Buckle Up!

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you. What role does style play in your life? What ways do you express yourself through your appearance? Do you find personal style evolving or static? happenstance or controlled?

I am not sure if there have been any photos of me taken in the past year, so I am writing about a  photo that I took last summer, while riding my bike to work one morning.  I have been using the photo as my profile picture on this blog and in facebook for months.  

The yellow street sign shows an alien wearing a seat belt, with its finger in the air. A little bit of magic tingles around his finger. The sign says “buckle up.”

Finding this sign was one of the things that made me happiest about my new city.  I am a little alien-obsessed these days.  I like having an alien as my avatar.  I like that the alien looks like E.T. (which, by the way, was the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater.)  I even like seat belts (they save lives!).

I also like the impression this alien image gives that whoever encounters me may meet something unexpected and, hopefully, delightful.  It is a promise of adventure, of something new and out of this world.

I am not sure if I am delivering on this, but I’ll try!