so, after six years of blogging as of a few weeks ago (SIX!), i’m still at it, which is impressive. and i’ve had the same design since college, which was just over four years ago. that’s okay, i really like this layout, color scheme, etc. it’s staying for the long haul.

the only thing i felt slightly guilty about as the years passed was keeping a picture from my senior year in college as the ‘about the author’ picture. like i was misrepresenting myself, living in the past, etc. so i finally tracked down a more recent photo, which you will now see if you let your eyeballs drift slightly up and to the right.

the thing is, it looks almost totally the same. i’m wearing a jacket in this one. you can’t see my shoes. appropriately, i’m holding a cheeseburger.

now the question is: does the similarity between that and the old one speak well of me — “he really knows who he is, he’s true to himself, even though he’s grown as a person he’s still the same fun kid at heart, he hasn’t gained inordinate amounts of weight as he’s rolled through his beer-guzzling mid-20’s”? or is it kind of sad that in terms of appearance i’ve changed so little — “try a new haircut, maybe? facial hair? better clothes that maybe weren’t bought at a thrift store? anything? you’re stuck in a rut, man!”?

as you can tell i personally don’t wrestle with this problem at all; i mean, i do still write in my online journal every week which i don’t see a lot of the 30-year-olds i know doing. but who cares, i kind of love who i was in college so in most ways i’m sticking to it for as long as i can. and a lot of the change since then has been internal and positive, so why fix what’s not broken. but i am curious if this is fear of change or realization of having achieved some level of ideal balance. and hey, at least i bought a new jacket since 2003.