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mother’s aversion to pork didn’t have to be my own. Immediately after breakfast, I went back to the Farmer’s Market and bought the real deal, pork-belly bacon. After that first bite, I began a new love affair with pork—I couldn’t understand why it had such a horrible reputation, and I didn’t care to.
    Then the unthinkable happened. During my first month as a reformed carnivore, I lost eleven pounds— without even working out or dieting. I don’t regret my years as a vegetarian, by any means. Yet to think that the majority of my teenage and adult body issues could have been eliminated had I not been so faithful to the one dietary restriction I was ever disciplined enough to maintain is infuriating.
    But like a lover you keep despite the mind games he plays, I can never stay mad at food for too long. In fact, I gotta go. I’m craving him now.

ABG Guide: Public Grazing
    M y fellow awkwards, once you step foot out of your own home, expect to be seen. It’s inevitable. It’s taken me two whole decades to acknowledge this horrifying fact, and so now I’ll trade the sweatpants for comfortable mom jeans and pat my ’fro down into a socially acceptable shape before leaving my apartment. It has nothing to do with self-respect, but rather a fear of being talked about, or snapped in someone’s popular @shittyppllooklike Instagram. My fear of walking in front of a group of teenage black kids 1 has NOTHING on my fear of being watched while eating in public.
    Living in New York slapped my fear of going out solo right out of me. I used to feel sorry for people eating alone at restaurants or going to the movies by themselves; I’d go so far as to pray that they’dfind a companion to complete them. Then I moved to New York and witnessed millions of people content with doing things by themselves: grocery shopping, subway hopping, park benching, movie watching, restaurant dining. So many things to do alone without fear of any judgment. It was just the norm. I remember the first time I went to see “ Ne le dis à personne ” by myself at Landmark Sunshine Cinema. What an experience! I bought all the snacks I wanted: a medium popcorn, a vegan double-chocolate-chip-brownie cookie, Reese’s Pieces, and a Diet Coke. Then I sat at the end of the aisle of a partially filled theater and propped my feet up on the seat in front me—HEAVEN! No one to ask me questions during the movie, no one threatening to predict what was going to happen next, no one to dip their spit-tipped fingers in my popcorn—just me and the movie. After that, a whole new life of self-imposed isolation opened up to me.
    Instead of ordering food to go at my favorite Indian restaurant and carrying it home to eat in my tiny closet-sized room, whose walls would absorb the curried cauliflower smell for three days minimum, I would instead eat inside the overtly festive restaurant.
    “How many, ma’am?”
    “Just one!”
    Though it took me a while to fully adjust, I was soon enough content with my phone or the book I had brought to read.
    I would take this newfound joy to Los Angeles with me. If anyone felt such pity for me as I used to pity my fellow solo diners, I was oblivious. In fact, in some ways, New York made me embrace being alone. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to die alone, but spending quality time with myself 60 to 70 percent of the day is my idea of mecca.
    However, just as singing in the car with your windows rolledup tricks you into feeling as though you’re truly socially isolated, it is very important to remember that even while eating solo, you are being watched. That offbeat dance you do in your car? Someone has laughed at you. That time you picked your nose in the park? It made someone gag. The way you shoveled food onto your fork with your index finger and then chewed it with your mouth open as chunks of spitfood fell back onto your plate prompted someone to regard you as a savage.
    I don’t consume food prettily while alone.