Happy Birthday To Me

Some people (women) celebrate their birthday all month long. I’m not a big fan of my birthday. It has nothing to do with age, I don’t really care about my age, I mean I’m a thirty-nine year old bartender, how much could I care about my age? In any case, I scheduled my crown replacement on Wednesday. As Shakespeare said, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Had King Henry IV gone to the dentist, the quote would’ve been, “How much more fucking painful can replacing this crown be?” It’s not nearly as poetic, but it does come from the heart.

After getting my temporary crown, I was in pain for the first week. By flossing and hoovering advil, I was able to make it through the second week with not too much pain. I went in for the final stage in my nine-hundred dollar dental tab, not including my golden, eighty-nine dollar insurance policy. I got in the chair and was ready for the end game. Dr. Nguyen removed my temporary crown which felt great. She then proceeded to poke around the gap, causing a moderate amount of pain. It was the next step that was unbearable. My dentist informed me that when she placed the new crown on, I would feel a couple of seconds of cold. She missed the mark by a couple of light years. Anyone seen American Me? Remember the scene where a group of prisoners jam a knife in another prisoner’s ass before they rape him? That was a dawdle compared to the pain I felt. I tried to rip the arm rests off the dental chair, to no avail. The dental assistant caressed my arm, which had I not been in so much pain, I would’ve appreciated. The dentist massaged my jaw for a few minutes and the pain eventually subsided. After purchasing my third bottle of advil for the week, I started feeling much better.

My Dad came to town, so it was movies and food. We went to the Landmark theater to see The Class, a French film about the year in the life of a teacher and his class. Although I dozed a bit in the beginning, no fault of the film, the film was terrific. By the way, when I doze during a film, I can usually follow just by listening, but it’s far harder when the movie’s in French. The next day we saw Two Lovers, which was truly amazing. It’s pretty close to a masterpiece. It stars Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow. I wish that all of you who have seen the train wreck that was Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman, would go and see this film. Having gone through a losing streak in December, it’s nice to see two excellent films in a row.

Last night, Dad and I went to Fraiche for my birthday dinner. I really wanted to go to Pizzeria Mozza, but with the choices of five or ten o’ clock reservations, I decided to move on. I have to say, I couldn’t have made a better choice. Growing up, I always thought of Culver City as an oversized trailer park. That has all changed. They’ve done a remarkable job with the downtown area; in fact, Santa Monica could take a page out of their book. In any case, I started off with The Grape, vodka with crushed grapes, amazing. I was feeling butch so I moved onto a Blood Orange Martini, which while tasty, was a blood orange screwdriver straight-up, heavy on the orange. For food, I started with sopresata, beef tartare, and a pork chop with romanesco sauce, broccolini, and parmesan polenta. The sopresata was alright, but the tartare and pork chop were superb. Fraiche was packed and for good reason. I met my Dad one last time, for breakfast at Huckleberry Cafe. I had the fried egg sandwich with bacon, gruyere, arugula and aioli on country bread. This dish was far better on paper. The bread was too thick and arugula too abundant, drowning out the taste of the bacon and egg. When i go for breakfast, the last thing I want to be inundated with is arugula.

By the way, on Thursday, March 5th, my 8,000th reader checked out my blog. It’s the fastest thousand readers so far. I have made a change. I began advertising on StumbleUpon.com this week, so hopefully some of these new readers will stick around. I want to take this time to thank all of you for helping me get to this level.

So here I am, lying on the couch, resting up for another night of work. Some people think it’s a shanda to work on my birthday. Most people I know would end up going to a bar anyway, I’ll just be on the other side of it. So if you’ve got nothing planned, swing by, have a drink, and wish a happy birthday to me.