apartment bunny.

There are a lot of things that I like. I like soft things. I like to laugh. I like how squeaky my teeth feel after I brush them. I like to sing songs really loudly. I like sparkles. And I really, really like bunnies.

I like you, little friend.

I think it would be a really good idea to get an apartment bunny. Scott does not. I think my life would be a lot cuter and fluffier if I could come home to a bunny every day. I would name it Gus Gus, because I've decided that is what I'm calling all things cute. I could potty train it and teach it to follow me around the apartment. Then I could get it a little leash and take it on hop-walks around Astoria. And I could feed it mini-carrots and it would snuggle with me while I watch Enya music videos.

We would be the best of friends! I can't think of any good reasons an apartment bunny would be a bad idea. But I can think of a lot of reasons it would be a really fantastic idea.

1. Bunnies are adorable. I like how their little noses twitch and I like how fluffy their hopping feet are.
2. We could take Gus Gus to coffee shops in the summer. I can just see us sitting there, drinking our iced lattes with a little apartment bunny on the end of a leash.
3. We could take pictures of it and put them up all over our apartment. Currently, the only thing we have hanging in our living room is a dead Christmas wreath. I think pictures of future Gus Gus would be much more special.
4. We could cuddle with it. I mean, if we had an apartment bunny, it would be sitting on my lap right now, watching me write this blog.
5. Sometimes I bet Gus Gus would sit on my shoulder, like my own little parrot bunny. In these instances, I would wear an eye patch and hold a bottle of rum. I would always be a pirate for Halloween/Wednesday afternoon/all the time.
6. It could help us eat that semi-old head of lettuce we have sitting in the back of our refrigerator.

While I try to convince Scott that he wants an apartment bunny, I'll leave you with this video so that you, too, can really want an apartment bunny. Just wait until you see the little guy on the right yawn. The cutest.

zombies.

You know what I like? Zombies. You know why I like them? Because they're awesome and I like how they walk. Scott, Aubrey and I have been watching The Walking Dead (not to be confused with The Walken Dead. Click that link. Seriously, you won't regret it). I mean, what's better than a good old zombie apocalypse? I guess a non-apocalypse would be, but then Scott and I couldn't do the zombie walk all around New York City. Now I'm not saying that people don't think we're insane when we do this, but I guarantee they think we're really cool. If you were walking down the streets of the Upper East Side and you saw someone zombie-ing toward you, there is no way you could tell me you would be unhappy about it. In fact, I may let them bite me just to make it more realistic.

Plus, I tend to fall on my face a lot for no reason, so I figure that if I'm zombie-ing when I fall, people will think I'm normal. Like it's all a part of the act, not like I'm 26 and still have trouble walking. Maybe I buy the wrong size of shoes or something. When we go anywhere, I'm pretty sure Scott and Aubrey take bets on how soon I'll fall. Currently, I have 2 pairs of pants without holes in the knees and 5 pairs with holes. And absolutely no tights without holes, though that's not really saying anything. Sometimes I think it's a cute, trendy idea to wear tights. So I put them on, slip on my trendy, real leather boots and leave my house. And it's at that very moment that I remember I hate tights. And all things that squeeze every part of my body into a state of extreme discomfort. Like unitards.

This is a unitard.

That's another reason I love zombies. They get to wear whatever they want, and it's usually baggy. I dare you to find a zombie wearing tights. You won't. Because even though they have a disease that kills them and then wakes them up with nothing but an intense desire to devour humans, they know that tights are terrible.


They also call them "walkers" in the show. And I like that because I like nicknames and it makes me feel like I'm part of the gang. You know, just Rick, Daryl and Julie. Fighting walkers, protecting the children. No big deal. Speaking of Rick and Daryl, I see Rick look-alike's all the time. Like everywhere I go. Scott says they don't actually look like him, but Scott isn't part of the gang so he can't be trusted. Did you see me type "Rick, Daryl, Julie and Scott" up there fighting zombies? Didn't think so. Oh and Daryl. He has a bow and arrows and he never gives up. Just the best. 

This is Rick.

And that's why I like zombies.

soup.

Recently, our friend Aubrey moved in with us for a bit. He sleeps on the luxurious couch. And judging from the food he brought from his old house, Aubrey loves soup. A lot.

Aubrey loves soup.

He likes all kinds of soup, but mostly chicken noodle soup. Also, tomato soup and canned tomatoes. And Natty Light, the classiest of beers. Don't get me wrong, soup is great. I eat it every weekday. At work, my office is right below this big cafeteria that has lots of places to get food, like Subway, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts (the most intimidating of coffee shops), this little stir fry place, and a little store that has fast things, like soup. 


Miriam, my coworker, and I eat soup every day, and here is why: 
1) It is the cheapest lunch available. You can get a big bowl of soup for only $2.50. The best. 
2) You get as many free crackers as you want! 
3) The soups are from Au Bon Pain, which makes us feel fancier.
4) We're basically best friends with the soup lady. At least on the days she is happy. Some days she is not happy, and it's scary.


The best soup is the broccoli cheddar. Miriam and I used to get that one and eat it together in our office, until Miriam read the ingredients and she discovered she can't eat it because she is Jewish and it is not kosher. That was one of the saddest days of the semester. Now, she just stares at me from her desk while I eat it. She also can't eat the Chicken Florentine, Beef and Barley, Italian Wedding, White Bean and Ham or Chicken Noodle. Oddly, she cannot eat the Vegetarian Minestrone either because we found chunks of bacon in it. She said she kept wondering why the soup tasted so good, but then we realized it was because she has never eaten bacon before and bacon is amazing. One would think that "vegetarian" means "consisting solely of vegetables," but not according to the soups at the little store at St. John's. Luckily, it's not one of the best soups anyway, so we don't care.


Miriam can't eat a lot of things, like pepperoni pizza, fish without scales and fins, and Sour Patch Kids. I'm not sure if she can eat reptiles. Wait, does anyone eat reptiles? People eat snakes, don't they? I remember watching an Indiana Jones movie or something adventury like that and they ate a huge anaconda. There might be a rule that you can't eat something without feet, though. The other day I was at preschool watching one of my teams, and they were singing a song called Down By the Bay in Circle Time. One little boy got up and went to the bathroom, but when the Team Leader got to the line "Have you ever seen a snake baking a cake?" the little boy ran out of the bathroom, pants around his ankles, and yelled "Snakes don't have feet!" and then ran back in. So, if you only eat kosher foods, you probably shouldn't eat anacondas. They don't have feet.

brunners take manhattan.

Something big happened this year. Something epic. Something loud. The Brunners came to NYC. The Brunners did a lot of normal things, and some weird, Brunnery things.


The Brunners went to see them blow up the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons! The Brunners also made a human train and sang Christmas songs at the top of their lungs amongst the crowd.

It's a monster Smurf!

The Brunners went to see the windows at Macy's. Then the Brunners hung out in Macy's for 3 hours and ate mall pizza and ice cream for dinner. Logan wishes we could have gone to Macy's every day. He just loved it!


The Brunners ate amazing bagels and drank hazelnut coffee from Brooklyn Bagel Shop. Then the Brunners went back every morning and ate more bagels. Mom went back a few times a day to get their hazelnut coffee, which, in her defense, is the best. All Brunners love carbs and two Brunners love coffee.


The Brunners cooked a 22 pound turkey that Julie Brunner had to carry 4 short blocks and a long block from the butcher at 7 in the morning. Julie is really strong now. And there were only five of us on actual Thanksgiving day. Scott and I have a lot of leftover Thanksgiving dinners. 


The Brunners looked through their newspaper and saw that Best Buy was selling huge TV's for only $200, so they decided to go to the Black Friday sale at midnight. This is a big step for Brunners. We generally don't like shopping. We got there at 10:30pm, and apparently should have gotten there at 2pm because the line was 4 long blocks long. So we came home and ate pie.

Little Logan loves pie.

The Brunners went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. It was incredible! Mary looked just like the real Mary. The set was amazing. I'm still in love with Bert. And we got to take flying pictures. It's a jolly holiday with Mary.

I believe in the magic!

The Brunners decided they just couldn't get enough acting, so they went to see Relatively Speaking right after Mary Poppins. And Rachel got us really cheap student rush tickets. 'Twas the best.


The Brunners multiplied on Saturday because Andy and his fiance Katy arrived. The Brunner's ate soup and then went to see "nature," aka Central Park. Then the Brunners went to the Guggenheim and saw the Maurizio Cattelan exhibit with Katy's dad. It was well worth seeing. We recommend it.

My mom always makes us order the Happy Family dish at Chinese restaurants. Because that's what we are. The dish is kind of gross, but we are not.

The Brunners did some things on Sunday, too. Logan had to leave us in the morning, so we ate waffles to drown our tears. Then the Brunners went to Astoria Park to look at the Manhattan Skyline. We came back and ate tapas and paninis. Then Andy and Katy had to leave us, so the remaining Brunners did laundry and crosswords.

Hello parents! Hello Manhattan!

The Brunners also came to see Julie at work. They ate in the cafeteria. Just like real college students. Then the Brunners had to go home. 


Thanksgiving was the greatest!

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.

coffee.

I love coffee. I drink a lot of it, which could be because I love it or because I never sleep anymore. But I have some issues with NYC coffee that desperately need to be addressed. 

If you're from Missouri, you know that coffee is insanely hot. Like it will burn your mouth and your hands. And your legs when you accidentally spill it all over yourself in the car. But people from NYC are either much more tough than us Missouri-folk or else they don't realize that they're getting 3rd degree burns, because no one gives you cup koozies when you order coffee. I really don't understand it! The coffee is so hot I literally cannot touch the cup without fear of injury, but people just walk around drinking their coffee like it's no big deal. No, a napkin is not the same as a cup koozie. They're too slippery and don't provide a good grip and sometimes make me drop my coffee right outside the subway entrance. To make things worse, when I was telling my coworker, Miriam, about my koozie issues, she just laughed and told me that koozie is not a word. Apparently, people in NYC call it a "cozy" or a "sleeve."  Maybe that's why people never give me koozies; because they don't know what word I'm saying or what I'm talking about. 

Look what I just found when I Googled "koozy." A Ben & Jerry's ice cream koozy! I need this.

So, instead of giving me a koozie, they put my coffee in a bag. Yeah, a paper bag. I'm confused. Maybe it makes for easier transportation, but I don't like it. I guess they use special paper bags, because they have a little cardboard square at the bottom to keep the coffee flat, but that still doesn't answer my confusion about why they put my coffee in a bag. Which leads me to the issue of the terrible lids. Sure, maybe putting coffee in a bag is a good idea if the coffee lids don't spill, but they do.  And then the bag gets wet and threatens ripping and spilling it's contents all over the hallway at work. Everyone uses those flimsy flat lids that you have to basically rip a hole in to drink out of and then they never re-close.

It is also really intimidating to order coffee in NYC. It could be because there are always thousands of people in line behind you and the cashiers are always rushing you so that they can get all the thousands of customers in and out, but it's scary.  We just got a Dunkin' Donuts in my building at work and I went there with some of my students and it was terrifying. Everyone from the East coast already knows exactly what they like from Dunkin' Donuts, so I was just standing there wide-eyed and confused until I finally just said something intelligent like, "Coffee. How do I do that?" Then, I have to always remember to tell them that I want my coffee black, and then they look at me like I'm crazy because everyone here likes their coffee with tons of sugar and whole milk. Ew. I always thought whole milk was just for children. Learn something new every day.