The other face of Janus looks forward to the Christmases yet to come. Or words to that effect. The last post looked back at some highlights from 2023; this one looks forward to the hopes, plans, and guesses for 2024.
Hopes and plans are easy enough, but when it comes to guesses, I’ve never thought much of futurists. I don’t have much truck with “could” and “might” when it comes to the actual world. Science fiction is my favorite fiction, but futurists claim to be prescient, and I very much doubt it.
Regardless (and heedless), some hopes, plans, and wild-ass guesses, for 2024.


I’ve mentioned before that, after ten years of retired idleness, this year I’ve applied myself to getting some long-standing items off my TODO list. I’m a lazy beaver, not a busy one, but I’ve been less lazy than usual in 2023. (Perhaps, in part, because, on several counts, I can’t believe it’s actually 2023. I remember a time when 2001 seemed far off… in the future.)
Yesterday I enjoyed the first home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner I’ve had in many years. To be successfully single (which I like to think I am these days, having settled into a comfortable retirement) one must learn to let “the holidays” wash over the mind like the proverbial water off the proverbial duck’s back.

I was going through old files I’ve kept around for too long and found a collection of images a friend sent me years ago. We met in college and have been friends since. She ended up working in advertising, plus her husband had a graphic design business, so she was pretty attuned to and interested in the world of visual arts and advertising.
Most of the remnants of “the gang” went to see 











