I'm in the process of transferring over 5,000 photos from my iPhone, almost all the photos I've taken since I bought this phone in November of 2010, onto my laptop, and I have to admit that it's very challenging to click the little trash can icon in the bottom right of my screen. I finally learned how to transfer them from my phone to my laptop (thank you, Google), but even now that I know they are securely on my MacBook Pro, I'm still reluctant to part with them. Deleting them feels, pardon the exaggeration, like I'm deleting a part of myself. I enjoy scrolling through hundreds of photos at a time, watching them whiz past me so fast I cannot truly separate one from another, but there they all are, waiting for me to revisit them, waiting for me to pause and remember a meal, a flower, a friend, a day.

My photos are a travelogue; during almost every month of 2011, I hopped on a plane and took off, and even when I'm home in New York, I'll pause to capture, say, a display of coffee cups in the window of Gimme Coffee, or beautiful street art, or a mannequin in the window of Pas de Deux in the East Village wearing fishnets. My 2011 photos take me from Los Angeles to Berkeley back to Los Angeles, to Seattle, London, Vermont, Las Vegas, Maine, yet I know I must make room on my phone for new photos, of places like Hawaii and Milwaukee, new versions of me. Though intellectually I know this, my hoarding mentality runs deep.

I love having these images that capture, for the most part, food and scenery, with the occasional friend, family member or self-portrait mixed in. They images are of objects, yes, but ones that bring back very vivid memories. It's no so much that I need the image of the "I Heart Vagina" sticker that I got on Sproul Plaza so much as the fact that seeing that image makes me remember walking through my former campus with a mix of emotions at 35, just over twice the age I was when I entered as a student. There are photos of the tattoo that spells out "heart" in script on my arm, and when my friend's two-year-old daughter, who can scroll through images on my phone even faster than I can, gets to those, she knows it says "heart" because I've taught it to her. I sat on the floor with another two-year-old who I'd just met, both of us giggling over the joy of double clicking on the nose of one of my favorite cats, Ferocious (see below). We zoomed in, and out, in and out, over and over, and it was ridiculous and fun and childish and delightful; I wish I could hang out with kids who made me laugh like that over the simplicity of the press of a button every day.

If a photo is supposed to be worth a thousand words, then I have the equivalent of over 5,000,000 words in the palm of my hand, and yet, I don't think it's such a simple equation. What I see when I look at each of these images is going to be different from you see, unless I give it context, and even then, a photo, standing alone, just like any story or work of art, is subject to the interpretation of whoever's viewing it. To me, the photos are memories, and ones I am desperate not to lose. I can look at myself sitting outside Pike Place Market on a gloriously sunny day, my glasses having transformed into sunglasses, my hair flying all around, the freckles that come out in the sun making an appearance, and smile all over again at what a happy day that was.

Yes, I can still look at these images once I transfer them, but it won't be the same. I like having them literally next to me, and even if I haven't figured out how to create albums on my iPhone, I don't complain about having to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the image of the vegetable plate I love at the restaurant Westville. Writer that I am, I just don't have a thousand words in me to describe the beauty of their simple asparagus with parmesan or their honey dijon Brussels sprouts, not to mention the peanut butter and jelly jalapeño poppers at Shelter in Seattle, or the waffles at Sweet Iron Waffles. Don't get me wrong, I love words passionately, ruminate over them, pause and reread sentences that trip off the tongue, but there are things photos do that words, no matter how sensual and poetic and well ordered, simply cannot. The palm trees and waterfalls, art, manicures, images from readings and vacations and daily life, are vivid reminders of where I've been, physically and mentally.

I'm not a professional photographer, so I don't keep them because I think they're great art, but rather because they're vital reminders. They connect me to who I was when I took each one, serving up momentary blissfulness that I treasure and don't want to part with, even temporarily. I've been listening to the Sam Phillips song "When I'm a Camera" and she captures some of what makes having this possibility in my hands at all times, along with its results, so special. I suppose the idea of making room for more applies to my own memory just as much as my iPhone's. I don't need to relive every beautiful or crazy or smile-inducing thing I've seen, as long as I trust there will be more in the future.

Now that I've actually taken close to a thousand words to tell you why they matter to me, here are a few of my favorite photos I took in 2011.

catsitting for Ferocious


my grandmother's nails


my friend Jesse Oleson's art at her Cakespy shop in Seattle


brie on a waffles at Seattle's amazing Sweet Iron Waffles



the peanut butter and jelly jalapeño poppers at Seattle's Shelter


Kyoto Grand Hotel and gardens in Los Angeles


yes, I take pictures at museums (in this case, LACMA)


my friend Tess's bunny shoes


bingo obsession


if only I could find these fishnets


Violin Monster takes New York


me on a sunny day in Seattle