Eating an orange is kind of therapeutic for me. Not the consumption part necessarily, but the process it takes to consume one. Sometimes it’s cumbersome when you just want a damn snack without the hassle. But when I’ve got time to sit down and eat an orange, I find it relaxing.

I’ve mostly discovered this since Brad came into my life. He’s become my official orange peeler. He’s like a magician when it comes to removing the tough outer rind. He’s got this technique that results in exactly two evenly shaped rind pieces, just two, that he removes flawlessly. It’s really quite amazing because I usually have a million little orange rind chunks laying around if I do it myself.

He then hands me my orange and gets to work on his. I’m picky about all the white stuff that surrounds the fruit, I think it takes away from the orangey sweetness. But that’s precisely what is so therapeutic about this process. I meticulously remove as much of the white as I can from each slice of orange. It takes me a really long time, there’s a good two or three minutes in between the consumption of each slice. And I end up with a little mountain of yellowy stickiness in front of me. But the slices taste so good, and I feel serenely calm and peaceful when I’m done.

In the meantime, Brad has peeled and scarfed his entire orange (the whiteness doesn’t bother him), and has moved on to yet another round of Streetfighter. Or whatever.