Before I had a smartphone, I had what I’ll call my “almost-smart phone.” Specifically, this Samsung:

Even though it was 2010 and all the cool kids already had iPhones, this phone was still a big deal for me because it could get email (text only), allowed for highly-pixelated internet access, and had a YouTube “app” — essentially a shortcut to YouTube. It also had that sweet, slide-out keyboard. Don’t you kind of miss those sometimes?

It was also the first phone I had with a decent camera. Not good, but decent. I took a lot of photos with it, but I could never figure out how to transfer them to my computer. When I finally got an iPhone 4S about a year later, I tossed the Samsung into a random storage box and forgot all about it. UNTIL NOW. Well, UNTIL LAST SEPTEMBER.

In September I was gathering a bunch of electronics to recycle and added the almost-smart phone to the the pile. Lucas saw it and said, “Are you sure you want to recycle that? Doesn’t it probably have photos on it?"
And I was like, “Yeah, it does, but I don’t know how to get them off the phone.”
OH WELL THE END I’M LAZY.

Luckily, Lucas is not lazy and actually enjoys solving these kinds of problems so he was determined to find a way to load them onto a computer. Even when I warned him they might have photos of ex-boyfriends! He’s a catch.

A couple days later, through some sorcery of cables and Bluetooth that I don’t even remember, IT WORKED! AND there were no ex-boyfriend photos! We all win! It’s funny how 2010-2011 wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of my life so far, but it feels like SO long ago looking at these photos. My life has changed so much since then.

I didn’t save all the photos, since I don’t need to remember every single manicure or Bloody Mary, but here are the highlights of the treasure, in all their over-saturated and slightly-blurry glory:

Me trying on a tiny cropped coat and sunglasses in H&M so I could send it to Andrea. We’re still really great about trying on ridiculous things in stores and sending photos to one another, because that’s what best friends do:

The view from the stairwell at my old job. I used to sometimes hang out the stairwell to decompress or make semi-private phone calls and I’d always stare at that roof and wonder who the rich bastards on 19th St were. I mean, that hammock? Screw you guys:

A blurry Hazel, the giant St. Bernard who belongs to my friends Joyce and Howell. I wish there was a human in this photo so you could appreciate just how big she is. She looks grumpy here, but probably just because she wasn't currently pinning someone down and drooling on them:

Another dog! This one's Felix, who belongs to my friends Dave and Linda. I was Dave's informal intern for his website for a few months and after working we'd sometimes go out to walk the dogs and go to happy hour. (They have another dog, Sam, but she's usually grumpy and camera-shy.) Our other friend Brock would sometimes come meet us and Felix would immediately camp out on his foot because Brock is his favorite. Maybe Brock was secretly hiding treats in his shoes:

Speaking of happy hour and Brock, he once bought this stuffed pheasant for some ridiculously cheap price after such an excursion. Look at that adorable dead-eyed, side-eye it's giving him:

Andrea on the swings during her first Deerfield Fair experience. There were also amazing chickens, but that's a post for another time:

After a dance rehearsal on Halloween. I was dressed as Daria and this girl Aja was dressed as... an anime character? Maybe? Who knows. And yes, there was a time when I went to legit hip-hop dance rehearsals because I was preparing for a legit hip-hop dance show (which I kept calling a "recital" because I was real mature even then). I was also unemployed and had a lot of time on my hands:

Marina Abramovic at the MoMA. Remember when she did that thing where she sat at a table and stared at people for as long as they wanted to sit there? I checked it out (obviously), but was too lazy to wait in line and sit with her so I just took this pic instead. Maybe that makes me bad at art:

Me and the Dooce! I went to her book signing in Brooklyn and took this photo that is forever dated by both of our haircuts. Too bad it’s blurry:

THE END. I wish I had something real poignant to say here, like a nice little gem about the passage of time and ahhh, youth, but no. Maybe five to six years from now I'll look back on my current photos with a mix of nostalgia and relief. At least they'll be better quality!