Fragments from my Notes app in 2024 (and 2023 and 2022)

Three years ago, I wrote about my yearly tradition of going through the Notes app on my phone, compiling all the odd sentences, notes and phrases into a kind of end-of-the-year poem.

I’ve continued the tradition, and wanted to share what I got from this past year — as well as the other two years ,when I wasn’t as disciplined in sharing them here. Seeing all three back to back, they’re incredibly telling to me of the distinct flavor each year had (although maybe that’s only noticeable from the inside).

I keep reflecting on what about this tradition I love so much, and maybe it has something to do with the Coyolxauhqui Imperative I wrote about recently, about learning to love the process of gathering the fragments, even before they become something whole. I guess that’s what my Notes app always does, and looking through it each year, I get a very distinct glimpse into where my heart and mind was circling, what it’s collecting, what it finds worth remembering.

(​​All sentences in quotations are quotes I heard from others, often jotted down quickly in a private conversation, so I kept the sentence as it was originally but left out an attribution. If the quote was said publicly, I tried to write the speaker in parentheses. All sentences without quotations came from me).

2024

To journal: boundaries with ghosts 

A person working in climate justice once told me “Their climate change strategy is mass death” and I think about that all the time.

“We firmly believe that not even our dead will be safe if the enemy wins.” (on an art piece at OMCA)

Wander around the streets of Paris to find myself, so that I can merge souls with someone in the evening… 

Mayachulla- asking permission to cross a river by taking some of its water in your hand. 

Rita Espinoza died at 40 years old a widow. 

Anger means you still have access to your self worth 

—wouldn’t fit romantically —but feel safe to do pain slut things

Affirmation for this year: I take myself seriously! 

WITCH- Woman inspired to tell collective history

Research— Historical accounts of women in latin america in orgies, lesbians, trans women, hedonistic shit?

My gender is Spoiled Little Sister, and (according to H a few years ago) “person who wears masc things but still ends up looking femme” 

Gender euphoria without the trauma, jealous of that.

New York —shitty not spicy fried rice from some world famous chef

“Beauty is the elixir for boredom. Become fluent in everything that makes you want to live” -Alok 

Wildest: fisting 

“Abdicate the responsibility of teaching them how to treat you, when they haven’t shown you any record of being capable of the type of care you need from them”

— graphic design of the biggest archetypes of assimilationist POCs.

What do we do with these feelings: Do we place boundaries on them or do we indulge them…Feels good to be in love with them…

Crying to John Oliver saying the word apartheid on HBO

The commonality is that they all lack an analysis of power. 

I feel like as queer people the generosity we extend to suppress ourselves for other people’s comfort is never acknowledged. 

What worlds must end for us to begin 

Also that three people can’t buy a house. 

High risk high reward —but goddamn, I lose ALOT. A lot. 

It was just as good as we believed. There was no sugarcoating, no romanticizing, just a beautiful life and horrible life happening at the same time and now it’s over. 

***

2023

Kuchi Sabishi – Lonely mouth in Japanese 

Trapped in the underwear binary: Boxers feel too masc for me but panties feel too femme. Every trip to buy new underwear is causing a mini gender crisis. 

Attraction as moods/eras 

“You lose them how you get them” 

Gender questions: when do I feel in drag? 

Barbie, choosing not to be an idea 

Polyamory as how I redistribute care 

“The mystic is swimming in the same waters the psychotic is drowning in.”

How you can make a whole book out of one kind of pain.

Presence is needed for playfulness. 

“Tyranny requires constant effort. They grab control because it’s so unnatural” 

I love being a girl 

“That’s our job as parents: to hold the stress so she can have a good time.” 

“Fighting for collective liberation is romantic.” 

“Those who refused to be purified.” 

“You don’t have to know yourself, but you have to be paying attention to yourself.” 

Kincentric environmental law 

We should be ambitious about friendships 

White people don’t have enough problems so they care about blight 

I think I’m still stuck on what will save me, maybe this era of life is realizing there’s nothing left to save me, so having to surrender to the waves. 

“It is a radical act to nurture the lives of those who weren’t supposed to exist, weren’t supposed to exist” (From Revolutionary Mothering) 

The sensuality, the poetry, the intellectual interests, our fucking bodies together.

It sucks to mourn what did work. 

“You’re not thriving, you’re just winning.” 

“What if the thing I’ve been trying to hide is the thing I actually need to give?”

***

2022

“Living in the U.S as a Black man, I’m basically making the best of a hostage situation.” 

When I’ve had courage, I often lacked the healthy choices. When I’ve had healthy choices, I often lacked courage.

What did writing solve for you? What do you need from writing now? 

You’re allowed to be angry for as long as you want. You are allowed to be angry at very good people for as long as you want. 

How to be in uncertainty while still protecting

“White People Polyamory is all about efficiency and optimizing happiness. POC Polyamory is all about “how do I love in a way that I do not dump all my trauma on one person.”

“Our culture values upward energy.” 

That stone in my heart feeling, just means that something about this isn’t right or aligned and just wants to be listened to. 

How we think of our bodies as our homelands

“not everyone is an extra in your movie, we are all here, going through our own shit.” 

“Every piece of writing is addressed to someone else.” – Frank O’Hara

What would someone holding space for your submission look like for you? 

5 to 1 ratio in relationships, five things good, one thing hard. 

“Splendor awaits in minute proportions.” Edward O. Wilson 

“Fucking around and finding out is a privilege POC women don’t have.” 

Mistaking being loved with being impactful 

Discipline = being a disciple to yourself. 

Staying up with someone as care 

the cohesiveness of blood family I still don’t feel with chosen family. 

“expectations are premeditated resentment” 

visiting friends in their strange places. 

Climate change revelation: We are so inconsequential. 

“I am a microcosm of all the possible justice, liberation, pleasure and honesty in the universe and I act accordingly.” -Adrienne Maree Brown 

Also learning the shift of seeing time as spacious and patient and forgiving vs……the opposite of that 

God is not an abolitionist in the Christian framework. 

Noticed the special way I was building relationships wasn’t being legitimized…How effective the industry was at severing me from that

Everything I thought was an indulgent purchase is now something I can’t truly live without 

“You’re exhausting and you’re hot.”

Soul Lovely notes: I need a mesh top. I love strippers.  

Bee at the tea shop: Surrender to the debris. 

You can protect your heart without closing it.  

What is the difference between harm and dealbreakers? 

Only two choices are to withdraw from this desire, or to explode my whole life to make room for it.  

“Like what we’re doing now is what our ancestors were doing: drinking tea and living our lives during the fall of society.” 

Air as grounding just as much as earth

Shame as a defense mechanism, that way you don’t believe you’re not loved, but just bad.  

“Whatever it is that made your mother leave, you’ve got that in you.” (from A League of Their Own)

Healing to do: ___________

I feel grief about my dad.

Codependency is fear of loss. 

Disorientation is maybe good for art. 

“I wrote a book as an excuse to go to the library.”

What you want to keep private and what you want to protect and why

“Body autonomy has higher stakes than authenticity.”

“Everyone is kinky and on drugs and no one is in therapy.” 

Maybe I wanted softer touch but felt too unsafe to receive it

Does the writer part of you live in your body

Less brain candy, more embodied delight.