11/14, 7:15pm—South Lamar, Austin TX

I confess, I missed one. It’s nobody’s fault but my own—Meal #14 was just not particularly memorable. I’d gotten Dio’s stitches out that morning, taken him home for a short walk, and decided that he needed a new harness because I was forced to accept that the one he’s been wearing for the past few years, after it had been sitting in the trunk of the car during his recovery, stank like it had been clinging next to the body of a dog who likes to roll around in mud and creeks for the past six years. I figured I’d go up to the Olive Garden for lunch that morning, then come down Burnet to approach any of a trio of local pet stores, one of which would surely have the kind of harness I was looking for (which was, after all, merely a decent quality leather harness for a dog who weighs about 50 pounds).

The meal was fine—I had rigatoni with five-cheese marinara and crispy chicken—and my server was polite, but it was during the lunch rush, where when you’re there, while you may still be family, you’re also part of a churn-and-burn strategy to keep tables moving. I had intended to come home to write a brief recap, but then I had to hit all three pet stores—all to no avail!—and by the time I concluded the trip, I had already forgotten the meal.

Yesterday, though, I had no such errand. I had gone down south early to avoid rush-hour traffic and do some work at Radio, a local coffee shop a few blocks away from my therapist’s office that turns off the wifi at 5pm in order to discourage evening customers from hanging out on their laptops, but which just means that I turn on my phone’s hotspot for the hour until my appointment. I talked with my therapist about stuff that, even in an over-sharing Olive Garden newsletter, it would be inappropriate to get into, and then zoomed down the block to the restaurant.

There was, as per usual, a sizable dinner wait, but there was also a lone spot at the bar, which I strode up to like Clint Eastwood in the early 1970’s. I took off my jacket, dangled my bag from the post of the chair, and leafed through the menu. My server, whose name I forgot to check, was a woman I’d met before—I could go through old newsletters to find it, but since we’ve got a Clint Eastwood-in-the-’70s thing going on here, let’s just call her “Blondie.” She recognized me as one of the pasta pass regulars, and had another seated to my left—a woman about my age, also alone, with a book. We shared a nod of acknowledgment, then ate our salads and read in silence.

I’ve eaten at least two-thirds of my Pasta Pass meals by myself. One of my favorite things about having this luxury ticket to advanced spaghetti is that servers intuitively understand why a person would be in their restaurant alone, without judgment or pity. Which is great, because eating alone in restaurants has always been a very simple joy for me.

When I was 17, my family moved to Texas in the middle of my senior year of high school. It being the middle of my senior year of high school, I remained in the Northwest Indiana suburbs of Chicago, staying with a cousin who had a trailer on the other side of the state line. I had a car and a part-time job (making pizzas, then in a corporate record store) and a little bit of money, and I would eat dinner by myself most nights, unless friends had plans or someone’s parents felt sorry for me and invited me over. (There was nothing to feel sorry for—it was less than a year, and I liked feeling special because my life looked differently than all of my friends’ lives did.)

One of my favorite things to do was to go to Fazoli’s, which is also a pasta place with an endless supply of breadsticks, albeit one with a more casual, fast-food aesthetic (they have a drive-thru). There aren’t many of them in Texas, although I have a habit of visiting the one in Waco when I pass along on I-35, but they were booming in Indiana when I was finishing up high school. I would show up, order a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, eat twice my body weight in breadsticks (at the risk of sounding disloyal, I’ll just say it: Fazoli’s breadsticks > Olive Garden breadsticks), and bring with me a copy of a magazine, which I’d read cover to cover while the breadsticks kept coming. I don’t know how many times I did that during the year, but it was probably a weekly ritual. To this day, when I think back to that time in my life, sitting by myself with a copy of Entertainment Weekly and a plate of pasta is one of my most abiding, and fondest, memories of being 17 and on my own.

The habit has stuck with me, too. I’ll have assignments to eat at a particular place for work, where a guest’s check would be picked up, and I’ll often go alone anyway, to experience it the way that feels natural to me. Visiting strange cities, I’ll go off by myself on foot, wandering in one direction or another, before deciding on a place and sitting alone, ordering and spending time alone. It’s not some zen thing or whatever—as often as not, these days, I sit there and read my phone—but there is something to recommend about doing something that’s often a social activity without any expectations from anyone else.

Last night, that meant sitting alone at a bar next to someone else who sat alone at a bar, both of us needing to offer no explanation to anyone. I was glad to read my iPad, I’ll assume she was glad that the dude who came in and sat next to her left her alone, it was a nice time.

I had spaghetti and meatballs in marinara sauce, and let Blondie go crazy with the cheese. This thing expires in four days, might as well let loose, right? I read a long, upsetting story about Larry Nassar, because reading those stories is my job and I’d been putting that one off. It was beautifully written, and reminded me that even in telling horrible stories that everyone thinks they know the broad strokes of, writing artfully and finding ways to unroll surprises can make the necessary horror stick in ways that it must stick, that writers have a responsibility to make stick.

I ordered a refill—rigatoni with meat sauce and Italian sausage—and Blondie, familiar with my M.O., brought it to me with a to-go box. I dumped it inside, noticed that there was substantial interest even in a lone seat at the bar from the line of diners waiting in the lobby behind me, slipped my iPad back into my bag and put my jacket on, and left, forgetting the lunch I’d meant to save for today on the bar. Hopefully Blondie took it with her to give to her kid, who I learned during the course of the meal is a Leo like she is. Either way, there are still four days of pasta pass left, so there’s time yet to get another one.