Grapefruit
I will put it to you as a statement of fact: white people eat grapefruit all wrong. I was alerted to this by my friend Delia Cai, who included in her daily newsletter a link to a YouTube video of a woman carefully dismembering a grapefruit. “White people have a special razor spoon for it apparently,” Delia wrote, “and this is never not hilarious to me.” As the owner of several such razor spoons—which are also, by the way, great for excavating ice cream straight from the freezer—I was taken aback. Then, I watched the video. The whole “halve the grapefruit and scoop out chunks” method had always seemed flawed: so much wasted juice, the bitter pith was impossible to detach, pieces of flesh got left behind. The method detailed in the video—remove the outer peel, remove the pith, carefully liberate the plump sections from their translucent skins—leaves you with dozens of glistening bits ready to pick up and slurp.
For plenty of Asian Americans, this is a familiar act of love performed by a parent, something they’ve grown up with. For me, a midwestern white girl, it was a revelation. It was also absorption: something new at a time when new things, people, experiences are scarce. I could practice cutting into the peel at just the right depth, scoring it but not piercing the fruit below. I could get good at shucking off the pith in thick white strips. I could devote my undivided attention to peeling skins away from segments, a process that requires surgical precision if you don’t want to end up with a pile of juicy mush. I wonder, sometimes, if this constitutes cultural appropriation. But I hope it’s more like biological adaptation: adopting something that works better and giving credit where it’s due.
I took the trash out the other day, in the dark, in the rain. My upstairs neighbor came out for a cigarette. We chatted for a bit, about quarantine, about her job. Then she asked, “So, what’s it like being alone?” (I’m one of two people in our brownstone-turned-apartment building who lives by themselves.) I didn’t know what to say. “Fine, I guess?” Certainly not, “I miss human touch. Some days I spend hours on the floor. Some days I feel insane. I peel a lot of grapefruit.” A novel task, a single-minded activity occupying my brain, staving off the aloneness, the loneliness, the abyss at the edge of all our minds that grows wider the more we consider it.
When my now-ex partner broke up with me about a month ago, the first thing I asked, about 30 seconds into our conversation on my frayed yellow couch, was, “Are you breaking up with me in quarantine?” They assured me that, no, they were not breaking up with me in quarantine—they simply wanted to be “honest about their feelings,” their feelings being that they did not love me. But a few more minutes in, it became clear that this was exactly what they were doing, whether they were ready to acknowledge it or not. I can’t account for their initial assurance, except to say that it demonstrated the lack of self-awareness on their part that shaped the trajectory of our entire relationship. (This isn’t a dig—they’d tell you the same.) Also, I can’t help but imagine they sensed the encroaching loneliness—the expanse of blackness nipping at their heels. For months, we’d each been the other’s main point of human contact. In reassuring me that they weren’t about to take that away, they were looking for reassurance, too. Like so much else, it was wishful thinking.
Some days I hear my upstairs neighbor and her boyfriend fighting, screaming at each other about whose turn it is to vacuum, who ought to take out the trash. Feet pound down the stairs as someone finally does it, bad-tempered. They fight about other things too; the heating vents that connect this old house carry all sorts of sound. And I wonder what it’s like to not be alone, to live with someone in close quarters with your basest crazy exposed. I hear it’s brought some people closer together. I’ve watched it drive others apart. I wanted to ask my neighbor about it that night on the steps, but refrained. I wasn’t sure what I expected her to say. As the weeks stretch on, I’m getting better at peeling grapefruit—I send Delia a picture of each new attempt. These days I can remove almost all of the sections without a single casualty. I’ve pulled myself out of a couple of breakdowns this way: peeling, peeling, peeling. Adapting.
Celebrity stuff
Coffee, Stretching, and Epsom Salt Baths: Life in Megan Rapinoe’s Skin - The New York Times - Skincare routines are always extremely soothing to me; my number-one celebrity crush’s skincare routine is doubly so.
Robert Pattinson: A Dispatch from Isolation - GQ - If you haven’t read this delightful and deranged interview, you’re missing out. The part where he blows up his microwave is at the very end, which seems like a ploy to keep people scrolling. (And if this leaves you wanting more, my friend Laura Bradley made Robert Pattinson’s quarantine pasta and wrote about it.)
Inside Rapper Drake’s Manor House - Architectural Digest - You all know how I feel about Drake. (Or at least I hope you know how I feel about Drake. Hint: near unconditional devotion.) But...oh...my god? Oh my god. Oh! My! God!
Personal essay stuff
The New York You Once Knew Is Gone. The One You Loved Remains - Gen - I cried reading this gorgeous essay by Glynnis MacNicol. If you’re a New Yorker, $10 says you will too. Bet.
The First Crepe - Newsbreader - I have recommended Dayna’s newsletter before, but I will do it again because this edition felt like a hug. I texted her that “all of life feels like the first crepe” and she replied that “Someday it will be the third crepe. SOME DAY.” And I choose to believe her.
Alone - The New York Times - The Times spoke to dozens and dozens of people about living alone during quarantine. (They did not ask me, but whatever, it’s fine.) In some ways the stories are what you’d expect, but in others each one is surprising.
Is This the Worst Possible Time to Break Up With Someone? - The Cut - A little on the nose!!! (From personal experience I would say: probably!) But this piece is a nuanced look at the dynamics of coupledom, especially struggling coupledom, in quarantine. I would’ve found it interesting even if it wasn’t so applicable.
Poetry stuff
My friend Liana DeMasi compiled a zine called “A Brief Time In Isolation” that solicited any creative work to do with quarantine. I sent her three short poems; scroll through to find them.
I Hope She Sees This Bro - Written Out - This is another personal newsletter I subscribe to: Kelsey McKinney’s Written Out. In this edition, the incomparable Helena Fitzgerald guest-writes about the various purposes of poetry, from the aesthetic to the petty. She and I also have similar taste when it comes to poems: “I want a poem to punch me in the face. I want a poem that I should have seen coming that still comes out of nowhere. It should turn around that fast, catch me unaware.” Bro.
A poem called “First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”
Emily Sundberg’s dad is a genius—just saying.