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It’s all I can do to eat prettily in the company of suitors, when somehow I manage to keep it together just enough to keep them interested. When alone, I both surprise and disappoint myself with how fast I swallow food whole, sometimes to my detriment. Food frequently gets stuck in my throat and chest, often while I’m with company, at which point I lose the ability to talk, my eyes water, and I must go to the bathroom, stick my long, perfectly bulimic finger down my throat, and then cough it out. Then when my food-loving instincts kick in and send the proper “calm down, hungry, greedy bitch” signal to my stomach, I resume. If I’m lucky, this happens only once during the meal, and only when I eat dry foods like rice and poorly-cooked salmon.
    If you share my fears and lack the social grace to eat, well, gracefully, practice being L.A.D.Y-like. L.A.D.Y. stands for: Loner Artfully Digesting Yummies. This means, sit in the corner of a restaurant, facing a window, with your back to the rest of the patrons (you’re doing them a service), and feel free to chow down. Be aware of the waiter coming to check up on you. Waiters see customers eat ugly all the time, but those people have nothing on you. That’s what the window is for. Take time out of your busy, disgusting chomping to check your reflection every once in a while and to make sure the waiter doesn’t sneak up on you while you have all the sanguine-colored condiments around your mouth and cheeks, like you’ve just ravaged a zebra carcass.
    If this is too much for you to bear, and you can’t eat food without making a mess and drawing attention to yourself, then your best bet is to make use of the “To Go” option. You’re not ready to take advantage of the meditative quality of eating out alone just yet.
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    1    Having been a teenage black kid, I know firsthand how much we loved to laugh and talk shit about people, especially when sitting idly. I didn’t always participate, but I recognized it as a form of entertainment and bonding. Knowing how ruthless some of my friends were and how haphazard I can be in my appearance, I tend to cross the street when I see groups.

Leading Lady
    S everal months ago, I was blocked on Twitter by a disabled, white stripper.
    It was the night of the Grammys. I had just left a viewing party/get-together and was a wee bit tipsy. Having witnessed the many talented performers and sexy dancers throughout the night, I was feeling lackluster and was in a self-deprecating mood. So with this fresh on my mind I tweeted, “ Sometimes I really wish I was 2 a stripper. But a respectable one. I would always start off wearing pantsuits and dance to [Queen Latifah’s] ‘U.N.I.T.Y.’ ”
    This tweet was earnest and, in my mind, harmless. Moments later, I scrolled my mentions, chuckling at the other rhythmless girls who felt my sentiments, before one tweet caught my eye. Itread: “ Wow. How BRAVE. Not like all us gross disrespectable sex workers. ”
    The hostility slapped me in the face, so I decided to check out the sender’s time line, to understand how my tweet might have offended her. I read several of her tweets about how much she hates people, and how tired she is of everyone oppressing sex workers in our culture. I read multiple posts about how she was suffering from insomnia as well. As I continued to read through her hatred of all things human, I just knew that surely she couldn’t be placing me in this category of hate. She must have been sleep-deprived and misunderstood my tweet. I responded:
    “ We should talk about this in the morning when you get some sleep, Grumpy McGrumperson. ”
    And then she promptly responded:
    “ We should talk about this when you get some empathy, you whorephobic asshole. ”
    And that’s when all hell and confusion broke loose, because I could have sworn that what I’d expressed fit the definition of social media empathy. I had looked at her time line, seen that she was sleep-deprived, and