Instagram

Forsaking Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, Pintrest, Reddit, etc, etc, etc... surely set me up for some kind of social media addiction sooner or later. Long known for failed teetotaling remedies to my sundry addictions, my children know to hide their beer, wine and cookies; but they forgot to steer me away from Instagram.

After a single week, I've logged some fifteen hours of scrolling through, selecting, cropping and filtering some of the thousands of images in my iPhone archive, connecting with the long lost inner painter I used to be in college.

Sorta takes the urgency out of "blah-gging" when your creative side finds a new outlet.

It's even diluted some of the poison in my depressed psyche that threatens to drown my poor family ever since a convalescent hospital moved in next door ...the urgent need to move away from one's home of 18 years takes quite a toll, unless one is utterly preoccupied pretending to be somewhere else...

Enter INSTAGRAM. HERO, saviour, rescuer.

Marvelous iPhoto EDIT possibilities lurk within every digital frame, thanks to the Camera+ iPhone application.  Sifting an image through the app's filters has stirred the lazy artist hiding twenty seven stories below my crusty surface; so much so that I'm certain PHOTO AP tools will be universally applied to all kinds of psycho-and-NOT-so-psychotherapies in future.

I'm also certain a new orthopedic diagnosis cannot be far behind:

"Instagram Hand" they'll call it:  that condition where the hand holding the mobile device freezes in place from hours spent clutching it while maneuvering in and out of albums, apps and camera rolls.

For now, "my shrink" (that nice gal I've seen twice to make sure I'm not the only one on the planet who objects to living next door to a hospital) must wonder why I'm not returning her calls?

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Images that didn't make the cut:

Find the hidden hover fly?

Could spend more time imagining Tiffany's

CONGRATULATIONS, H: COLUMBIA GRAD SCHOOL!

 Thanks to the Olympics, I've finally learned who Steven Colbert and Rachel Maddow are. 

((I liked the world better before.))

Little strivings over subtle degrees of flourish, color, symmetry, context... they hammer the truth home that art speaks to the soul.

When I listen, one message beckons: Only Christ can heal the broken. And only the broken really come to Christ.  Pretty sure I'm still a few breaks away.

[...Really? You hear all that just by editing digital photos??] 

{Um, YEAH...}

"Take care of how things look, and you'll take care of how things ARE."

- - FLT