The Notes App Poet
I don't want to freak you out, but I think that I may be the voice of my generation.
Back in March, Marie-Helene Bertino came to Grey and I’s Daily Themes class as a guest lecturer. She talked about how writers have a special talent— to notice the quiet moments of life no one talks about. She urged us to open our eyes and write these peculiarities down.
I have been doing this unknowingly for years. I’m the infamous notes app poet. All 834 entries are in the safekeeping of the cloud. I’ve picked some of my favorites for this Wednesday’s “essay”.
July 17, 2022
Don’t bring pairs of pants that don’t fit you on trips. You’ll just end up feeling bad about yourself. I don’t know why I can’t seem to stop doing things that make me feel bad about myself.
November 22, 2022
It’s hard to watch the old get older, hard to watch your grandmother’s eyes stop smiling. Because you remember wishing away last Tuesday when you forgot an Umbrella and got soaked in the rain, praying that the day could be over faster than you could blink.
The days are long but oh is life just so incredibly short.
July 9, 2023
I left my cake in the bathroom of my favorite bookstore today. It wasn’t good cake, and I ripped it out of the box while I was standing in the bathroom, eating it with a particular American gaucheness. I think what was most American about eating this cake in the bathroom was that I only did it because I was too embarrassed to tell the waitress I didn’t want the cake, I wanted to see the menu again but I had already ordered and was too proud to refuse what my poor French could muster. (this is what then inspired Cake)
December 10, 2023
I’m starting to realize that in all the ways I’ve failed at love I’ve succeeded at friendship.
December 24, 2023
I once dated this boy who really loved Kurt Vonnegut
I thought him loving Vonnegut made him interesting
It just made him annoying.
I enjoy dating boys who I can identify by what they love, what sparks their interests: game theory, wind turbines, or Kurt Vonnegut
I wish to be defined by my interests and beliefs too.
December 27, 2023
There’s a Marni store at the corner of 13th and Gansevoort in the meatpacking district. I don’t believe there are customers ever in this Marni store. I certainly am not one.
I’ve passed this Marni store hundreds of times since that day, and every time I think about the value of art. I think about how he stood on 13th while I was on Gansevoort, and the point of the triangular Marni store between us. He screamed at the top of his lungs,
“WHAT IS ART THEN? IT’S STUPID, IT’S ALL MEANINGLESS!”
January 22, 2024
I am sitting across from a girl who is wearing a long skirt and calls herself a “Friend of Israel”. I wonder if god loves girls like her more than me.
February 2, 2024
Today Grey told me about a girl she met at church. She professed she was giving up worry for lent. “There’s no point in worrying if you have god!”
I admire her.
February 20, 2024
Does anyone ever go into a place to specifically buy a pack of gum? Wrigley must love the concept of a credit card limit.
March 13, 2024
What can I even write about anymore? Maybe this girl’s full cheetah print outfit, or maybe the perplexing nature of caring about such a thing when the world is seemingly always on the verge of collapsing. Perhaps it’s because the collapse hasn’t come to me, to us yet. Instead, we care about our hair, our nails, if we’ll gain any more weight if we keep drinking like this, if the boy likes us, or if the bartender finds us attractive. Who is we? I suppose me and every woman I put down for caring about these things. We’re all insecure. Maybe we’ll get to worrying about war someday.
March 17, 2024
Dump the banker, he asks you what the humanities are even for. He tells you it’s stupid to have any ideas you can’t take action on, ideas that he has to exist just “knowing”. He doesn’t really get “art” and he doesn’t care to try.
Why do you love the dreamer? Because you too will write a terrible poem one day, and he will tell you it’s terrible, and he’ll say “it’s time to try again” because he believes doing something anew is possible. The banker would never say such a thing.
March 26, 2024
I got a bad grade today on an exam, and I convinced myself it made me a terrible person. The truth is I’m exactly the same as I always was. Weird.
April 23, 2024
I threw up this morning because I drank too much wine at Seder last night. The sky is eerily blue. Why does today feel so much harder than yesterday?
May 15, 2024
I helped my dad move out of his house today. I cry sometimes when I drive back from his house. Something about how open the countryside is. I always find myself mouthing the words to some Bowie song.
“Oh no, love, you're not alone.”
June 14, 2024
The metro escalator in Rosslyn is maybe the best test of patience I’ve ever gotten.
July 26, 2024
I’ve always thought falling in love is something that happens to you rather than a choice you make for yourself. I could always become a faster runner, a smarter student, a better friend, but I could never quite refine myself in that way for love. I feel weak for it.
“We” sounds so much like “me”, but is so different in practice.
August 8, 2024
Good Morning Prospect Street NW.
Good Morning low cortisol and the sounds of summer.
Good Morning swallowing DC humidity, to swimming through the air.
Good Morning multi-million dollar townhomes and children who have no idea what it means to live in one.
Good Morning commuters hustling to catch the 33.
Good Morning smoke shop that won’t open until 1 PM.
Good Morning barista at Boulangerie Christophe who does not yet know my name and doesn’t care to learn it either.
Good Morning to the guy with a sweat-stained white shirt and blue pants in front of me in line and the Uber driver waiting outside to take him to work.
Good Morning to the pit at the bottom of my stomach, to feeling alive. I am glad you’re back with me
October 12, 2024
Today is Yom Kippur and we’re sitting at Lighthouse Point. I’m thinking about the English note I read in the margins of the Mahzor during service this morning— that imperfect people are those who lie, cheat, and gossip. These things are bad, but they are utterly human.
I happen to think the most imperfect people are people who use their humanity as a weapon, who villanize the mistakes they make and turn them into irrefutable facts about themselves. I do this too, far too often. I torment, bully, and compare myself to everything in the world— and I am a worse person for it. I hurt myself so much that I limit the love I bring into the world.
In 5785, I will be good to this world because it has been good to me, and not fault it for when it hasn’t.
December 21, 2024
The prick of the needle to do my blood draw last week wasn’t even good enough reminder I was alive.
“No blood will come out ma’am.”
Probably because I’m barely conscious. I almost admitted to the nurse that I’m surprised I have any left at all.
January 2, 2025
I walk around wondering why so many surfaces around me are reflective. God probably knew we’d be desperately vain.
January 3, 2025
I’m no good anymore. There’s so much input I don’t even have time to think about the output. I lost my spark in the old year.
In 2025, I will create again. I will write again and I will let other people hurt me again. They will step on me, I will let myself feel it. And, I will be honest with them, about the pain, about the anxiety.
Stop letting other people decide who you are and what you want, Isabella. Life is far too short to try and win them all.
March 6, 2025
I need to start practicing saying “You’re so interesting,” like I mean it. I haven’t been convincing lately.
March 24, 2025
I hate showing up to group trips with the wrong sized bag. It’s like everyone has some secret agreement about what size vessel is appropriate to bring on a trip. I always end up looking like the idiot.
April 2, 2025
She’s too afraid to be alone. She’s only doing this because she thinks she’s proving something to the rest of us. I don’t even know why she’s putting herself through this bullshit, he’s a Fucking Loser! She’s sitting there, begging this Fucking Loser to love her!
If I’m ever begging a Fucking Loser to love me, I hope to god I know.
May 15, 2025
What a pleasure it is to miss someone and look for them in everything you see. Someone wearing their shoes, their favorite song plays in a restaurant, the person next to you orders a pint of Allagash.
There’s no way it can all be a coincidence.
Sorry to distract from the Knicks. See you on Friday + LGM.
