Just want to keep my online profile consistent with other places!

I spent 30 minutes and couldn't figure out an easy way to directly fire the Apple Mail compose window, either by clicking a menu item or via a Keyboard shortcut. Has anybody seen a plugin that helps with this?

I've added [email protected] to Gmail as an alternate email address. I have registered [email protected] to Google+ and upload a profile image already. However when I send emails from [email protected], I go to the recipient gmail inbox and still see an image-less photo. Help would be appreciated!

I think I prefer a neutral image without them.