If today is any indication, the new year should be bright and bracing, with just a touch of blustering. I never did get out into it after this morning’s venture onto the front steps (in housecoat and slippers) to take photographs. 

New Year’s Eve, Al and I settled in to watch Tomorrow Never Dies, in which Pierce Brosnan plays James Bond. I do quite like him in that role. More of a sense of humor than Sean Connery, I think. The evening before, we watched X-Files: I Want to Believe. We all get caught up in roles, either on our own or through the agency of others. Too many people to please, and we feel guilty, still, when we please ourselves first. Sort of like Mulder’s shaving off his beard, we adjust our public appearance automatically to obtain the type and quality of feedback we want,need to receive. Some of us need desperately to be accepted, and others, just as desperately, to be rejected. Either way, we look to be confirmed in our beliefs about ourselves, about who we are and what we are worth. 

What price, reality?