The New Me Quotes
"I’m the new temp, ten days into my assignment here. I’ve been getting better temp assignments lately, and my rep writes to tell me things like 'I’m so excited for you, this one has possibility for temp to perm,' but so far perm hasn’t come."
"I walk home in the dark, in the snow. My tights sagging. A hole in the side of my shoe."
"I open my dark apartment and turn on all the lights, like there might be someone who needs to use a room I’m not in."
"She’s still not accommodating me. I press harder. I try to loom."
"I think the phrase 'a symphony of bullshit' and I get off the train."
"I’m drinking burnt coffee and googling foods that reduce stress when the phone rings, a real asshole on the line."
"It’s okay for me to watch TV because I’m aware of what’s really going on."
"I turn on Forensic Files, and it seems like they have a new writer."
"I usually don’t feel anything with these shows, and I don’t particularly feel anything now, but this statement makes me think."
"I’m a little annoyed that I’m thinking about James again, and I blame Sarah for it, somehow."
"I’m glad he’s gone. He had a talent for making me feel mean."
"I laugh a little bit at my desk. The kind of laugh where your eyes water and your chin wrinkles and you feel like you might throw up."
"I want to go home. But not to my apartment home, to my thirteen-years-ago home, to my hug-my-mother home."
"I could be one of those people who doesn’t drink, but just engages."
"You can’t ask someone to help you without letting them know you’re different than advertised."
"It’s always better to be alone, better this way, better to be able to be yourself with yourself, openly awful."
"I feel like it’s a tone problem, more than anything. I can’t put my finger on it."
"I tell her again about how I think the self is an illusion and completely false and argue for that as a reason why I shouldn’t be overthinking this too much."
"I hang up the phone and feel sick to my stomach."
"The more I drink in silence, the less likely it becomes that I will move."
"I sit at my kitchen table and fantasize about deep-cleaning my apartment and buying all new things and getting a car."
"Each beat of my heart sends a tightening feeling through my torso."
"I breathe. I wish I had drugs, weed or Xanax."
"I want to throw the glass of cooking sherry against the wall."
"My mom tells me that that’s kind of enough for her tonight, and I silently commend her for her honesty."
"The kitchen is the heart of the home, no one has touched my body in more than a year, and I have a beautiful living space."
"I could apologize to my mom, let her know I’ve been depressed since I lost my boyfriend and my job and all my fake friends during a time when I probably should have been medicated."
"Like I’m some kind of Christian or something who values and respects her elders—not that I don’t now."
"Everyone thinks deep in their hearts that they can act, simply because they have deep emotions coursing through them all the time."
"Something similar to anticipation and excitement flits across my brain-screen."
"My shoulders are raging, aching, and I fold the clothing from my ever-present pile, make the bed, spray lavender-scented room spray everywhere."
"How does everything get so dirty again so fast? Must be me!"
"Stress still has me by the shoulders, but exhaustion is coming up a close second."
"I feel proud. I am going to start getting my groceries on Instacart."
"You should be the change you want to see in the world."
"I ride the train, pushed up against bodies and subjected to the heavy smells of shampoo and cologne."
"Life isn’t just happening to me anymore. I’m in control."
"The true opposite of what I’d planned, almost as if she’s willfully unable to see how nice it might be."
"I don’t really need to be around people with that kind of stubborn lack of imagination."
"I feel agitated and out of my routine when I get home."
"We’re so much in our minds, waiting for something to happen, acting it out, that the body and the outer world almost might as well not exist, for all it concerns us."
"Karen did breathing exercises to calm herself down. She had emails to send, but she couldn’t concentrate until she got this meeting checked off her list."
"Patty and Amanda in textiles were the worst."
"Karen was not at a high- or low-enough pay grade to use her sex appeal in these situations."
"I want to talk about the possibility of starting up an internship program here again."
"Well, her attitude is severely lacking, so I’m not sure how much good that would do."
"I have some information on all the schools’ internship programs, when they start, and what’s required on our end."
"I’m thinking of just asking the landlord if he’s had complaints about a smell."
"You were one of our top workers, and we promised Lisa Hopper that you were prompt, friendly, and neat."
"I’m sorry to hear that I didn’t represent the agency well during my time at Lisa Hopper."
"I enter the station through a side door and walk along a beige stone hallway, tracks to my left, waiting room to my right."
"My mom tells me that these noodles are so fresh and delicious that they taste almost creamy."
"I notice something I haven’t seen before, a three- or maybe four-foot puppet of my dad, hanging from the side of the bookshelf."
"I’m new. I change into new clothes and underwear in the Target bathroom, and my mother nods at me as I emerge and says, 'This is also for my sanity.'"
"Their politeness and rightness, to me, in this moment, is boundless."
"I want it to crack straight open so that there’s no barrier between me and the iced-over creek, the dead trees, the chirping squirrels."
"I could sell that chair for two to three hundred dollars."
"I think about how every decision I make is a no, how every act is essentially a no."