alone time.

Sometimes I do weird things when I'm by myself for too long. Sometimes I listen to Cher Pandora and sit on my couch drinking cheap wine and singing at the top of my lungs. Other times I look at food porn for hours upon end. One time I created a dance to the song "Who's Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" by Shania Twain. Sometimes I also practice my street fighter moves. They're real. My friend Laura took me to a street fighter class and we learned how to dominate, Brooklyn style. Don't act like you're not impressed.

Tonight, however, I decided to cut my own hair, because that's always a good idea. So I listened to the song "Man or Muppet" from the new Muppet Movie on repeat and gave myself bangs.

Try and tell me this song doesn't inspire you to turn over a new leaf, become a better person, and cut your hair. Just try. I know my siblings would never deny this. So now I'm Julie with bangs. I like to think that it makes me look more mature. I mean, I am an adult. And I look like this:

This is what I look like now.

gus gus.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of this thrilling blog post, take a look at this picture and tell me what you think it is:

Murky mystery liquid in cup.

Milk was my first guess, too. And it is also the wrong answer. Because this, my friends, is good old quality New York City tap water. Yum. The first time I saw this come out of our tap was alarming. Here I was, all grown up and living in my big girl New York City apartment with no air conditioning in the 100 degree heat, laying on the hardwood floors eating cherries and dehydrating, when I crawled to the kitchen to fill the only cup I had (a disposable plastic water cup I got at some cafe in the city) with water. And it comes out like this. Fortunately, it eventually clears up, but not very quickly. Especially when you come back from a run and you're about fall over because you work too much to exercise regularly and all you want is some instant hydration.

My roomie says that it is carbon dioxide, or something chemical-ish like that, and it happens because I turn the water on too fast and our faucet needs a filter. Apparently, it might be unhealthy to drink it when it is this bubbly/cloudy because you don't want too much carbon dioxide in your body. He might be right. Oh, by the way, this is my roomie, Scott. He works with dead people. And he breaks bones. Yeah, it's exactly as gross as it sounds. But he also knows some things about science so I'm leaning toward believing him on the murky carbon dioxide bubble water.

I dunno know why you always have to be judging me because I only believe in science.

From this picture, it looks like NYC is a beautiful place where the sun is always shining and the water always shimmers. And in our case, the water does shimmer. It leaves little carbon dioxide bubbles all over the inside of your glass after you drink. It's special. I kind of like it a lot. Just like I like the subway rats. Both of those statements sounded sarcastic because you can't hear me actually talking, but I'm not joking. I honestly like the shimmery bubbles and the subway rats. Today I told my students that I love the subway rats and they now officially think I'm the craziest person on the planet. I mean, sure, they accepted the fact that I sing to Cher Pandora in my office at the top of my lungs and I wear socks with my flats (which is apparently not trendy) and I get insanely lost everywhere I go and I'm terrified to go to Dunkin' Donuts, but I think my love for subway rats finally pushed me over the edge. But I'm okay with that. Today, I saw one scurrying from a hole in the wall by the tracks. He was little and brown and super fast. And I named him Gus Gus.