gentleman.

Because it is my blog and I am no longer operating under the ethical standards and practices of a real newspaper, I’m going to say we won tonight. And while I’m at it, I’m going to say, since they asked, that Josh made a diving catch in left and Andy was 4-for-4.

I’m also going to say I beat out a throw to first, my back isn’t killing me right now and that the fat guy struck out to end the game.

That makes me feel so much better.