Buy your own damn tart. Love, LUNA.

On the AM of my birthday, mere moments before I was set to be jolted awake by Morning Edition, my roommates Amy and Paul busted into my room with an early-morning rendition of happy birthday, arms loaded with 30 freshly-baked candle-lit cinnamon buns, 30 lottery tickets, 30 pink baby roses and 30 presents (all sorts of earrings, stickers and glittery stuff in a big basket).

An hour later, Guillermo, an Argentine waiter I met a few weeks ago, picked me up for breakfast at the venue of my choice. I opted for coffee and a lemon tart at a sidewalk table in the sun at Tartine, my favorite bakery in the Mission. As we're in line drooling over the display case, I notice he's looking a bit shifty and uncomfortable, glancing around the room expectantly and keeping a safe distance from me, seemingly making it clear to his imaginary onlookers that we are not there together. "Are you ok?" I inquire.

"I leeve in thees neighborhood. People know me here; I am easy to recognize. I feel bad to say thees, but I theenk it would be better for me to wait for you een the car." And so there he leaves me, standing alone in line to purchase my own birthday breakfast while he hides from witnesses to what I come to gather is an illicit morning affair. Fortunately the bakery is a relatively short walk from my house. Fortunately, he understands plain English when he calls to see if I'm coming back to the car and I tell him I would prefer not to speak to him ever again.



After work, I had dinner with a few close friends at my favorite Thai restaurant out in the neighborhood I grew up in; farther than most SF transplants normally dare venture. The place has multiple rooms with gorgeous handcarved woodwork and low tables with sunken wells beneath to place your feet. When you enter, you are asked to remove your shoes, which the neatly-uniformed shoeman whisks away in exchange for a small plastic claim token. After a delicious meal and a chorus of happy birthday over a single candle inserted into fried bananas and ice cream, we headed to Dividend, a small party thrown at little club called Nickie's BBQ. There was no meat, but plenty of friends, beer, chocolate cake and nasty breakbeats for me and my crew to shake down to. A friend garnished me with a tired-looking feather boa that has supposedly been handed down from one woman to the next on her 30th birthday for several years. It now hangs in my closet waiting for the next to come of age.

The birthday revelry came to an end and I am back into my routine, working hard and late, but enjoying nearly every moment. I got a new iPod-- it came as part of payment for my old car, which I sold to a guy I dated briefly (if you can call six months of tireless game playing and bullshit 'dating'). He failed to mention the inscription on the back: "Happy Birthday Mike... You Rock My World! Love, LUNA." He claimed he intended to place a sticker over it but was too busy to get around to it. We haven't spoken since the transaction, but at least my 30 GB of music has kept me happily occupied on my daily commute.

Working full-time for the first time in over two years has been quite a smack to the head, but I'm getting used to the early mornings, sleep deprivation and sacred weekends. Oh, just an FYI for all my friends in cyberland, I am rarely on email these days. This is quite a switch after 12 years of near incessant email monitoring. It's also pretty amusing to see how e-communication occurs among people who are online most of the day. Ideas are proposed. Discussions are had. Decisions and plans are made. And I have absolutely nothing to do with it. How refreshing! One last FYI, my domain expired temporarily and both my email and blog were down on my birthday.

Off to dreamland...