Birthdays

I find myself slightly depressed on my birthday. I am thirty-one. That this depression has chosen to manifest itself as a diarised blog is bewildering to me.

I imagine that my malaise is less due to my birthday (the zero cranks would have you believe that I am only now joining my third decade), and more to do with the staggering amount of alcohol that I consumed this weekend. This must be where people go and drink more to lift the gloom, it’s a dangerous precipice.

That said though, I had a good weekend. I went to restaurant Patrick Guilbaud with Sinéad on Saturday night, on which I’ll right a review on Eating Out Ireland. It was Sin's treat and was nice. I drank, among other things, a bottle of Chateau Lafleur de Bouard, not feeling rich or stupid enough to buy the Petrus. I don’t think that I would a good restaurant critic, you have to be a bit, well, wanky to carry it off. If I am going to write reviews on the web I am going to editorialise more (if possible). Still, it’s a fun place to go and eat.

On Sunday we went down to John and Karel, with whom I shall be abandoning the boy next weekend, while we step out to a wedding in Cork. My liver abuse continued there. Lunch was great too, but a review shall not be appearing on the web unless J&K decide to open their house to strangers, which, all things considered, is unlikely.

We went home, put the boy to bed, and finished the Chardonnay in the fridge.

Sinéad woke me up this morning (not true, I was already awake) to open my presents. She selflessly got me two tickets for the Flaming Lips in Vicar Street. Selfless, because she will a week away from having the new baby so won’t be able to go. She also got me Jay Rubin's biography of Haruki Murakami "The music of words." I read a chapter this morning, out of sequence, from the middle of the book. I don't think this is as odd as it sounds. She also got me Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell in three books, so I can read them on the train. The big book was never going to happen. These gifts are from a person that knows me very well.

I decided to read a book of short stories that I got Sinéad for her birthday on the train: "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" again by Murakami. I am enjoying it immediately, even though I have read a few of the stories before. Out of the four stories I read this morning three had gratuitous ear mentions, and one was about birthdays. The birthday story also had some ear pornography, but that's not important right now.

The birthday story, which I had read before, was about a waitress who brings the reclusive restaurant manager a meal in his room. He grants her a wish for her birthday; just one, as a present.

The story doesn't tell us what the wish is for, it’s not important. Say it's your birthday, what would you wish for?