Almost 2,000. That’s how many screen shots are on this phone right now.

A poor memory plus ease of effort have led to this ridiculously large collection. What am I snapping?

Movie titles I want to remember. Books to read. Snippets of poems for writing prompts. Memes that capture my mood. Recipes. That brand of toilet paper. Sometimes I take screen shots of quilts or collages that I want to repost. Why? Because it’s easier to a take a screen shot and post it from the recent end of my camera roll (i.e. rather than scrolling for a second time through thousands of pictures).

I do use albums, just so you know.

Then there are the ongoing revisions to my blog. I often reread posts that are being looked at that day (the stats in WordPress show me) and invariably I find typos or language I want to change. Screenshot. Big maroon penned-in circle. I do go back to these so they’re serving a function but many of the screenshots just take up space.

(The other day I found a comment of mine thanking Tina for a comment that Marti left. Embarrassing! Sorry, Marti!)

But Kimberly Guilfoyle and that ubiquitous horror show of a big-boobed blonde with the bass-fish lips at Mar-A-Lago? (Which one, it would be fair to ask). But more to the point, why? Why would I want to look at her again (and again and again, because she is EVERYWHERE at Mar-A-Lago).

Sometimes these seemingly random shots are fodder for future digital collage. Makes sense. But sometimes the urge to preserve an image springs from incredulity. Like: is this bitch for real? And how can THIS be the MAGA standard of beauty?

The collection directly above features a camera roll search result that I just couldn’t get over, so I had to preserve it.

I searched “demon” (I don’t remember why) and lo and behold the fat fuck of a sheriff from Selma who so viciously beat up protestors in 1965 showed up. So did a photo of a Klan robe at the other Selma Interpretive Center.

Slack-jawed, I was. Shamelessly violent racists surely fit the category of “demon” but how did the search function know? Is this AI at work?

The screen shot of a house in San Francisco (right under Kimberly) was prompted by nostalgia since I lived there for two seasons in my early twenties. When visiting the city recently, our time was too brief to go see it. So — ta-da! Screenshot.

Anyway, I want to start deleting a good bunch of these but since they capture a moment and tell a story in a different way than I would consciously, I might post some now and then.

And then delete.