No Soy Yo Mismo Estos Dias

I Am Not
Myself
These Days
A Memoir

J OSH K ILMER -P URCELL

For Brent, who wants you to know that he had nothing to
do with any events in this story. (But, I assure you, has
everything to do with its happy ending.)

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperoris the emperor of ice-cream.
“THE EMPEROR OF ICE-CREAM”
—WALLACE STEVENS

Contents
Epigraph

iii

Prologue
I’m freezing. The door to the balcony is wide open.

1

Book I

5

1
I’ve just dropped my vodka glass and am having that…

7

2
Coming to” and “sobering up” are two distinctly different
States…

13

3
White.

35

4
I’m working the door at Jaguar, a smallclub two…

41

5
Maybe I could do what you do?” I say to...

51

6
I drop my keys onto the sidewalk for the second…

59

Book II

79

7
The Tempest has passed. So to speak.

81

8
It’s two nights after my party and somehow I’ve recovered…

97

9
Even though we had prepared for weeks, the morning of…

115

10
I am not an alcoholic. I’m a social catalyst. People…129

11
This is how I become not me:

139

12
I double-check the address that Jack had written on the…

159

13
Jack and I watch Blue’s Clues every morning. Or at…

171

14
Here’s what I don’t like about Japan: there are thousands…

179

15
The apartment is a shithole.

185

Book III

189

16
Why didn’t you call me? I told you to come…

191

17
It’s just theTV,” I tell my mother on the…

197

18
It’s a week of cactuses and hearts.

207

19
I can’t stand silence.

221

20
Contestant, make your choice, I think to myself stepping out…

225

21
Thanksgiving.

237

22
What do you mean he won’t talk to you?” Laura…

247

23
Look. It’s obvious I’m fucking things up,” Jack says, sitting…

253

24
Isn’t it Boxing Day orsomething? Shouldn’t you be home…

259

25
I’m surprised at how not empty the apartment feels once…

279

26
This is what I am dreaming:

285

27
Every vodka has a story. And the ending is reliably…

287

Epilogue
Hugs and Fishes.

301

Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher

Prologue

I’m freezing. The door to thebalcony is wide open. The wind
has blown the bedcovers completely off my feet, and the room
is dark except for the faint orange glow from the skyline outside. I can’t feel my toes. On the forty-second floor, the wind
never stops blowing.
My boyfriend is standing over me with a knife. Two nights
ago, after he had come home from a three-day crack binge, he
decided that I could have the rest of themonth to get my stuff
together and move out of our, well his, penthouse. He then returned to his regularly scheduled cocaine programming and
hadn’t come home since. Until now.
“Why’s the door open?” I ask.

JOSH KILMER-PURCELL

“I was getting ready to kill you and then jump off the balcony,” Jack says as calmly as if he were telling me what movie
he was planning to see.
“With that?” Igesture toward the Wüsthof chef’s knife in
his hand.
“Yeah.”
“But I just got that for Christmas.”
It’s a very expensive knife. I don’t have many good things,
but my parents send me one good knife each year for Christmas even though I’ve never used a single one for anything
other than display. I think I mentioned that I wanted to take a
cooking class to them once. “I haven’t even used it yet.”“Sorry. It seemed like it would work best. The other ones
are too small,” he says, idly running his thumb over the blade.
He’s right. All the other knives we have in the apartment
are discount-store quality and mostly dulled from the dishwasher. They could probably do the job, but the Wüsthof
would guarantee success in the first stab. Would likely go
straight through and pin me to the...