Well Missy it is kind of like this. First, I stumbled onto this site after only two months on the net.

I just loved the guy with the pipe in the coffee/ale house of the 17th century. I loved it.

I then figured out how to post a blog. And a month later, I actually received comments and even recommendations. I was in heaven.

I was having some discussions with one of my best friends here, Stilli, and she was going to call me crotch because I noted I was a crotchety old man. So she suggested Arthur.

Then I think LisB and Bwak kept pushing me to get an avatar. I searched and searched and there was King Arthur at a magic waterfall with three of the Celtic goddesses and I grabbed it.

AND THAT YOUR HONOR, IS THE CASE FOR THE DEFENSE.

Mine is Bertrand Russell, hence the ProfessorB. He was the original professorB but I supposed ppl may have called him Russell.

Awesome, please keep it up. Such a nice way to know each other just a wee bit better. Thank you!

A photo I took at a rally at the State Capitol, expressing outrage at the loss of lives in Iraq.

I have others, and have used them. This one's been there the longest.

And Thera likes it...

I chose a blank space for my avatar out of a desire not to have one. Time has passed and I guess that the emptiness has become a representation of me despite the initial refusal.

Maybe that transition is just a function of language. Or perhaps it is a corollary of the idea that people come to resemble their pets.

I wanted mine to reflect who I am, a patriotic Christian woman who loves her family to the depth and breadth of her heart...figured 2 outta 3 wasn't bad!

When I started out here (about a year ago), I had a groovy pic of an aurora borealis - nice colors, but I stared to feel like it was too impersonal. Then I found a medicine buddha image that I thought was beautiful. I would not call myself a buddhist, but buddhist thought is very important to me and has been very positive in my life. So I put up the buddha avatar - again, nice colors - but then I started feeling like it was pretentious in some way, unecessarily implying some kind of moral authority. I don't really take myself that seriously, so it didn't seem to fit. The frog popped into my head - and who doesn't love a frog? - and who would feel threatened by a frog? - so I went with it, and I'm very happy to be a frog.

Fun question.

I've cycled through a few. My original avatar was a scholarly duck (appropriately named erasmus), which had a good mix of pretentiousness and self depreciation. But then I grew bored and spent a few days looking for something new and fun but gave up but settled for this Sufi ecstatic dancer for the sumer.

Still looking.

My avatar says "internal representation," though the text is fuzzy.

It looks like a petri dish, but is actually one of the most distant objects ever seen.

My first was a picture of "Orlando" from the movie (after the Virginia Woolf character). This one is my dog. I changed because I got bored with the first one. And because my dog is so stinkin' cute.

My avatar is a portrait painted by the Barcelona artist, Alfonso Grosso. I bought the painting at an auction in New York in the mid-80's for two reasons:
1) because the subject is a dead ringer for my aunt (my mother's sister) at a comparable age, which proves that we do all have a Doppelganger somewhere (naturally, photo footnotes available for all you doubting Thomases);
2) I could not bear the idea that such a fine portrait would end up as only one of many in Ralph Lauren's flagship store on Lexington, so that she would end her distinguished life as wall candy selling lifestyle (one of Ralph's store designers, whom I knew, was my primary competition at the auction).
Of course, in hindsight, perhaps I should have asked her what she herself preferred. Because she has proven to have mixed emotions about living with me. She was rather pleased with me when we lived in Charleston and also, curiously, in Canada. But she thought I had lost my mind when we lived in a rustic cottage in Marin County and in a glass and steel house I loved in Miami (she liked Miami, but hated the house).
In some houses she has been hung in the living room where I have noticed that, depending on the company, she can cast a decided pall on conversation -- although a woman I knew in Marin County did do a really interesting clairvoyant reading on her alleged history. In other houses, she has attempted to dominate the dining room, reminding people to sit up straight and to remember, occasionally, to use the right fork, despite my admonitions to give it a rest. In still others, she has been hung near my closet, ready and willing to cast the deciding vote on wardrobe selections in the hope that I will only wear white linen and if I must wear earrings, then only drop pearls. (This seemed appropriate in Charleston.)
In short, ours has not been an easy relationship... but then neither was my relationship with my aunt -- she who was, on the surface at least, a cooly proper southern woman. (But who, nonetheless, went north to school, graduated from Barnard, and could quell male academics with a quip or a quote they were hardpressed to match.)
It occurred to me recently that Ms. Manners might really be happier with someone else, and that has led to a consideration of avatar alternatives. Suggestions?

Mine is my cat Buddha. I was at work when I signed up and since I had no pictures on my work machine and it was the only picture I had on my phone that seemed remotely appropriate, that's what I ended up with. I quickly was inducted into the Cabal of Tuxedo Cat Avitars and never looked back...

Mine was always me with a '70s fro (Halloween costume), but now I go with a cool picture of the Black Eye galaxy. I love astronomy, hence the galaxy theme. ("Somewhere in the Ford Galaxy" Name the movie!)

Plus with a name like "Black Eye", it ads just a bit of character.

Mine is really me. I wanted people to be able to recognize me, but not so well that they could do so after I mug them.

'K, I'll be the first of the group that you're most curious about to respond. (I hereby appoint myself the interim spokesperson for the avatar-less.)

I have occasionally thought about what/who I would use as an avatar. Buttttttt, a couple of things have kept me from doing it:
1) I don't want to use my un-brave, my un-brave, my un-brave face (to semi-quote a famous "Paul"). I want to maintain some anonymity - for present and for future.
2) I don't want to have to worry about improperly using some other picture, and I didn't want to take the time to create my own.

Silly? Perhaps. Others may have different reasons.

I came here towards the end of the election cycle late last summer, and began to comment with the standard issue avatar. As I became aware of the personalities and intellects of the other bloggers, I began to like the idea of a distinct avatar. It let's you recognize at a glance 'who' is talking and can often lend some amusement or insight into the personality of the poster. You really appreciate a distinct avatar when you begin to follow people, and instead of being confronted with a bunch of pipe smokers in tricorns, you see everyone's online 'face'. I used a photo of myself for a couple of days, but decided I liked the more whimsical nature of a not-so-personal avatar, as there could be unintended connotations associated with my attire, hair, beard, attitude, etc. as portrayed in such a picture. Having never blogged before, it never dawned on me to google 'avatars' to get one, so I searched my files for a pic that wasn't to 'dense' to upload to TPM. The first one I found was the one I use, entitled 'Moo-shoe pork'. I really didn't think about it much, but others seemed to enjoy it, so I kept it. I recently modified it by photo-shopping the shades onto it at a suggestion from wwstaebler in order to lend it more '"attitude". Like bwak who fields a lot of chicken references on the board, I'm forever seeing people refer to other people or events as pigs, piggish, pig-fest, etc., and I can't help but take a little of that personally, regardless of what BevD thinks of the species, (she thinks pigs are the smartest, cleanest animals on Earth! - NOT! LOL). At this point I may be forever wedded to the little pig, or perhaps some other pig avatar, as I can see that if I were to change it, my old friends here would probably continue to call me 'peeg, piggy, chuleta, porqueno', or sumsuch, and I imagine new readers thinking they are insulting me, and while perhaps they are, I prefer to think otherwise; that these are in fact terms of endearment. hahaha.

Well, mine is a peace symbol and that's it. I don't know why I chose it. I just liked the way it turned out when I first made it five or six years ago. It's not that I'm so peaceful or anything like that, it's just something I work towards having. Peace. Finding peace in a peaceful place. Peace in yer heart. Yeah.

The only other symbol I would consider is a medicine wheel. I will never use an actual photo of me. Maybe some of my beadwork....but never me.

I think I'll just stick with the Peace.

My avatar says, “ooh-ooh-ooh-aah-aah-aah,” but his writing is a bit more comprehensible (not by much). This is actually the chimp that played Cheetah #2 in the Tarzan series with Johnny Weissmuller. Well, so I was told. I double checked and actually he never did any acting. He’s never done anything but lie through his grinning teeth, but we’re working through our issues. I originally tried several avatars with quotes. I tried a quote with this one, too, “It was the best of tibes; it was the worst of tibes…” -that old idea that giving enough of us monkeys enough time to type, we might come up with something. But, in the end, quotes are almost impossible to read no matter how they’re formatted at this small size. Didn't like the avatars at first (Des had a cool flash animation) but they grow on you, like fungus.