Everything

    Oh maybe not everything. But as smart phones approach toward becoming one's everything-- toy, library, connection to the wider world, and, you know, phone-- it gets alarming when the battery runs down. Today I took a long walk and the butterflies gamboled and frolicked... unless my phone camera was switched on in which case, they scarcified. But I couldn't help it; I kept switching it on in the fantasy that I might just once get a picture. The funnest ones are zebra swallowtails. I've seen pictures, so somebody can certainly photograph them, but it isn't me. They would buzz my head if the camera phone was safely in my pocket but might as well not exist if it was in my hand and ready for action.
    You burn a lot of battery keeping the camera ready for minutes on end. I did get some pictures of another favorite butterfly, a swallowtail that might be the black form of the tiger swallowtail or it might be the spicebush or pipevine. They all mimic one another and my skills do not extend to telling them apart. The zebra would not cooperate, however, but I had a lot of fun trying to get a shot. Mercifully, the charger brings the phone back up to snuff very fast, which is lucky, because I'm supposed to be using it to read my friend Joe Abramos' very fine new novel Circling The Runway and give it a five-star review on Amazon. (I'm not just handing it out; I've read more than 3/4 and it definitely merits the five stars.) See? Everything!