Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 16, 2019

So my phone memory is full.

After looking through the settings, I’ve learned that my phone has the capacity to hold 128 gigabytes of memory and I’m currently operating with just .3 gigabytes of free space.

This means my phone is assaulting me with passive aggressive pop-ups asking me to address my storage issues every time I go to use it. It’s quite confronting and a tricky problem to have. Like, I scroll through my phone to forget about my most pressing issues, so I don’t really want reminders of my hoarding tendencies flashing at me each time I go to numb my brain with cake decoration videos.

The phone I have gives you a bar graph of how you’ve frittered away your storage space, and the majority of mine is spent on photos and “media”.

This comes as no surprise to me, because I do use that rectangle of sinisterly addictive bright colours and sounds as something of a personal portable photographic storage device.

I take a great many photos using this telephonic instrument and, while I do have an Instagram presence, my photos rarely make it to the social medias (unless they’re updates for the Macca Does Things or Deb Being a Dear series which, according to my data analysis, are much more popular than the visual updates about my own life).

I use my phone as a reference tool, snapping photos as memory joggers and storytelling aids. I mean, my whole existence is funding based on my ability to use words to convey meanings, but a photo of the bulging pimple on your butt cheek is going to get the message of your suffering across with more impact and immediacy than a string of carefully-selected adjectives.

So, most of the time, I like to take photos for reference reasons. If I get a swollen eye from being exposed to dog saliva, I’m going to take several photos of that. If I see a nice flower I’d like to remember, I’ll take a snap of that. If I happen to pull a really large flake of skin off my sunburnt body, you better believe I want to store that away for future reference.

So every one of my photos, in my mind, are necessary. I need them, not just stashed away safely at home, but on a portable device so I can whip them out a moment’s notice during a yarn with mates.

But, as I want to be able to take more photos, I’ve had to cull some. Here’s a sample of the photos I reluctantly got rid of:

Seven photos of the new compost bin I put together last week: I was extremely excited about the prospect of my housemates and I becoming a composting household.  Mum and Dad have had chooks for most of my childhood, which means our veggie scraps were traded in for fresh eggs – like a waste-saving stock egg-change. But it’s hard to keep a coop as a renter with no backyard and a deep-seated distain for chooks. For years I’ve felt a twinge of guilt in my guts each time I threw away veggie scraps and, even though it was a hassle, I did miss cutting up the banana peel the way Dad insisted so it was easier for his girls to eat. Now I have a backyard and a compost bin, I’m chuffed. I would have put this on social media, however, we had a lot of friends over on the weekend and I was able to give them a personal tour of the compost situation so I think I can part with these pictures.

Five photos of the brown, withered contents of our sad, sad fruit bowl: Look, this had the potential to be reference for a depressing still life painting and, if my technique was correct, a comment on the wasted potential of youth and a lament of the passing of time. But as I don’t have any classical painting training or any oil paints, I’m only going to keep one of those photos… just in case.

Four blurry pictures of six Maxibons in my handbag: A bought a round of Maxibons on one of my late shifts. That’s the story. The blurred imagery perhaps conveys my manic excitement, but I think if I were to simply say “I tried to take pics for snapchat but they were too blurry because I was so pumped” suffices.

Four pictures of a large pear: I’ve already posted this to my riveting Instagram account, no need to hang on to them any longer.

Two videos of me roughly chopping butter: I find the sound and feeling of a good butter chop soothing, and I wanted to share that with my friends. I honestly think I could run a whole YouTube account of culinary-related ASMR (which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response and describes the relaxing, tingly brain sensations you can get from certain sounds and sights – highly recommend you get on this trend if you’re a wee bit stressy) with a huge section on butter, however these videos weren’t pristine content for that channel considering Miley Cyrus was singing Party in the USA in the background.