An old friend stopped by last night, a dude my age in the same boat. An artist masquerading as a restaurant worker (or maybe it’s the other way around). Married. Kids. Feeling the residual angst and weight of having worked in a restaurant for decades. Tired. Body failing. Wanting out, but unfortunately good at what he does. No way out except sweet death, oblivion, moving to the next plane of existence. A strange, hooded, baggy eyed, furrowed mirror to look into.

It was another one of those “How the fuck did I end up in LA?” kind of nights. Sigh. Maybe I’m not built for anything else. Maybe it’s time to accept this present state of my employment. Shit man, it’s not as bad as the alternative and it’s quite possible I’m an ungrateful bitch.

Love was in the air last night. Many couples at the bar, young and old, kissing, laughing, drinking, eating. Lights down low. Happy guests. Good vibes. With my mind engaged in the zen of shaking and stirring, an uncommon meditative state occurred and everything slowed down. Yeah baby, I hit “the zone.” Reading all the tickets and seeing nothing but formulas like Russel Crowe as John Forbes Nash Jr. in “A Beautiful Mind.”

We made a switch halfway through service from regular grapefruit juice to oro blanco juice in the Hummingbird cocktail. I doubled up when the next one came in to try it out with the different ingredient. Goddam, that’s a good cocktail. That’s a fucking volcanic bomb in a glass. A liquid Hadouken. Goddam, I’m good at this shit. I hope the person who received it thought the same thing. You never know if it’s good or just flavors you prefer.

During a lull, I popped into the booze closet and made a quick note in my phone: “I’ll be the old guy at the bar. So what?” Yeah. Someone’s gotta do it. Some asshole in Santa Monica has to have some cocktail standards, provide drinks for the masses, be the champion of rum in this sleepy ass beach town. Will I ever sell a novel and be a full time writer? Shit, I can’t predict that. I can tell you I’ll be at work tonight and every drink I put out will be good. No, not good, napalm. That, in itself, is something. Maybe I will die behind the bar. I’m already the oldest guy in the front of the house. Fuck it. Why stress over it? Someone’s gotta be. Did I think I’d be somewhere else at this point? Yes. Does anyone really know what their personal future brings? For right now, this moment, I’ll shake drinks until my shoulders and elbows turn to jello and I turn into a quivering blob who melts into a pile of bones and meat underneath the ice well. From down there I’ll still be able to whisper advice to Angel and Denise in a weak voice and take quick sips from the well grog that spills down between the cracks. They can feed me daily staff meals from a bowl on the floor like a stray cat.

Tony Hawk is well known for this type of mentality, to his own detriment at times. Last year, the obsessive skater, 53, broke his femur attempting his patented move, the McTwist. This was the day before the release of his documentary, “Until the Wheels Fall Off.” Yeesh.