Creative Embellishment.

I felt like boarding up and selling this page for parts when I read one of my new friends' blogs. Pretty much engrossing, especially if you're an epicurean.

Then I realized that all the great fiction writers (insert your opposing political pundit joke of choice here) didn't get to where they were by writing about the inanities of their day. They took their experiences and exercised some creative license, using their fountain of imagination and pen of vocabulary. So with that in mind, let me talk about my Sunday run.

BEFORE: So, I ran up this really big hill, as a physical challenge to myself. If you know SF geography, I ran up Divisadero from Filbert to Broadway, which is a 200-foot ascent in five blocks. I'm still a little sore.

AFTER: Running is the oldest and most storied of sports. Early man forged the sport on the plains of Africa and steppes of North America, racing mammoth and antelope. As civilization dawned, men bounded across the landscape to deliver messages, honor the gods, and attack the mortal. In older times, one ran for survival, out of necessity, and occasionally for glory. But what was once the most basic human activity is now an exercise in vanity. Yesterday, it was my quest to restore the glory to the chase.

Pacific Heights intimidates with a mere mention of its name. Pacific, as in the largest ocean in the world. Heights, as in reaches which cannot be scaled. How true it is. Why, to live in the rarified air overlooking San Francisco Bay takes a life of sacrifice, a king's ransom, and more than a few treacheries. But on the brightest, sunniest, early spring days, even the most downtrodden soul can ascend to Olympus. All it takes is supreme effort, a will forged in steel, and the heart of a lion.

I had already crossed a Sinai of the city before I gazed upon the Mount Doom of Divisadero. (These are two completely different allusions --Ed.) My legs ached under the stress, my heart pounded like a the drums of a Roman warship at ramming speed, and my skin glistened under the baking California sun. (You used glistened? In the first person? Liberace gay. --Ed.) I swear I could hear laughter on the whisper of the wind. A red-faced child cackled as he played with a hose on the sidewalk; mocking me. Were I superstitious, I would have turned back, already having come so far. But did Napoleon turn back at Waterloo? Did Odysseus back down from the Cyclops? Did even little Frodo Baggins turn away from Mordor? No. And nor would I.

(OK, dude, all this embellishment is making this entry really heavy, like a fruitcake. People run up hills all the time. Try switching it up a bit.)

Because the hill is so steep, large automobiles have just as much trouble ascending the hill as in-improving-shape engineers do. This goes double if your whip is a stretch H2 Hummer blinged out by West Coast Customs and driven by none other than... X to the Z, Xzibit. As luck would have it, as I regained my breath, he stopped, rolled down his window, and popped his head out of the jewel-encrusted side door.

"Yo," said the West Coast legend and host of MTV's Pimp My Ride, "I see you runnin' up that hill."

"Yeah?"

"What, you left your weed up here or somethin'? This is some steep-ass shit. One of my monitors just popped out the trunk!"

"Sucks, dude. Love your show, by the way."

"You damn right, Ritz cracka, 'cause I'm your boy, X to the Z. I call you a Ritz cracka because you need some meat or some cheese on you or somethin'."

"Uh, thanks, X?"

"Aww, be cool, be cool, you know I'm just playin'. Yo, man, now that you at the top, I'm gonna hook you up with a ride home."

"For real?"

"Hop in, Triscuit."

(This is veering dangerously close to Xzibit slash fiction. -Ed.)

Well, fuck that shit then. Big Dane and Mike were in the backseat, and they taught me how to solder a monitor into my headrest on the way home, which is awesome since I now have XBox and a 7" monitor in the back of my office chair-- and we took the long-ass way home too since X needed some glassware in the Haight, but he was cool, they dropped me off right before I had to spend some paper on a high-stakes poker game in the fO.C.-- and oh yeah, in my spare time, I got digits from every girl I saw on Union Street, but I ain't gonna call none of them because they all stuck up with their LV bags and off-color shades, 'cause I'm straight gangsta and need a down-ass girl. You damn right.

(Remind me how the dream sequence gets signaled in Wayne's World? Oh yeah, didididloop, didididloop, didididloop, didididloop. -Ed.)

Well, anyway, the truth is more white bread than fiction. Until next time.

SCENES FROM THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE WEBLOG:
Bad news from France, as I hear that Ian has contracted a severe case of socialism. Hopefully a good salve will make it go right away.