Passport photos

(This is the kind of topic that comes of sitting at a desk all the time)

At long last I got my new passport back from the Federal Government, so I can travel. I can travel! At least, I could travel, had I more ducats.

In any case, they sent me back my old passport too with a copy of the new picture across from the old one, which was taken in early '97 when I was gearing up to go to mother Russia for dissertation work, towards the outer edge of my Manhattan period.

So lets compare and contrast. From '97 to '07 I didn't put on much weight, though, as Mary might note, I didn't lose much either. The hairline stayed largely in place, moving much less than, say, the icecaps. Most notably, the eyelid that droops a little for the sake of character now droops a little bit more. And there is a general loss of freshfacedness, replaced by a gentle tincture of malevolence, which belies an uptick in actual good-naturedness brought on by the peace and harmony of the our Garden State.