A few days before Halloween, I suspect it’s going to be a pretty big holiday in Phoenix. There are the ornately decorated front yards of every house on my sister’s block, ghosts dangling from trees, webs stretched across bushes and doorbells replaced with screams. My nephew, 13, is going to be James Bond and my sister’s rented him a tuxedo. Spirit, the Halloween store we stop at on Saturday night, looks like it’s been ransacked--packaged costumes opened then resealed, cauldrons on their sides and the floor littered with white plastic rats. When we run into neighbors (which happens often in the foothills in Phoenix), they ask if we’re going to "the cul-de-sac," the designated place on the block where the parents will be setting up a pot luck buffet, folding chairs and makeshift bar starting at five o’clock. The morning of Halloween, I hear my sister end a phone calls with, "Happy Halloween!"

The SOMA Triathlon is held in Tempe, Arizona, a city in the middle of Phoenix and home to Arizona State University (there’s a painted A on the mountain to prove it), which is built on the shores of Tempe Town Lake. The SOMA Triathlon is my last triathlon of the season, and, as I’ve joked, possibly of my life. This may be true. I’m getting burnt out, and the runs ain’t getting any easier.

There’s something about being in Phoenix, though, that takes away some of the burnout. Everyone here seems to work out. My sister’s neighbor not only runs marathons, she wins them. Of any eight women she knows, six will be competitive athletes. The shoulders on the road are wide, hills rolling, weather’s perfect and cyclists abundant. When my sister says I’m in town to do SOMA, everyone is familiar with the race, some of them are even participating. It’s in the weather, it’s in the culture, and it makes you happy to be part of it. And when I registered for the race, they gave me a T-shirt I actually like and plan to wear—stretchy and cut for a woman, tastefully designed.

Phoenix is a pleasant place to visit in late October. The sun is refreshingly toasty, the sky is unfailingly vast and blue, and a long-sleeved shirt is enough to keep you warm through the evening. Another thing hard not to notice--the cars are awfully shiny. Every one of them, gleaming and clean like polished nails, little metallic bubbles in the freeway's sun.

Arrive in Phoenix at ten in the evening on Thursday. My sister is waiting in the baggage claim area to pick me up, a fact that has astounded both my parents several times over the past week. My sister does not do airport transportation. But since my flight lands well past rush hour and her usually painful, knotted back has been feeling better since she moved back to Phoenix last summer, I get a ride.

I want to say October's been busy, but it hasn't been. I haven't had weeknights packed with social engagements or weekends full of family obligations. I haven't spent half the weekend cycling and running and the other half recovering. The triathlon season's tapering, along with my training regimen and energy for it. I haven't taken up cooking, knitting or any new hobbies to occupy my time. I haven't been playing my flute, studying French or taking tennis lessons (all on my to do list). I haven't been catching up with old friends or responding to those ten or more emails in my inbox that have been sitting around for over a month (okay, two). I did bake an apple pie one Saturday that Mister President got a hold of and ate in its entirety. (I baked another on Sunday.) Other than that, what have I been doing more of? Taking the dog for long walks. Writing. And I guess it's made me tuck my head into my shell a bit. I like that.

Still on a science essay kick, I was happy to dig into the New York Times Magazine cover story this weekend: "An Elephant Crackup?" about the recent rise in psychotic behavior of elephants. Psychotic behavior includes: goring a tourist with a tusk, crushing a trainer's skull underfoot, stampeding a village, and knocking a man dead with one sweep of a trunk for attempting to remove an ankle chain. Sure, elephants in captivity have always taken revenge on their human captors, but more so in the past ten years than we've seen before. The article gives some compelling reasons why elephants would behave this way, somewhat having to do with the disruption of their packs and habitats, and the post-traumatic stress disorder from this disruption. For example, one elephant that went on a killing spree had previously witnessed the brutal killing of both of his parents as a child, then was moved away from his home to a strange environment where he lived in relative isolation, and with no adult females to nuture him back to health. And pack animals and isolation do not mix. Who wouldn't want to stampede a village to death after living through that?