When I think about death, I think more of technicalities rather than of the actual fact of departing this world. I have never understood why people would choose cremation over funerals, although there is some logic to it: mess-free, hassle-free, tears-free; burned and scattered and done with. I, on the other hand, want to be buried. I want to have a neat allotment on a green lawn somewhere under a weepy tree, with a nice marble gravestone and some touching epitaph. I want my children and grandchildren to come there as rostered a few times a year; I want fresh flowers every now and then, nicely mowed grass and some tears shed over my lovely soul. I want fancy funerals with white lilies and white orchids, with organ music playing and beautiful ladies in dark hats crying. I imagine it will be no less fun than my wedding! However, there is one condition under which I could consider cremation. I saw it in one book and I shamelessly steal it for my wish list. So if I happen to be a mean old lady with no children and no late spouses, I will not be buried. I will get cremated. However, I will see how many close friends I have - say, six. Then I will get six very pretty little containers, like ivory and rare wood; antique, gold encrusted and  valuable. I will get my ashes divided into exactly six portions, each packed into one of those containers and handed over to my friends. I would think of six places which would mean something for me and each of them, and in my will I'll require them to scatter my ashes in those places. For all the trouble they will get to keep a lovely container, which will go up in value overtime, and I will be spiritually present in some of my favourite places forever. Of course, it won't beat some good old-fashioned funeral and a serenity of a green graveyard, yet I am prepared to die lonesome now.

I am seriously afraid of the future. All the aspects scare me shitless. I suspect I am too rigid to change and too conservative to even admit it. I am afraid of the fashion. I know it is spiralling, but all I can envisage is sexless neon outfits for girls with no hips and boys with motley hair, I am afraid that masculinity and femininity will be gone before we notice. We will be forced into a maze called "no fashion is really fashionably" and we will lose an important part of out lives - our dress code and therefore sex appeal. I am afraid of the food of the future. GM-ed, inbred, hydroponic ingredients, no seafood, mad meats and plastic vegetables served in a bizarre way. Order something like fish at the restaurant - and be brought up an ipod to listen to the sounds of ocean while you eat it. Waiters looking like customers looking like chefs. Customers taking instant camerapics of food and blogging it immediately. Chefs too bored cooking fish'n'chips and serving extremely tedious 16-course degustation dinners. I am afraid of the climate change. I am afraid there will be no grapes in NZ, but will be bananas. I am afraid my kids wouldn't know what a polar bear is. I am afraid of every city turning into Beijing, with too many people (that's a different phobia altogether, by the way) and too much pollution. I am afraid in 50 years time I wouldn't be able to hug a tree daily. I am afraid of technologies. I cannot keep up with it, the machines and mechanisms being much smarter than me. I am afraid of each tiny little gadget becoming everything, a gadget that is not just a phone but a PC, a remote, a gprs-tag and a leg shaver. I am afraid that we are going to be chipped at birth and that the government will know everything (everything!) about us. I am afraid of people, of disappearing of love, of having to have ersatz - relationship on the go. Of the old values going missing (no code of ethics is the new code), and no values developing over time. My only hope is that it takes longer than we all expect and my paranoid self will be long gone before it hits.