“Though the iPeople insist Notes is for “memo-taking,” that is not, in my experience, where its real utility lies,” writes Katy Waldman in Notes on Notes. “Not everyone walks around with a Moleskine notebook, but almost everyone has a smartphone. The Notes app therefore serves as a diary for nondiarists, a catchall for the flotsam and ephemera you didn’t even realize you wanted to record.”
The Notes app seems to be a hotspot for lists — shopping lists, to-do lists, idea lists. But it’s also a place to jot down thoughts we don’t want to lose, some of which can be quite dark and others which are deliberately intended to lift us into some kind of brightness. For this roundtable, various team members have screen-shotted some of their notes suitable for limited public-ish consumption. What do you use your notes app for?
Tiara, 31, Staff Writer
I use my notes to keep track of things I hear about on the go — shopping lists, notes during meetings or classes, book recommendations, sometimes an intermediary while copying & pasting stuff on mobile. I did recently write an entire short story about Asian Jaeger Aunties (and Uncles) based on a prompt by SFF writer Cassandra Khaw on the Notes app on my phone, which was quite the experience.
Kayla, 25, Staff Writer
I use the Notes app for three things and three things only: grocery lists, jotting down quotes/snippets of dialogue for screenwriting projects I’m working on, and documenting every time the Real Housewives Of New York do something vaguely gay.
Erin, 31, Staff Writer
I’m not a big note person. Even for groceries I’m usually just like, “I’ll remember.” Does that mean I spend a lot of time going back to the grocery store? You bet. Occasionally I’ll have an idea in the middle of night and rather than reach for my phone, again I’ll go, “I’ll remember.” A lifetime of ideas sit somewhere just beyond my reach. Which is why there are exactly three notes on my phone. The first is a list of things I was picking up at the store for my friend, which is why it needed to be written down, the second is a note I showed someone when we were out one night and I didn’t want to make a scene, and the third is a note I made after seeing this assignment and after watching an interview with former tennis player John McEnroe.
Alaina, 26, Staff Writer
My notes app is very clean. I probably go through and delete random ones weekly because any mess, even digital makes me wanna puke. Sometimes I plan my life in my notes, but if I do, I lock them in case someone who’s lost their mind decides to go through my phone. I also keep my sun/moon/rising sign because sometimes I forget them, but queers always wanna know about me astrologically.
Reneice Charles, 28, Staff Writer
My notes app is basically just a never ending archive of grocery and to-do lists.
Alexis, 23, Staff Writer
My notes app is something I forget about every three weeks but then go at it when I don’t wanna open a Google Doc/don’t know where to put stuff. I have quotes from people who are close to me, snippets from books I’m reading, sometimes I go through my Tumblr and write down things I wanna remember so I can clean up my likes, and ideas for poems and short stories, and my Wi-fi password cause I know I’ve written it down at least 15 times on regular paper but I can never find it.
Mey, 30, Trans Editor
My notes app has a lot of story ideas for comics that I’m too embarrassed to show you. It also has my master note, which has my calendar of my friends birthdays and other important dates coming up, the articles I’m working on or thinking of pitching, and my general to-do list, as well as ideas for future baby names, things I want at my wedding and gift ideas for friends. Recently I made a few notes that are relevant to my therapy and post-hospitalization life, Fia helped with those. I have one that’s a text I sent to two friends about my birth chart. I have one that keeps track of everyone in my Gay Grease Gang and everyone in the #FurrSquad. Finally right now I have a note of cards I’d like to add to Archie’s Sweatgasm game.
KaeLyn, 34, Staff Writer
My notes are mostly packing lists, to-do lists, and some random shit I want to remember like conf call codes and a song I made up for the baby.
Vanessa, 28, Community Editor
My notes app is both intensely intimate and totally irreverent. I’ve been keeping notes on my phone since 2012, when I first got an iPhone, and when I scrolled through them for this roundtable assignment I found out that they are ALL still there, because I am an emotional hoarder and god forbid I delete that flirty note I drafted in 2014 to the hot babe from Alaska with the sexy tattoos inviting them to come visit me on my queer commune in rural Southern Oregon if they so pleased, you know? Anyway my notes mostly act as a place to put my thoughts and to write down hilarious and poignant shit my friends say. Only occasionally do I put grocery lists or to do lists on my phone because I’d always rather write it down on real paper so I can cross items off with a real pen. I do have one very embarrassing note with a bunch of “nature hashtags” saved so I can easily copy and paste that into Instagram when I’m trying to “hype” my outdoorsy photos or whatever to further my “personal brand” (kill me) but I didn’t include that here because it didn’t fit into the narrative arc my notes were building. Also these notes range from 2012-2017, but sometimes the date pictured is a lie because I reformatted a few notes to take out typos and also to delete a few names here and there to protect the innocent (me).
Heather, 38, Senior Editor
I use my Notes app mostly to keep track of video game stuff and comic book stuff. I handwrite all my lists for groceries, I handwrite my journal, I even handwrite my calendar. But I’ll be goddammned if I’m in the mood to find a piece of paper and a pen when I realize I’ve unload all the Snapmaw Hearts in my inventory and now I can’t buy the Shadow Ropecatser and there’s no way to get a blazing sun in the Greatrun Tiedown Trial with a Carja one. I use Notes for comic book stuff because people are always asking me for information about comics when I’m out in the world without my notebooks around.
Raquel, 28, Staff Writer
My notes app is a very weird combination of work notes, rando projects I never get around to completing, and weird drunk thoughts. Mostly weird drunk thoughts.
Sarah, 30, Design & Business Director
Things I want to remember, things I want to forget–random drawings when I’m bored, passing thoughts and the feelings that never pass my lips.
Rachel, 28, Managing Editor
My notes app is supremely boring, I feel! I’m sitting at my computer basically 16 hours a day, and so if I have longer ideas or thoughts they pretty much all end up there and not on my phone. The notes app is almost exclusively for things I’m going to need to reference when I’m out of the house, like my grocery shopping list or what shade of brow pencil is a good match so I don’t buy the wrong one. (It’s 2 in the Benefit line, FYI.)
Yvonne Marquez, 26, Senior Editor
I use my notes app when I don’t have a pen and paper to write something down so the results of my notes are really random. I usually write down my grocery lists on scraps of paper but sometimes I’m about to head out the door and write the list on my phone as I’m walking out. I always seem to forget my notebook when I attend community events where I would need to take notes, so instead I use my notes app. The notes below are a packing list for A-Camp; notes from a presentation given by the authors of Decolonize Your Diet ; some information from an important organizer on immigration raids and a random grocery list; parts of my partner’s and I’s birth charts; and a really cool poet I heard at a QPOC open mic night in Dallas.
Riese, 35, Editor-in-Chief
These notes span a vast expanse of time. I use my notes app for shopping lists, but I usually delete those once I’ve gone shopping. Mostly, I use it late at night before bed when I have a thought I think is important that I don’t want to lose, but I also do this knowing that the thought is probably not important, but I won’t know for sure ’til we enter the cool clear light of day. Mostly it’s notes I’m thinking about for Autostraddle, playing with certain ideas to see where they lead me. It seems like for a few solid months at one point it was me trying to rationalize away certain terrible parts of my then-relationship. Sometimes I write out text messages before sending them or instead of sending them. Or I write down funny things people say.
Erin your second note is GENIUS
Also “how many lost connections make up a life” is hella profound
Send Erin a rainbow cake!!!
I really like the note about lesbian and queer. I hope Erin got her rainbow cake
thank you
AND SHE DID
Alaina; Virgo not just rising, but way above the rest of us.
Yvonne; Venus in pieces would be a perfect astrological relationship help post name.
Alexis; writing like the rest of us breathe.
Reneice; loving the priority top of the to-do list.
Riese; I can’t decide if you’re funnier smarter or sexier. Always the triple threat.
I have never used the notes app. I don’t think I’ve even opened it. I don’t know what that says about me…
I was getting nervous that drafting text messages in Notes before/instead of sending them was just a me thing, but Riese came through!
I use Notes as a calendar, a to-do list, and my main way to track and record things of varying degrees of importance, from addresses and unpaid invoices to celebrities I want to meet and the alternative names Karen and Georgia come up with for the “My Favorite Murder” podcast. In a stunningly security-conscious move, I save the Wi-Fi passwords for basically everyone I’ve ever met in one Note, along with similarly critical information like the code to open my sister’s garage door. The piece de resistance may be my in-progress recreation of a local Dunkin Donuts’ playlist based on my own field data.
Ramona winks @ Jill
“whiskey gender” – @callmequell, I need to know more!
I honestly have no idea what it means but I do really like it
Oh these are all great – I like that we all use the same app for a variety of different purposes.
My notes app is 80% stuff for my roller derby league, like attendance lists, fundraising ideas, notes from meetings, etc. Everything else is grocery lists (which I delete when I’m done), to do lists (which I delete as I complete the tasks I set myself, or just keep starting anew because I never finish anything), and reminders to myself about songs, books, names, movies, and stuff that I hear about and want to remember to check out.
I also have one note which is my Gilmore Girls Revival liveblog, which was mostly just a way of keeping track of the MILLIONS OF EMOTIONS I experienced in those 6 hours so I could later put them into coherent thoughts that I could share with people afterwards. Samples from that note: “If Kwan and Steve exist, I guess season 7 wasn’t a fever dream after all” and “I guess now that Rory’s all grown up the’ve replaced coffee with scotch” and “MORE LANE. NOT ENOUGH LANE” and finally, “Oh Amy, whyyyy?”
@internrachel, are you writing prompts from queer Latinx poet, Rachel McKibbens?! I live near-ish her and love her work and her writing prompts!
yes! she has so many prompts and ideason her blog, it’s so great. i used some things inspired by her in a workshop at camp this year!
I like Reneice’s super healthy grocery list that ends with “Bacon?”
Also it’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who jots down random weird thoughts that I don’t quite know how to parse but that seem significant somehow.
I sometimes put my grocery lists in there, but usually I just use it to track my friends’ hilarious non-sequiturs. I also keep two running lists: one of documentary movies to watch and one of books to read when people recommend them to me.
But most of it is just stuff like “The machines pull the papers in half. I forget what the papers do.”
I use notes for most everything. Hand write journal, grocery lists and calendar, but sometimes have side notes for those in my phone. Sooo many overheard quotes, starts of poems or stories, and recommendations for books music and movies. Favorite thing right now is just a note that says “Dandelion butt”. Best thing from a recent visit with my folks and watching the incredible Jessica James; mom misheard “punch him in his dingaling” as in his dandelion butt.
“10 ways to swoop your bangs so everyone knows you’re gay”
HELLO WRITE THIS PLEASE!
My notes are either things I heard in church and wanted to remember or things that seemed desperately important at 3am but make no sense by daylight, like the one that just says “ambient light powered by mayonnaise.”
“One great thing about never having sex is Indian ALWAYS seems like a good idea.” So true. The inverse being that the downside of knowing sex is likely in the near future is having to second guess your food and drink choices.
My notes are almost empty–except for a running list of books to buy.
if anyone has ideas about what on earth i was trying to sort out on the note that begins with “olivia pope,” let me know
Something to do with mommi?
it’s from summer 2014! so it can’t be mommi
she’s a power bottom.
Emphasis on power
Just checked my notes. Looks like among the nonsense, I have what I wrote to work out how to both ask out and break up with my recent ex. Seems like I have a routine for stressful conversations.
My notes app is comparatively boring (it’s mostly just passwords/codes). I’m also trying to figure out if Erin and I have the same handwriting or if that is the only way to write legibly on a tiny screen when you have to use your finger as a stylus.
I had to laugh at Heather Hogan’s Dragon Age lists because my wife has similar ones for Dark Souls III. Gotta keep your inventory organized and avoid duplicates!
Yes, thank you!
Wow everyone uses that app really well. Not sure if it affirms my gender (masc) or is bad for my career (writer) or both but my iPad lists are just: book list, used to have a to-do list, numbers and codes I need like to top up my phone. I didn’t realise everyone else uses theirs so creatively.
I do have a real notepad though with a mix of: letters ill never send my ex, thoughts about politics, thoughts when out & about, song lyrics & lines from books. All sort of exploring same themes. I’m prob deluded cos I was thinking the non-copywrited stuff (stuff i wrote) could be edited into a good book one day.
I keep all of my astrology info in Notes too – otherwise I can never remember and have to look it up everytime I read my horoscope/want to impress a new witchy aquaintance.
So I’m maybe the only person in existence that keeps a note of every person I’ve ever smooched on my phone (with special star system to indicate the seriousness of the smooching)? Cool cool cool!
I used to keep a list like that in my diary because I’m old, but I def don’t think it’s weird. I had a numeric rating system!
I used to have one on my electronic organizer/pda. It included the dates of when the encounters happened and a numeric system.
I used to keep a notebook of boys I kissed, complete with a lil survey about them + pictures, etc. It was really a way to convince myself I was straight, I think!
I have made a list recently of people who I went on dates with/made out with/slept with just to remind myself that I really have been trying to put myself out there. Makes me feel better (even if nothing is sticking) to know that I am trying my hardest to meet other queer women. We can only do our best and after that there’s no use worrying.
New note on my phone: information about the different Dads on Dream Daddy.
I mostly use it for VIPC’s (very interesting paint colours) and other decorie type stuff I want to keep track of. Witty or weird things decorators name upholstery, furnature, rugs etc. Otherwise I’d never remember half of them.
Anyway, it works.
I need the app that yells at you to finish your book whenever you open your social media like, yesterday.
Heather, I definitely used my notes app for the same thing when I was trying to Platinum Horizon Zero Dawn! Your notes were far more organized than mine though.