Life is not fair, but it can be fabulous

Demanding fairness from the universe is a debilitating waste of effort, says Karen Sentio

Read here

The faster we learn this, the better for us.

Dave Barry on Cosmopolitan

A hilarious Dave Barry classic - take on Cosmopolitan magazine, which a friend of mine mailed me recently. Could's resist putting it here. I used to be a regular Cosmo reader once (for some reason then it seemed very "in" and "upmarket" thing then).

I feel this is the one of the best ways in which the mag can be described....Read on.....

When I'm in the supermarket checkout line, I always look at Cosmopolitan magazine to see if the editors have made any progress in their ongoing effort to figure out men. I'm sure you're familiar with Cosmopolitan ("Fun-Fearless-Female"). It's the one with the cover that always has a picture of a woman who looks as though she has a prestigious and rewarding executive career as a hooker.

Roughly half the articles in Cosmopolitan are devoted to explaining how you, the Cosmo reader, can make yourself look like the cover model. All you have to do is follow the two-step Cosmo Beauty Regimen:
STEP ONE: Using a combination of fun and fearless beauty procedures such as the Eyebrow Yank, the Hot Wax Torture, the Hydrochloric Acid Skin Peel, the Hoover Vacuum Home Spleen Removal, the Cage of Thigh-Eating Wolverines and the Industrial Drain Cleaner Enema, you remove all of the physical elements that make you unattractive, such as your fat, hair, skin, fingerprints and internal organs. At this point, you are essentially a skeleton with eyeballs, or, to put it another way, Ally McBeal.
STEP TWO: You smear your entire self with a complex system of foundations, bases, creams, lotions, gels, powders, moisturizers, conditioners, mousses, sprays, mascaras, eyeliners, lip glosses, enzymes, lacquers, organic papaya-enhanced roofing tars, etc., until you are encased inside an impenetrable layer of beauty products thick enough that there is no way for anybody to tell, without giving you a CAT scan, what you actually look like. You could be a Shetland pony under there.

Once you have achieved this fun and female "look," it's time for you to get started on the other topic that is discussed endlessly in Cosmopolitan: Figuring out what men want. It's a tough one!

Cosmopolitan editors wrestle with it day and night, and they're constantly announcing new breakthroughs. Pick up any issue, and you'll see articles like:
"23 Ways to Drive Him Wild in Bed!"
"127 Ways to Make Him Want to Get Naked Right in the Foyer!"
"387 Ways to Make Him Completely Lose Biological Control of Himself While He Is Still in the Driveway"

Over the decades, Cosmopolitan has printed literally thousands of sure-fire techniques for driving men insane with passion. If these techniques actually worked, by now the entire male population of the United States would have been wiped out by lust, literally exploding into little mushroom clouds of vaporized bodily fluids. But this has not happened, except in the case of President Clinton.

The problem, I think, is that Cosmopolitan is making this issue way more complicated than it actually is. I mean, we're talking about MEN here. You don't need rocket science to drive them wild in bed. All you need to do is to get in there with them Or, leave them alone for a while.

Because men don't need much. Using a complex, sophisticated technique to get a man excited is like preparing a gourmet French meal for a Labrador retriever. So I think Cosmopolitan is trying too hard. In fact, it may be doing women more harm than good. For example, the August issue has a feature titled "What to Say to Make Him Ache for You-Whisper these frisky phrases if you wish to drive him wild."

One of the frisky phrases Cosmopolitan advises you to whisper to men is - really - "We'd better hurry home, because at midnight I turn into a vixen."This frisky phrase might actually alarm the man, especially if he knows that the dictionary defines "vixen" as "an ill-tempered, shrewish woman."Basically, you're telling the man he could suddenly find himself in bed with Lorena Bobbitt.

Another frisky phrase suggested by Cosmopolitan is - get ready -"My bikini waxer went a little overboard." Listen, women: If you actually say those words to a man, he's going to assume you want him to take you to the emergency room.

So my advice to the editors of Cosmopolitan is: Just drop this subject for a while. Trust me: even without technical advice from you, your women readers will have no trouble getting men excited, as long as the men are aware (and believe me, they are) that the women, underneath their clothes, are not wearing clothes.

And consider this: If you Cosmopolitan editors stopped obsessing about men, you could focus your brainpower on the Middle East peace process, health care, Social Security or the federal budget surplus.I bet you could give us some important insights into these issues! Or at least tell us how to drive them wild in bed.

Dave Barry

Washington Post Magazine

Flowers....

Shot by me, using my Canon S3 IS.

The mauve ones are really small flowers which grow in the grass. The out of focus green background helped to accentuate the color of the flowers.

This one is a Marigold in full bloom.

Pretty, aren't they??

Planting trees...

For someone like me, whose hands age on a laptop keyboard in an air-conditioned office, planting trees was a much more different experience than I had thought :
- It's not as glamoruous as it looks (unless you are a Page 3 persona, where you just need to sprinkle some mud in the end and pose for the camera)
- Digging takes a lot more strength than you thought it would.
- There could be earthworms and ants in the mud (you realise their existence only when you see them).

Maybe that's the reason there are few takers for the "afforestation" drives.

Or maybe, we have become too much of city people and disconnected from nature :((

Future....

The future looks clouded....

There is too much of past....

Uncertainity....

Just when you start thinking you have it, its goes away.

And the uncertainity prevails....