Sunday is for breaking personal taboos

Wow. I had no idea what I was in for. Bay to Breakers is the real deal - an all-day, or at least all-morning/all-afternoon - block party of epic proportions, as if your block is 7-something miles long, with views of both the East Bay and the Pacific Ocean, and your neighbors, numbering sixty thousand, have descended from all corners of the Earth, as if all your neighbors are ripe for silliness and dressed to impress. Or not dressed at all..

Yes, so it was my first time - even just seeing the event. Really! And I've lived in San Francisco for five years now. I fully admit, I had been irrationally intimidated by Bay to Breakers from the first time I had been invited to go (I imagine it would have been Shotwell roommates in 2003). But I've had different reasons over the years to always take a pass..

At first, I didn't want to do it because it was a "race", and I still had issues getting near a "race" when I wasn't actually "racing".. like it was a tease or something that I wasn't running and competing anymore. Running was a lifestyle for me back then, and, as such, it defined a HUGE part of my life (more accurately, when I first moved to SF I was still defining a post-running worldview - an Achilles injury the year before put me out of commission - and had many mental holdovers I hadn't resolved yet); I could be militant in my approach to certain things.. haha. My next round of excuses revolved around me being a stick in the mud over drinking in general (more holdovers), so drinking in the day - and on a Sunday, no less - didn't really grab me as a fun and glorious time. Both those ideas could spawn conversations on the couch (or cafe or pub) in and of themselves, so suffice to say that a brother - this brother! - has moved on, has opened his mind, and, well, is ready to rock! Well, I did have one last excuse that has now evaporated: I let myself be a victim of inertia.. as in, well, I hadn't done it any years prior (which was a little embarrassing), so I could just put my head in the sand about it. There is probably a more complex analysis here, but, again (and thankfully), it's all moot.

This year a friend (bigups Moira!) got me off my butt, and got me out and about, if only with a plan to watch; we met at Fell and Divis, and well, the hubbub and general good spirits drew us in and, ignoring our lack of costumes, we decided to walk a little walk, westward into the Park. Little did I know that many (most?) folks don't actually have costumes (and this put me at ease, actually, because I wouldn't want to be all up in the business sans-costume if everyone else was rocking one). However, most folks *were* drunk, and as implied before, that's an idea I can get behind - for a good cause like this (Sunday *ahem* be damned) - so we made a brief stop at my place for a 12 pack of that most hipster of value brews: Pabst Blue Ribbon. Wait, is PBR still hipster anymore? Nevermind; I imagine it is 2nd or 3rd generation hipster now, but, still, I'll pick up a 12 pack every once in a while just to have in the fridge; that shizz is cheap, and, admittedly an awesome bang for the buck.

So, we walked and we drank (while walking); we met up with a friend or two along the way; we basically took in the party scene. It wasn't anything mindblowing; that is, we weren't voyeurs on the sidelines, but we weren't in full-blown partymode either. Still, it was solid and it was good; and it was sunny (and I've got a little sunburn on my face to prove it). We napped in Alamo Square afterwards (well, at least I passed out for a little bit)..

And it got me excited for next year! I mean, who knows exactly where I'll be - mentally or physically - but still let me list these goofball ideas (at the least these may be fodder for "what were you thinking" jokes):

1. Put a real toilet on some sort of platform, its bowl filled with alcohol (TBD - maybe a party ball keg?); recreating a whole movable bathroom scene would be awesome, but would take some real carpentry work (worth it? - probably not). Oh, and everyone in the crew is dressed up as dogs so they can, uhh, drink from the toilet. Get it?

2. I always love the costumes that are of two things, but there is only one person. For example, a costume of a guy riding an ostrich or something (the picture is from the Greener Living blog); where your legs are the ostrich legs and your upper body is the rider's body. Do you know what I mean? Ok, you do, and you think those things are stupid? I can see that, but it's just one of those crazy personal proclivities.. like they remind of something from my youth, like they are so Muppetty or something. In any case, we could get a whole pack of folks dressed in these things, have saddlebags for beer or whatever..

3. That's it. Really, I'm not going to think too hard about this now. I'll just say that if I get all wishy-washy about Bay to Breakers 2008, you give me some shizz, ok?