GRAPEFRUITLIVEBLOG2006: I Warned You

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2011EST: I just put away a solid half-can of organic vegetarian chili, and I’m spoiling for a fight. A fight with a grapefruit, that is — and boy howdy does this one know how to put its dukes up. Weighing in at 22 ounces (I just checked), with a street value of fuck I threw the receipt away yesterday, Star Ruby — named after its two idols, Star Jones (left) and Jack Ruby — has all the heft and swagger of a true competitor. I, on other hand, am afraid of using knives.

Fuck it, though. I’m getting the knife.

2014EST: Okay, so just a butterknife. Still enough to pierce Ruby, though — a silver dollar’s worth of peel excised. You know, before like a week ago I’d’ve just cut this shit in half and scooped out the sections with a spoon, although I don’t think the specialized grapefruit spoons — which to me don’t really help much anyway — are available to me right now. But my ladyfriend’s mother told me there was another way. And she ate monkey once. There was a paw in her plate!

2015EST: Blogging is hard work! And distracting. I need to peel more. brb, blog.

2020EST: I’m pussying out and only eating half. Don’t look at me like that. As it turns out, the grapefruit put up less resistance — in fact, the peel is delightfully spongy to the touch; I could strip grapefruits (grapefruit?) all day — than the fucking plastic wrap, which I always manage to twist and fold and cause to self-adhere. A sticky situation lol. So for those keeping score: 0–1, grapefruit–me; 1–0, universe-minus-grapefruit–me. Better than usual.

2023EST: Goddammit I need to start eating. Hm: pretty good. Grapefruit is really a bizarre food for some caveperson to decide to cultivate and consume, because it just barely crosses the boundary line between edible and not; the bitter aftertaste probably triggers some reptile-brain retching instinct wired into the back of the tongue. Maybe, as Michael Pollan suggests in The Botany of Desire, people really did have a much milder notion of “sweetness” until the advent of industrial, refined sugars; to the leatherlike tongue of a Cockney chimney sweep, c. 17whenever, a grapefruit may have been as sweet as it got. This calls, of course, for a Wikipedia consultation.

2027EST: I navigate away from Star Jones’s official web site. (Note the slogan on the top: “I am the author of the only dictionary that defines me.” Let’s see…nothing on dictionary.com. Nothing in the OED. Nothing on Wiktionary. I guess she just has some private dictionary in her house that she works on in her spare time, modern-day Samuel Johnson that she is. Unless…Gasp! Star Jones is the author of urbandictionary.com! And apparently she hasn’t kicked that self-esteem problem yet:

1. star jones

   57 up, 6 down

   Jabba the hut's long lost cousin. Does payless shoe ads where they dont show her feet in shoes because she has giant foot fat leaking out of the shoes. Once ate a whole man.

   I be Star Jones yo! Im a lawyer.

2. star jones

   39 up, 1 down

   …

   Why are you so surprised that Maurice will tease out your wigs but won't play with your titties? Girl, you are star jonesin!!!! You better annul this mess, before he runs off with your shoes.

3. Star Jones

   40 up, 9 down

   The co-host of ABC's "The View". She is a lawyer. She tries to bring insight to legal aspects of a topic on the show, but somewhat ties the topic back to food, or men. Uses the words "Allegedly" "I am a lawyer" "Delicious" for anything you can think of. Hillarious/irritating diva. Millionaire.…

4. star jones

   31 up, 6 down

   another name for "earth"

   also another way to say "to steal food"

   Marni! You so just Star Jonesed my gummy bears!!!!!

“Another name for ‘earth’”? Star’s a weird lady.

2043EST: I think I’m supposed to go to Wikipedia and research grapefruit(s) now, but I already finished the first half while I was reading up on Star Jones. I can’t tell you how often this shit happens to me.

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Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I eat the other half. I hope it’s okay just sitting in the refrigerator inside a sandwich bag, even though it’s not a sandwich.