confessions of a paranoid diner
Because I have only one friend (that I see with any regularity, and my relationships with women don't last very long, I tend to eat the vast majority of my meals alone.
I don't eat in absolute solitude, that is, I don't sit at a long, empty, formal table set for one with a lone candle casting my shadows against the walls, and the echoes of my knife and fork bouncing off the dining room walls. But rather, since I don't cook, I eat alone among stangers in places like Boston Market, and Panera Bread, and Applebee's, and other lessor known restaurants. This is fine with me since the only thing that makes me more uncomfortable than eating alone, is when I'm eating with another person sitting directly across from me. When someone is sitting directly across from me at a table, it creates the presumption that there should be lots of wonderful things to say, and of course, I have none.
So eating alone is not so bad as long as I have a newspaper or a magazine to stuff my eyeballs and my mind with as I joylessly chomp down my fajitas, or my california wrap and slurp my free refill of Sierra mist. You see, I'm not so much reading as I eat, as I am distracting myself from all the other people in the dining room who are so blissfully talking about who knows what. They are all very comfortable sitting directly across from each other, and they always have plenty of wonderful things to say.
Yes, eating alone isn't so bad. But sometimes I find myself without any literature, or tv or other eyeball occupiers. Sometimes, I find myself with nothing to do but look into the other booths and tables where the eyes of strangers will inevitably encounter mine.
It is then that I begin to suffer the torments of the lonesome, paranoid diner.
You see, eyes tend to attract one another like magnets. I don't know why this is, but its just a fundamental fact of human psychology.
So there I am sitting at my table for one. My eyes begin their restless wandering around the dining room, until--zzzzt!--they lock on to another pair of eyes looking back my way. Now, the first encounter isn't so bad. You can just chalk it up to the random glances of an ordinary person.
But with no one to talk to in the opposite chair or booth and no literature to engage me, my eyes resume their meadnering about the room. Then it happens again--zzzzt! My eyes lock with the same person. This time I see a little concern in the face of the opposing stranger. Now I begin to feel discomfort in myself. What is this person thinking? If it's a woman, does she think I'm some sort of leering creep? Or if it's a man--does he think I'm queer, trying to get his attention. Now I start to make a point of not looking in that general direction so as not to aggrivate this condition.
So now my eyes must dart around every other direction in the room. They hit upon windows and doors and bottles of wine up on the wall, until finally--zzzt! They lock on to a second stranger's eyes. The negative feelings from the first encounter are already heightened and present in the second stranger. So I try to look at my table, at my hands. I try to keep my eyes away from the field of strangers.
Mercifully, my food arrives, and I have something to focus on. I can sprinkle pepper. I can pour ketchup. I can cut meat and shovel vegetables into my mouth. I begin to relax a little. I lean back a little bit in my chair as I take a sip of tea. Then--
ZZZZZT! The first stranger again. This time there is genuine concern in his eyes, alarm even. I almost feel the need to go over and explain myself, apologize, let him know that this is just inevitable. But I know that would be ridiculous. I just have to make sure not to look that way again.
So now I wipe my face. I turn my plate to the collard greens, or the potatoes. Let's just finnish this meal, shall we? I won't bother with the desert. ZZZZT! A third stranger! ZZZZT! The second stranger. Now I just look down at my plate. Just look at the food. Dont' let your eyes stray from the plate. Ten more bites at the most. Or maybe five. Perhaps I'll just get all of this to go.
Suddenly, there is a hand on my shoulder. I snap my head up around.
"How is everything, sir!"
"Fine!" I say. "Everything this is just fine."
7:04:06 PM 
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Not long after New York's tragic disaster with the WTC, Tampa had it's own mini terrorist attack. A fifteeen year old kid, who apparently had gone crazy from taking acne medicine crashed a little cessna into the tallest tower in this picture here. Fortunately, all the cessna did was trash the office of one particular lawyer. The cessna was cut up with a blow torch and carried in pieces down the frieght elevator.
This is Bob, aka Bob "Bandit" lighting up in my durango.
Bob loads up with c-notes.
...and disappears in his H2.
The Bucs lost again today. It used to be something people in Tampa Bay were used to. Now it's an old curse coming back to haunt us, like an alcoholic's relapse.