Josh Kilmer-Purcell · 305 pages
Rating: (11.1K votes)
“I try to make myself realize that I have learned the difference between right and wrong. That there is such a thing as right and wrong. But instead I've learned that these are things - this "right", this "wrong"- these are things that we are told. Simply told to believe. These are things we have not tested. And while most of the things we are told may be true, it is not until we have tested them, taunted them, flaunted them, that we truly know they are right. Or wrong. Or true. Or false. Or somewhere in-the-fucking-between. And I think I know now a little better which is which. And I also know I'll never quit testing this world. I'll never rely on common knowledge. Or common denominators. Or even common sense, for that matter.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“And sometimes the show can't go on.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“I am not an alcoholic. I'm a social catalyst. People pay me to illustrate for other partygoers the chemical process involved in transforming from one persona into another drunker, more fun one. It's a matter of going from dull point A to exciting point B. And I'm a raving success at it. So successful that sometimes I wind up at Mysterious Point C.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“Blackouts can be fun if approached with the right mindset. You just can't sweat the fact that you've lost a small portion of your life for all eternity. Occasionally, little bubbles of memory will float up like surreal Mylar party balloons at unexpected times throughout the net day and start piecing together a colorful, if incomplete, version of reality.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“More than anything I wish he were here with me. "A relationship is an accumulation of shared history," he'd said to me once. And here I was making history without him. It's lonely. And I can't wait to go home. Parts of me are showing through my Aqua, and I'm having a hard time keeping them separate.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“Secrets that reside in the mind of one person aren't really secrets. They're unspoken fears.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“...once you've crawled into what's commonly thought of as the sordid underbelly of life, you realize it's all just different versions of normal.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“...no matter how beneficial a disappearing act might be for me, I could never tear myself away from a show in progress. Even when the plot's tragic ending is apparent to the entire audience. Perhaps there's a deus ex machina that will lower from the ceiling and turn the whole debacle into a romantic comedy. never can tell. Paid the full ticket price, might as well stay.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“I think it's a little presumptuous on his part to think that I would want to talk to him anyway. I mean, sure, I went home with him, probably slept with him, ate breakfast with him, and wore his clothes to work the next day. None of this I see as necessarily flirtatious on my part.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“I'm a drag queen. I'm a celebrity trapped in a normal person's body.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“. . . New York doesn't leave a lot of time for pondering forks in the road. People who have paused to gather their wits often find themselves suddenly waking up in a cookie-cutter beige apartment in Hoboken. I will not ever leave New York. I don't know how long it takes to become a true New Yorker, but I assume that if I die here ... that would qualify me.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“We’re having Thanksgiving at our place,” he said. “An old-fashioned Thanksgiving.” “With drag queens and hookers and cranberry sauce?” I asked breathlessly. “Just like at Grandma’s,” he replied.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“There's a strange lack of knowledge about the role of drag queens in our culture. I attribute this to the appalling state of our country's education system. Others might blame an utter lack of interest. Who am I to judge?”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“But there's something flirty/sexy about his voice that's appealing to my inner romantic comedy actress.
Then again, maybe it's just his penthouse apartment I'm hearing. My inner gold digger frequently beats the crap out of my inner Meg Ryan.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“There's a strange lack of knowledge about the role of drag queens in our culture. I attribute this to the appalling state of our country's educational system. Others might blame an utter lack of interest. Who am I to judge?”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“Because holding onto someone is not the same as keeping them close."
- I Am Not Myself These Days”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“I try to make myself realize that I have learned the difference between right and wrong. That there is such a thing as right and wrong. But instead I've learned that these are things - this "right", this "wrong"- these are things that we are told. Simply told to believe. These are things we have not tested. And while most of the things we are told may be true, it is not until we have tested them, taunted them, flaunted them, that we truly know they are right. Or wrong. Or true. Or false. Or somewhere in-the-fucking-between. And I think I know now a little better which is which. And I also know I'll never quit testing this world. I'll never rely on common knowledge. Or common denominators. Or even common sense, for that matter.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“My arm reaches up. I don't know if I'm reaching for the pipe or for him. I want to touch his skin. I want to breathe in what he breathes. The yellow swirl. I want to be the yellow swirl. I want him to breathe me in, be sent riding on oxygen molecules deep into lungs. I want to travel through his body, seeing what makes him happy, attaching myself to whatever place in him sparks to life on my arrival. His blood. His tissues. His muscles. I want to burrow inside the folds like a wind-blown dusting of snow so that each time I melt away, he seeks me out again. There's no delineation between the pipe and the smoke and his body. It's all whole, I want in. I want him.
'Please,' I say softly, 'let me try.'
Without letting go of the pipe, he swings his hand holding the lighter with incredible force, backhanding my face. My jaw pops. The lighter swings back under the pipe undulating back and forth, inhaling the curl as it rises from the tar, exactly the same as before he hit me, only now he's staring at me, hating me.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“And then when you wake up, there's a moment of sheer terror in your body. Every bit of softness leaves your muscles, and you greet the day like it was the apocalypse.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“So. I’ll keep dancing in my costumes. Day and night. And I won’t sleep as much as I should. And I will drink more than I should. And maybe, as I’m twirling and glittering, playing a retarded game of hide and seek in the middle of an open field, maybe, just maybe, whatever happens next will be bigger, and I will forget that which seems so huge to me right now.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“Back in bed I listen to every sound. The plastic tarp over the table on the balcony crunching in the cold wind. the two short clicks in the walls before the heat comes on with a low whoosh. I hear a constant base hum all around, the nervous system of the building, carrying electricity and gas and phone conversations to all our respective little boxes. I listen to it all, the constant, the rhythmic, and the random. It's hard to measure the night by sound, but it can be done. I know that when the traffic noise is quietest, it's about 4:30 in the morning. I know that when the 'Times' hits the door, it's around 5. Now the clock says it's morning, 5:45, but the November sky still says midnight. I hear the elevator ding twenty yards down the hall outside our door. Seven seconds later, I hear his keys in our lock, then his heavy backpack hitting the floor. I hear the refrigerator door open, the unsealing vacuum wheezing as the cold inside air meets the dry heat in the apartment. The cupboard door. A glass. The crescendoing fizz of a new two-liter Diet Coke bottle opening. It's a one-sided conversation with no one actually talking. I lie in the dark, close my eyes, and try not to listen to his movements around apartment. these are the sounds of our life together before it got so messy. I want to say something back. Anything, anything that sounds like things sounded last summer. Even just to myself. Just something out loud.
The inside of my eyelids turn pink. My door has been opened and the light from the hallway shines through them. I won't open them. There is no noise.
Like an eclipse, the world behind my closed eyes goes dark again. For just one second, before I feel a kiss on my right eye. I keep them closed. A kiss on the left one. I open them. Jack looks down at me and closes his eyes. He leans forward and puts his forehead on my chest and goes limp.
''Blues Clues' is on,' he says softly into my tee shirt. His muffled voice vibrating only a half inch away from my heart.”
― Josh Kilmer-Purcell, quote from I Am Not Myself These Days
“If you don’t need my backsight,” she said to Kaleb, “then why am I here?”
He rose to his feet and, placing his hands on the table, leaned toward her until she could’ve reached out and run her fingers along his freshly shaven jaw. “You are here,” he said in a tone that made her heart thump wildly against her ribs, “because you belong to me.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Heart of Obsidian
“Having no knowledge of models other than what they meet with in their own tongue, the standard they have formed of purity and taste in composition must necessarily be a narrow one.”
― C. Rajagopalachari, quote from Mahabharata
“Abandoned by a God in whom many of us believed, we lay prostrate and dazed in our demi-tomb. From time to time, one of us would look over the parapet to stare across the dusty plain into the east, from which death might bear down on us at any moment. We felt like lost souls, who had forgotten that men are made for something else, that time exists, and hope, and sentiments other than anguish; that friendship can be more than ephemeral, that love can sometimes occur, that the earth can be productive, and used for something other than burying the dead.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier
“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Academ's Fury
“I heard her walking away. Lincoln stayed where he was for a while and then sat down beside me again. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t touch me. He knew I couldn’t have handled it right then. I turned toward the window and pretended to sleep while trying to ignore the hundreds of thoughts bombarding my mind, fighting for attention. It wasn’t long before I felt him move away, and the first twinge of my soul stirring within, warning me. “Let me by.” “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m sure there is a lot that needs to be discussed, but right now, she’s exhausted. You have no idea what she’s been through.” Lincoln’s voice caught, but he covered it, clearing his throat. “She needs to rest…and so do you, I imagine.” “You’re her partner?” she asked confrontationally. “I am.” “You’re from a Power?” It was an odd question. “How did you know?” Lincoln asked. “At least some things were done right,” she mumbled. “I suppose if I were to make a point of passing you now, you’d be willing to use force?” “A fair assumption,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t joking. My soul stirred again. “Would you die for her?” I almost stopped breathing. I could feel his eyes on me. “I do. Every day.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Emblaze
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