Author: LS Harteveld

dark side writer with redemption arc

We Did It Right (NSFW)| 1996 Dear Nikki

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

Nikki Sixx“Being together felt like nothing we’d ever done and not comparable to all the years we were students and saw each other. We did things I m not going to talk about, maybe one day.” Lauren’s Diary May 23, 1996

Still unable to write it down in her diary, Lauren decides to share her sex story, with her friend the bootleg trader Nikki. He lives in England and they have never met, but he sends her the bootlegs she needs for reviews for a fan club. Over the course of their correspondence, Nikki has become the only person with whom Lauren shares all aspects of her sexuality. 

Sent: In an A4+ envelop, addressed to Nikki in England  first content of the envelop: A large photocopied page, created from two A4 photocopies, glued together and secured with adhesive tape. It’s a page from the book SEX by Madonna and it has the text:  Doctor: “Do you think that it is possible to experience pleasure and pain at the same time?” Dita: “Sure! That is what ass fucking is all about. It is the most pleasurable way to get fucked and it hurts the most too. All your nerve endings are in your ass, but if you’re not excited or if you’re not doing it right, things can really go wrong.” And Lauren’s long letter, printed double-sided on A4 with manually added page numbers. This is what she wrote: Friday May 28, 1996 Dear Nikki, 726745f80ac3c403ead7b75c5334f8aaThis letter is going to take the honesty I have with you, to a whole new level. And, truth be told, it was not my choice to do this, but I got completely stuck in something I wanted to do but can’t. And I know that when I write it to you I can. The thing I really want to do is write down what happened the last time Bear and me were together. You told me multiple times I can write anything I want, but I think the truth is, there is so much within me that I m ashamed of. That I feel is not allowed to exist, sexually.  And although Bear has never been there for me after we had sex, because we have never been in a regular relationship, it seems to have hit me hard this time, to deal with this by myself. To make peace with who I am. Even though I have known, and even have nourished, “her”, sexual me, by reading the book SEX from Madonna. Because I didn’t want her to die on me. In particular after Bear broke up with me. Originally. I seem to have regained terrain as “the other woman” because we are having sex again. But in 1995 I didn’t go all the way, and I needed that year of keeping my pants on and “only” giving the occasional hand job (the word always gives me the creeps, not the act), to make up my mind. I needed it to grow into what it was he was inviting me to become. The other woman….. phew. Talk about getting your pass to adulthood god dammit.  But I needed 1995 as that transition year where I went from being only a friend, to being welcomed back in. So when we started sleeping together again this year, I had thought things through. It’s just that I was unprepared for what happened last time. Because Bear and me are back at the level of sex we had in the early years. When I think there must have been other women, but I felt like the only one. Or maybe for a brief period I was the only one. I know Bear was fascinated I took matters into my own hands and recruited him to have sex with me. But for the most part I attributed those first wonderful sexual years to the newness of it. It’s pretty normal for two people to have such a great sex life when they start out. However, I had not anticipated for that to happen again. In particular because he’s with his girlfriend now. Logically it would automatically mean the intimacy would stay manageable. Or was he single this time?  Man, this letter is all over the place. Sorry! But I do think this is important: I met him at a friend’s place, he was house sitting. And I got the impression he was single, I really did. Everything was so different from the way it had been for years. Even before he broke up, even just the years after the first years. When our sex was still amazing, but not as intense as the first years. So I met him at his friend’s place and I met a Bear I had not seen in years. And I assumed that was because he was single, and not telling me yet. But then afterwards nothing happened. He must be back with his girlfriend by now, but I haven’t heard from him.  And it’s just so confusing, Nikki. I m sorry to interrupt myself the whole time, but I think this is why I feel I can’t write in my diary what happened, because every time I think of that day, I start questioning myself. How could I have been so wrong? How could I have made such a huge mistake in assessing what was going on? What does that say about my people skills? Am I a dumb person? So that was the boring, self-pity part of the letter. But look at it this way! If I had been totally okay with it, I would just have written the sex stories in my diaries, and you would not have gotten to read them. So I think in the light of our correspondence, my doubt has served us well. There were two things I really want to highlight for you. Two things I would have written in my diary, if I had gotten over myself and actually wrote in my diary. The first is anal sex, and the second is oral sex. Bear and me only had anal sex in the first years we were together.  I was a (normal) virgin when we met, so I was inexperienced with anal sex as well. From Bear, I don’t know. I remember asking him, but not getting an answer. He just brought it back to what he was doing to me, asked if I liked it. Maybe he said something like “I ll manage”. So I always assumed I was the first one for him, but there really is no way of telling. We always used a lubricant, even for normal sex, so we both had that. It was always present, whenever we were at his place or my place. We both still lived at home, when we started out. But his parents were liberal, as was my mom.  I was already used to owning condoms, even though I was a virgin. I had been single for half a year, before “recruiting” Bear. Losing my virginity had been on my agenda. And from Bear I learned to use lubricant, which I found funny at first. What would a teen use lubricant for? But he explained that it would help the first time be less painful. And that he liked using it. I remember that he was completely unmoved by my attempt to mock him for owning it! And once I understood how he used it, I was embarrassed and felt immature for laughing about it.  Because he was so nice. What Bear started doing, right from the very beginning (we saw each other a few times before we went all the way), was finger me. But not the hugging and touching and fingering, fingering, what I would call normal fingering. But he would lay me down, naked or without panties (half-naked), and I would lie there and he would inspect me like a doctor. Oh my God, I still get wet just thinking about it! He didn’t play doctor, he just did it that way. With us detached, him sitting between my legs on the bed, the floor or next to me on the side of the bed. And he fingered me with lube. Sometimes he would talk to me, ask me how it felt. But that was only in the beginning, because I didn’t really know how to respond. It felt awkward, to get that kind of attention. I just remember that this fingering too, was something he only did in the first years. And he didn’t do that the last time we were together either, but he did do something that was similar, the oral sex, more on that later. But anyway, when I was a virgin the doctor like fingering sessions served a clear purpose.  Firstly because they made me incredibly horny. I think that’s also the reason I was embarrassed by them, and didn’t quite know how to respond. Isn’t that strange? Even in bed, with a man who is clearly trying his best to make me horny, I feel so horny that I think that is no longer appropriate. Guilty for just lying there, not having to do anything. No doubt aided by the fingering, losing my virginity went really well. I never had any pain, and I loved feeling him inside of me so much. It was so wonderful. The closest to another human being I ever felt. Last time too, it felt so good. It was like his dick was bigger, I could feel him so clearly. And when I was sitting on top of him, resting, he moved his dick inside of me, and that was so special. I m sure he has done that before, but it felt so great. The fingering stayed on, after I was no longer a virgin. And I bought lubricant, for when we were at my place. So lubricant was always present, and I think this was another reason why for us the step to anal sex may have been easier than for other teens. But we did started doing it pretty early on. But it stopped after the first three years. In hindsight I think it was the moment Bear started to realize he wanted a family, and that he didn’t want to be in what we had forever. That it was great for the college years but that he was going to look for what he wanted. That’s when we stopped having anal sex and also when that type of fingering stopped. I realize now that I m saying many contradictory things in this letter. I m sorry! I m just figuring it out as I go. But if I wrap up the timeline of our sex life, is that the first years were the best, and then the most intimate acts just didn’t get played anymore. I thought it was due to the normal thing that happens when you know each other for a longer period of time. But because he broke up with me December 1994, in favor of a new girlfriend (and by then we had not had sex for 5 months), I think our sex life started waning because he was already saying goodbye. And not because we were less excited by each other. When I saw Bear last time, we both wanted to have anal sex again. So we did. And what was so cute, or very “Oh, I totally forgot about that!” was that we tried to do it more doggy style, from behind. And it hurt and I said, let’s just do it the normal way. So in missionary but then anal sex. And this was exactly reminiscent of the first time we had anal sex when he wanted to do/ try in what I think must be the normal way to do it, but I said I wanted it to be missionary. So missionary it was. But this time, we tried it in doggy, but it just hurt. It was unpleasant, so I broke it off and said something like: “Just do it the normal way,” meaning our normal way, which I had forgotten was our normal way.  So I turned around on my back and invited him on top of me. And I pulled my legs up a bit so he could see where he was going!  And it was absolutely magical. The first bit was scary. You got a thousand thoughts going through in your head, and fear it’s going to hurt. It goes so slow, sometimes you think there is no progress at all. And again that word “embarrassing”. It’s very intimate, to be together in that not knowing.   And knowing your ass is the bottleneck factor here! Oh my God I m laughing out loud as I type this. This is ridiculous, but that is how it feels.  There is a lot at stake, and you don’t want to be the deal breaker, yet you can’t control it or do anything about it. It’s either going to work, or it isn’t. But it did, and we could both feel it. It was like everything, all the stupid years of not doing this, faded. It was the moment we were really together.  I smiled and he smiled to, and then he did something he had never done: He pushed it in further and started fucking me. I can’t believe he dared to do that, but it was so wonderful. It was one of those things that if he had asked me upfront I would never have dared to agree to it, and perhaps I would have tightened up just from asking. But he just did it. Nothing rough, and I don’t know how to say it in a way that expresses that I know I m totally safe with him and that the reason it is so good is because he would immediately feel it probably even before I did, if I was not enjoying it. But it was so wonderful. Fuck, it makes me cry. What a fucked up mess, to then part afterwards. I think I m beginning to understand why I can’t make myself pick up my diary and write this down. So we had anal sex longer, deeper and also more connected than ever. It was a remembrance to who we were as a couple, that we did this and we did it facing each other. I know melting together as one, sounds corny and probably is corny but that’s what it was. But I felt that was when we were reborn as a couple. Corny too, I know. You re just going to have a find a way to forgive me for the Harlequin vocabulary. Only then it turned out he was not single and he’s back with her now. And I look at that Madonna book, that had the job of keeping my sexuality alive through 1995, and I just know that I have to get back to that, or to something else that allows me to be sexual without him. But I fail so often. There was a dildo I really wanted to buy, but I just couldn’t. It was mail order, the brochure still comes in here from the man who used to live here.  Maybe that I can see his name, is adding to me feeling uncomfortable buying. Then the tenant after me will know my name from brochures that keep coming. And it was just so disheartening that I m back to square one. Back to denying my own sexuality, and needing him to choose me in order for it to be alright to be a sexual person. But you know what Nikki? What makes it so sad? That I am denying my own sexuality, in response to him denying me a relationship. As soon as I know or realize I am still single and we are not together, I can’t claim or enjoy what happened anymore. I feel so rejected, I reject my own sexuality.  I deliberately saved the oral sex part for last. Because I didn’t want to end on a low, with me feeling like I have to start all over again restoring my sexuality. Even though that is how I feel. But that is not what I want this letter to be about. We were at his friend’s place, and this was the first time we were at “his” house and he had a bedroom, because we used to be students and then you only have one room.  So he asked me: “Do you want to go to the bedroom?” when we were kissing on the couch.  He is such a good kisser. The boyfriend I had before him was also an amazing kisser, and I think I learned it from him. That first boyfriend was the best kisser in the world (I was also single and kissed with people then, Nikki!) And yet I prefer Bear to the first boyfriend, because Bear is much more sexual. Or at least, sexual in a way that I understand. Like, when I am kissing him I constantly hear the beat of drum beneath! And the drums say: “Just say when.” Bear is the best kisser in the world, because his kissing is part of his whole sexual availability to you. So I understand him better. So he asked if I wanted to go to the bedroom, and I said yes, but instead of taking my hand and taking me there, which I would have found to use a German term “zum kotzen” (I actually considered taking the couch to avoid such an unerotic moment of him taking my hand) he said: “I’ll go first, you come after. But naked. Leave your clothes outside.” He had already gotten up and was heading to the bedroom, not making eye contact. So he didn’t ask if I agreed or anything. It was the absolute opposite of taking my hand, like a cheeseball. I had a huge grin on my face, as I undressed, and left my clothes in the living. I came in and he was there, also naked. And we started kissing and he said something about how he loved my body and “look at yourself, at how gorgeous you are”. I gained a lot of weight, since I was 17! But I agree it does look great on me. But it still makes me feel a bit uneasy. It’s very strange to live in a body, that still doesn’t feel like how you remembered it to be. Maybe that’s why I want to lose the weight, because I don’t want to get used to it. But the only place those kilos never felt out of place was in the bedroom. There they have always been exactly right. So he admired my body, and I his, and I gave him a blowjob but more a pre-sex blowjob. Not an all the way blowjob.  It was too soon for that anyway.  The first time we had sex this year, I took him in my mouth so many times, my jaws started hurting. It was great to have that feeling of being used and being used up!  But now we kept it civil. It was just a relaxing blowjob with him on his back, and me also licking the whole area around. I usually let him decide if he wants me to continue or stop, and I imagine that was this as well. And then he went down on me. And it was a bit like the fingering, in that he instructed me to lie down, and I just lay there. And he told me what to do which was pull my legs up. As wide as I could. I thought I was going to die! Figuratively, but it was so open, exposed. Like I wanted to just disappear. And then he went down on me, and started giving me oral sex, which was so incredibly good. It took me until typing this letter to realize why that was, and that the two were related. Because I felt so exposed and part of me (a big part!) did not want to be there in that position, that’s why the oral sex was so sweet. It’s like what Madonna says in Erotica: Only the one that inflicts pain, can take it away. But then I m alone again, and it’s so difficult to remember the pleasure, and the embarrassing moments or the vulnerable moments melt together with the pain of not being chosen. And I see the Madonna book SEX, knowing that I will be needing that a lot. That even though it is no longer 1995, and I have made up my mind that I ll count my blessings in whatever form they come, I will need some kind of outer reminder that I am a sexual being. That I am more than just rejected by Bear. That in the moments that count the most, I was never rejected. And that we did it right. . ~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living
New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And are published together, here on this blog. We Did It Right | 1996 Dear Nikki is the eleventh chapter to 1996 diary  Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.
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A Good Friend To Bear | 1996 diary

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
bee7c429c11760792bd75b12bc603b29
Madonna early 80s
diary 1996 “GO HOME, LAUREN.” Thursday May 6, 1996 I always feel my workweek ends on Thursday night. I don’t know why, because I cannot remember the last time I could actually take time off, to work on my own books on Friday. I m always behind on my freelance work, and work weekends too. Sometimes because I have a deadline, but more often because I didn’t get any paid work done during the week. I try to make at least 32 paid hours a week, but at the expense of publishing my own books. The Friday “off” to work on my own stuff, is a concept, a dream that has never been a reality. It’s something that only works in theory or until I become more productive. Another reason I still see Thursday night as the closer to my workweek is because it’s Guns N’ Roses night at the hard rock cafe. I can justify going there way more if it’s “my Friday night”, even when it’s obviously not. So I went to the hard rock cafe but it was relatively quiet. Maybe because it was raining. There were maybe half of the people I usually meet there, and not the guy I always flirt with and with whom I suspect to one day end in bed with. It gave me a lot of time to think, and as the girl I talk to the most went to the bar to get us a beer, I started contemplating all the areas at which I seem to be failing. My paid work. Publishing my books. Writing. I hardly write anymore because I m daunted by everything that I’ve already written and that I want to print. I don’t want to add more to the pile. And I fail at losing weight. Months ago, I really tuned into how I lived when I was 16 and was so motivated to use that as a recipe to get the body and the productivity back I had then. I called it Project 88, because I turned 16 in the Summer of 88. But like I said, despite the cool title, nothing much came of it. I never got it rolling. It was a good idea, but I still weigh the same, and as I just explained my productivity is also nowhere near that teenager that just crushed it. I wondered if there was a different way of viewing this failure of getting my shit together. An explanation, of why I was failing at something I had done right without any effort, years and years ago. If I was that 16 year old Lauren right now, what would I be doing right at this moment? Of course. I would be home. I would not be standing in a bar on a Thursday night. It is already too late to call it an early night, and I did have two beers. But that light bulb moment made me go home as soon as I could. At least an hour and a beer earlier than usual. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I did realize that wondering what 16 year old me would do, at any moment, any situation, how she would tackle my current life; That, was always a great question to ask myself. . diary 1996 DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL. WITH BELLS ON. 👹 Friday May 7, 1996 Around 2 AM, but I can’t remember I had actually slept although I had not been fully awake either, I “woke up” with pains in my body that I only have when I m stressed. The type of pains that you ve read about, that you should have them checked out because you may be suffering from a heart condition. The type of pains I ve been, well not “ignoring” since I was 16; But I have always refused to give them the medical attention a sane person would have given them. I think they’re a sign that if I don’t want to die, I should get my shit together. Not that if I don’t want to die, I should go to a hospital and get some scans and other tests and then get medicated. I ve never seen them as a sign of that, and even though the pains woke me up at 2 AM, took my peace of mind, worried me sick, and I did not fall asleep until dawn; I do not intend to start caving in now. If I die, I die. But if God wants me to publish my books, and become a published author, then he better keep me alive. We’re in this together, and I m not going to do all the work of undergoing all kinds of stressful tests or treatment to stay alive. Not when I was 16, and my boyfriend broke up with me, and it was the first year I felt these pains. Not now. Not ever. Regardless of how often you ve felt this, you never get used to it. It’s loneliness, but amplified by being alone at night. It’s fear of dying. It’s the pain itself, that is so unsettling. It mixes together to a monster that I would round off to “fear”, but then again it’s too big, too multifaceted to be called by such a simple term. It’s a monster, that what it is. And it comes at night when you’re all alone and were not feeling too good to start with. It comes to feed on your fears and then on your soul. I m sure of it. I’m postponing getting to bed tonight. Going to do some dishes, hopefully that helps me to calm down a bit. But then I m going to bed. Hoping tonight will be better. . diary 1996 16 GOING ON 23 Monday May 10, 1996 It’s almost 11 P.M. and I only have time for a very small entry, because this is no longer “Me” who is typing this. It’s 16 year old me, and “she” would go to bed on time. Not open a new entry 11 P.M. and then have the dishes still waiting for her as well. I am experimenting with giving my life back to the 16 year old me, since she was absolutely nailing life in every area you can imagine. And also every area I have been failing at since summer 1994. Right after graduation. I can’t think of a good reason to struggle with that stuff when I rocked it as a teenager. She and me are the same person. I m sure there is a way around this. So I “summoned” her! And I even gave her her own diary, although I must admit I (flaky 1996 me) have not been that consistent letting her (the one whose help I want) write. But I want to get better at it, and give her free reign to take over my life. She earned it. Here are some of the things she has written in her diary ever since arriving in my current body and life: – surprisingly quick adaptation to being teleported 7 years into the future – curious to meet the friends in my calendar and confidently does everything that I would not know how to do. – happy to find that although her 16 year old heart was broken around this time (May 1989), I am/ she is doing fine in 1996. – From the calls she receives from Bear and the diaries she’s found, she has concluded they’re in some sort of relationship and she s looking forward to it. She’s unbothered to be the other woman. 16 Year old me is totally into being in 1996, and does not miss being heartbroken and still a virgin. And in the meantime she fixes my life. I like this girl. . diary 1996 A GOOD FRIEND TO BEAR Sunday May 23, 1996 It was a note on a worn-down notepad next to my bed, the paper block that I had torn out of a notebook I had never used, that looked extremely cheap and shabby because the stitches or threads were still sticking out of it; But it was that notepad that brought me back every night to the only thing I could do. And the only thing of value that, despite feeling like I was disintegrating, I still knew how to do. It said: “Be a good friend to Bear.” Must have been late last year or early this year I wrote that. And it saved me. Or at least it kept my head above water until Sara really saved me. So, what had happened? What had caused this meltdown where I needed to be saved every night by demolished stationary?  I saw Bear, and everything was absolutely perfect. First of all, for the first time since he moved in with his girlfriend and no longer has his own house, we were not at my place. It was not a clandestine, sneaking away from work to visit my college sweetheart, drop by.  He was house sitting for a friend who was on holiday. Taking care of the house but mostly of their dog Snoopy, who needed to be taken out for regular walks. And although him staying in this apartment didn’t have anything to do with his girlfriend, it felt like old times. Him and me. He called me Saturday morning, I think he was making a shopping list. And he asked if I’d like red wine or something else. And I already knew he’d make us Pasta Carbonara.   He checked if I knew how to cycle, and offered to place my bike in the basement storage. He also repeated his offer to sleep over, and when I declined, he repeated he would cycle with me on my way home until I was past the bridge.  Even before I had set a foot in the apartment, everything already felt like a warm blanket. I don’t think I ever felt so loved.  It also made me realize that this Bear, this type of attention, had been long gone when he broke up with me. That there was more that had been lacking, than just the months and months he hardly contacted me, prior to him breaking up. The downfall had started way before that. I recognized this type of love from the first years we were together. But because we were so much younger then, still teens, it wasn’t the same as it was now. He had been talented, skillful, sweet. A charmer. A womanizer. And as opposed to me, definitely not a virgin. But in terms of innocence and sometimes still feeling insecure or quirky, we had been the same. Our arrangement had been based on guts and gusto!  Not on any, I would say “formal training”, in how to make dating work.   I had never seen so clearly how much he had grown, since then. And I imagined it was largely due to the girlfriend who is at least five years older than we are. Perhaps more. Bear was always good with Pasta Carbonara, but now he was more confident in his actions. If you’d asked him for how he had set up this date, I m almost sure that (after a little thought, because to him it would come natural) he could have come up with a checklist, as if it were a wedding. I found my way to the address he had given me, without needing the map I brought in my bag just in case. I  rang the bell, and after a “Hello?” the door opened. On an ice-cold walkway I passed a kitchen window, where I could already see Bear. We waved, at which Snoopy started barking loudly. Bear gave me a long hug and kisses in my ear, before I even got my coat off. We drank red wine in the kitchen, while he cooked our pasta, and Bear opened the windows to the walkway to let all the steam and cooking smell out, which turned the kitchen cold. But we were too happy to finally see each other, to really notice. We ate our Pasta Carbonara on the couch, just like the old times when we both lived in student rooms. I don’t think we ever had dinner at a table, in all those years we saw each other. And even though he, and I guess me as well, had grown and our date felt like we were pretend playing we were adults, we still automatically bypassed the dinner table to eat. And we would also bypass it for sex. This was the first time Bear had a separate bedroom to offer me. Again, when you re a student and your bed and couch are next to each other, it makes it arbitrary which one you choose. But now, after dinner, when we were cuddling up on the couch, Bear asked me: “Do you want to go to the bedroom?” I don’t know if he remembers that it always turns me on if he asks me what I want, or for permission to do something sexual. Tonight “Do you want me to (fill in something sexual)?” was “Do you want to go to the bedroom?” Although it was used many more times after. We had sex in the most intimate way. There was a deep physical desire for each other. There were no fantasies, no memories, no talk about future sex and what I would like one day; Because everything was now. We stared into each other’s eyes, for connection but also filled with wonder at how horny we were. I remember at one point sitting on top of him, and I could feel his dick was so incredibly hard, and it only got harder. It moved in me, or waited patiently. But it surprised me, how it felt. So powerful yet contained. Being together felt like nothing we’d ever done and not comparable to all the years we were students and saw each other. We did things I m not going to talk about, maybe one day. I know I can’t keep saying it was the best time ever, every time we have sex. But it was the best time sex ever. The big difference was that it also felt really romantic. He didn’t say I love you, it was not that cheesy.  But I felt loved. Until the days went by and I was not asked to come again, for the remainder of his stay. And it was in those days that I realized that the only reason I was not feeling totally miserable, like I usually do after having sex with Bear knowing he has gone back to his girlfriend, was because I thought he would choose for me. That him being in that apartment, tasting freedom, tasting me!, would either lead to him becoming single. Or part of me thought that he had already been single. That he just didn’t want to bring me the news, because it would have placed pressure on me being there. But I was convinced that what I had felt, was not Bear cheating on his girlfriend. It was Bear starting a new life. Or so I thought. And then day came, that Snoopy’s family came back from their holiday and Bear would move back in with his girlfriend. And I heard nothing from him. And my heart broke. It was more painful than it had ever been. There were days when I couldn’t stop crying. But also days when I couldn’t stop blaming myself for this. I knew this. Why was I falling into the same trap over and over again? Why couldn’t I just enjoy Bear on the moments he did have time for me? I knew he was the one I wanted, and that I didn’t want sex with other men. Sure! I like the guy from the hard rock cafe.  I fell in love with the painter guy who looked like Slash, in 1994. but it never took flight. Maybe it will one day, but with Bear and me, things are in such different stage. We have a legacy. I was ultimately saved by my older friend Sara. She explained to me that what I had felt with Bear was a freedom he had created himself. That it didn’t matter if he was or had been single, because what I had felt was something he had created. And that I had wanted. That Bear could not give me the sex life and the adventure I was longing for. I had to go get that myself.  What she explained (if I understood correctly) was that I wanted to be Bear. Not be with Bear. And ever since I know that, I m recovering. Sara was right. I wish I was that person using all the space, the house, the skills, the time, the love, the way he uses them. So I m good now. But that blow when the post-sex backlash came, had been a bad one. And there were multiple times when I thought I could not go on seeing Bear as the other woman. That it was breaking me. I was heartbroken. Yet every night I found the note: “Be a good friend to Bear.” And it saved me. That, I could do. . ~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living
New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And are published together, here on this blog. A Good Friend To Bear | 1996 diary is the tenth chapter to 1996 diary  Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Don’t look back

Published on by LS Harteveld

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.

“Owls are wise. They can predict the past.”
Two Women, by Harry Mulisch

Dear Sara,

I never understood the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in school, because we never got the Greeks. Either our school had strategic reasons not to include them, for instance because they were no longer part of the final exam.
Or my year of first graders had fallen into a historic loophole in the education system. A glitch, where for a few years the national program for history started with the Romans and not the Greeks.
But I never got them, and learned them self-taught, when I was in my late teens. 
.
If I had had the Greeks around the age of 12, 13, I doubt I would have been into them as much as I was years later.
The story I think of most frequently in daily life, is the one from Orpheus and Eurydice.
Not because I got it literally from text, but because someone explained how a book I liked was inspired by the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice.
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be8ab849-7a63-4723-9971-799d30812a3aBoth Eurydice and Orpheus are women in the book. The book is called Two Women by Harry Mulisch, and it has been turned into a movie in 1979 and 2010, both times called Twice a Woman.
The Eurydice in the book leaves her female Orpheus suddenly, but in hindsight she has done so to get pregnant by Orpheus’ ex-husband.
She returns pregnant, on “Orpheus” doorstep. But it does not end well because Orpheus makes Eurydice go back to her ex-husband to explain and make things right.
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She should have welcomed Eurydice back without looking back to where she had been.
And in particular without sending her back. To the underworld!
Even if it was just to have coffee to make amends.
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Maybe the entire book is a plea to stop trying to smooth everything over, but that is not why I thought of that book today. Although it IS a good truth to keep to mind! 
Be a grateful receiver of what comes back to you, and do not interfere with other people’s life choices. Even when that other people is your partner.
But like I said, that was not the hook this piece was about.
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This is about classic Orpheus, and classic looking back.
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It is this story that has come to mind when I find myself anxious and wanting to know where my Eurydice is.
And when I actively search for him. Or them.
It is good to point out this has happened in the past with multiple men. A sudden urge, desire, curiosity, to Google them or check their social media. And almost always with staggering, disturbing, and at the same time important results.
My most mixed-emotions moment was when I found out someone’s real wife had the same name as I was about to choose for his fictional wife.
And this was someone I had not spoken to in years, the last time we spoke he had not even met her.
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Going to look for Eurydice is even in today’s world, hardly ever without serious consequence.
And yet tonight, I went looking for her again.
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After a week of feeling on top of my game, I feel I have fallen into the underworld.
And that BOTH are connected! Either I went looking in the underworld, because I felt my energetic tie was glitching like Dutch historic school programs in the mid 80s.
Or I could no longer hold my curiosity, and wanted to know if since I was thinking so much about him:
Was there a sign it was mutual, and that things had been shifting?
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If I looked over my shoulder for just a sec, would I see him there behind me?
The one whose presence I could feel so strongly?
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And then I lost him.
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In quantum science they say the atom is where you think it is.
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I felt my Eurydice so strongly, his presence. I didn’t connect it to my happiness, I was too egotistical for that. Or had learned not to get burned and to never focus on the presence of a man for my happiness. Not energetically, and not physically.
But last week, if you would have asked me:
“Do you still think of Eurydice?” I would have given you an ear to ear smile!
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And then it comes: I don’t know what my motivations were.
Was it an energy shift in the negative, after being days on a high, and did I want to look if “he” was still there?
Even though it is questionable how I would be able to see anything, if it was indeed something energetic that I had felt. 
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Or, alternatively, was I still on the high of knowing my Eurydice was there, and did this Saturday seem like a good day, to just give the door a little push, to see if it was unlocked and would open by itself?
The perfect night to, after an entire week on an absolute high, to just help chance a tiny bit and give God and the Universe a chance to tell me what I had already known and felt.
That my Eurydice was there.
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I don’t know, which one it was.
A response to feeling I lost his presence, or a desire to get a confirmation in the real world that reflected what I had been feeling all that time.
But I do know what happened after.
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And those who know their classics, this will know it too.
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“As Eurydice dies again, she bears no anger toward her husband.
She understands that, just as it was love that compelled him to journey into the Underworld to get her, it is love that compelled him to look back and make sure she was there.
It is a very bittersweet, tragic moment.”
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Quantum science got it wrong.

The atom is where you think it is. Until you look.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sexuality Loading

Published on by LS Harteveld

226ab3b141efd46df49ad9c9361ca99e
very rare photo of Sharon Stone, probably from an official promo photo shoot, during the time of Basic Instinct.

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.

Dear Sara,

It was almost as if I had been preparing for these two weeks, where I would not have time for my creativity.
The last time we spoke it felt overwhelming. Like I was not up for it, and that I had somehow made, I don’t know, some kind of “planning mistake” or something?
But the truth was, that I had done everything right.
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It was as if part of me had known months in advance, this was coming.
Or maybe the correct way to see and say it is;
It wasn’t these two weeks, as some sort of solo event.
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The last two weeks were the most visible and most recent part of a way longer time period, starting at the beginning of this year, where I no longer just sit behind my desk and write for however long I want.
Where other obligations seem more important -and from a money making perspective are more important!- and together with the daily outdoor exercise which I ve been consistent at for half a year or so;
Little time is left for writing. 
Even less if I also want to publish my books.
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When I was a yoga teacher I used to write all day, and then rush to get showered, eat and get to class.
I did not do any exercise aside commuting (on my bicycle), I did not see daylight from like October to February, and I probably needed those yoga classes more than anyone else;
But boy did I write.
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I’m publishing my books, and as you know the number of blog posts under this name and my real name, is daunting.
I received the test copies from the first two books!
“The Mistress Speaks” and my book about Basic Instinct/ Catherine Tramell “The Beach, C.”
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I have to correct/ improve them, which I ll prioritize. I hope to have the new test copies ordered before the end of the week.
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So the bad news is that although those two weeks I was making such a fuss about, have ended;
I find myself still not having time to write.
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But the two weeks went by fine.
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Not just because they were far less out-of-the-ordinary as I had assumed they were.
But I also had the vision board card deck with the laminated cards, which I set up last summer but I ve been tweaking and updating it ever since and keep rearranging it, keeping spares for that moment in my drawer.
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Next to these cards I found reminders of my goals and dreams, in my notebooks.
And to top it all off, I encountered a very explicit tab on the browser of my phone. Every time I went by them all to see if I could close a few tabs, I would see this one and smile!
I remembered setting this open tab up in February, March at the latest, being very deliberate in my actions.  I knew the explicit content would be a nessecary reminder that I was a sexual being.
Regardless of whatever scatterbrain state I would be in, the moment I mindlessly browsed over my tabs to shut them.
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So the two weeks were better than I expected, because the shock was not as strong as I feared, and because I had Lauren’s Past Self having set up reminders for current day me.
“Hold the course.”
“You re sexual.”
And “Ps: here’s a photo of Jon Bon Jovi in the 80s. Yeah I thought you needed that.”
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Another very positive aspect which I had not seen coming, was that I had sex too!
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Not the perfectly orchestrated best sex of my life – date, we had in February.
But a really nice quickie, that felt so good. Maybe because it was not anticipated, and also because it was the kind of sex you can only have if you know each other very well. 
.
Because we are not a couple, and because of the hiatus we had last year, those moments when something happens that kind of “reveals” what’s underneath, are so special. 
And the sex was very welcome. Even when it was at a moment when I could not process or relive it by writing about it. I could not magnify it, in any way.
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It was normal, grounded sex. That together with all the notes in my journals, and together with already being in the habit of writing less, got me through. 
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As much as all this was good news, it did also point to a problem that I had unconsciously been aware of (hence: the reminders to myself) but that I had not tackled.
After “fruitless 2020” I knew that if I kept writing, and/or kept creating videos for my work under my real name, my books would not get published. So I had prioritized publishing.
But by now it was also clear that the opposite was also true:
When I was publishing I did not write. 
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With over 600 blog posts on both of my accounts, publishing my books is not a sprint activity.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I thought I could muscle through a couple of months prioritizing the books, the publishing, and that the problem would then be solved..
Because publishing will never be done.
It’s like a marathon with no end.
And I have to find a way to bring my sexuality = creativity = writing, back into my days!
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It’s all well and good that I m now publishing my books, getting daylight and exercise and doing yoga every now and then. And some would even say it’s a sign of maturity that I can have sex without needing to bury myself in my writing immediately after.
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But I’m not saying that.
And to me it’s not well and good.
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Needing a sexually explicit tab open on your phone browser because you’re afraid you’ll forget who you are below the belt, is a sign of spiritual and sexual poverty.
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A sign that writing needs to come back on the menu sooner rather than later.

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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

The Sex & Relationship Secrets That Took Me 14 Years To Uncover | from the archives

Published on by LS Harteveld
netflix-the-witcher-yennefer
The Witcher

I’m currently publishing my books, the first two are finished. I have ordered test copies.
One of the surprises it brought me, going through my archives, was finding this “draft”, written July last year.
Except it isn’t a draft, it is a complete blog post.
Perhaps it stayed unpublished because it struck me as too personal at the time…

Here it is, nine months later.

~Lauren
20 April 2020

The Sex & Relationship Secrets That Took Me 14 Years To Uncover

written at 23 July, 2020

It wasn’t until episode 3 of The Witcher, where the deformed stubborn magic apprentice Yennefer dumps her betraying lover, bypasses the wishes of the magic council, and arranges her own physical transformation with the sorcerer who is in charge of all the magical makeovers, and comes out ravishing and ready to rule, on the other side, that I could finally see my place in this world.

That I could make my peace with having been on a way too long journey, with way too little to show for, of discovering my own sexuality and relationship style.
Although back then in 2006 I thought I would end with wanting my then current relationship back.
That my journey would most likely go round in a circle.

So did I really want to risk losing it all, for the voice in my head that said:
“This isn’t you.” ?

The truth is of course, that I did.

We broke up in October 2006, after 14 years. But from April on, that year, I was already accompanied by my new companion; Writing.
It was as if the voice of God, the voice of The Muse, the voice of destiny had all come to me in the same voice:
My own.

First the voice came in the shape of my old diaries I found in the attic. To this day that story is my bio on my sales page. 
Then the voice became my first writing, and almost immediately I took on a pseudonym.
I rationalized the pseudonym with needing the privacy. I was a yoga teacher and didn’t want to discuss my personal writing in class.
I needed two separate identities.
But with the decision being almost immediately – far before I had a website, posted to social media and so on – was it really a rational choice?
Or was LS Harteveld, from the get go, the real me?

I think what I have experienced the last three years and why this site/ my writing/ and basically everything in my life has been so messy, was a deep mourning sparked by people leaving, my sweet pet dying.
Things shifting – in particular in the relationship with my former lover Mr.Big. He broke up with me in December. (2019) But I really date that first shift back to late 2017, early 2018.
That’s when something changed.

And I m sure I m forgetting other factors as well- 
But they all resulted in me trying everything for three years to “make things right”.
When I know now:
They are never going to be “right”.

My 14 year journey on a quest for sexuality and relationship styles that do suit me;
It has no happy ending.

What I want, or perhaps “What I am”, she has no happy endings.

Not because I am not deserving of them, but because what I am is so rare, although many say it is common.
Many say that the softporn movie for which I actually joined Netflix for the first time, “365 Days”, as well as another female-gets-conquered-by-domineering-man saga, “50 Shades” can be explained by what “I” have, to be extremely common.
If all women want what I want, and they project that onto that movie which is why they are so popular, then all women want a dominant.

But fortunately or perhaps unfortunately, the sex and relationship I wanted or needed or desired, was a bit more complicated than that. 

So, what is it I discovered in those 14 years?
What is this illusive, strange, 50 Shades, 365 Days, Might be Common After All dynamic that I require with a man, that explains;
– why it took me 14 effin’ years to figure this shit out
– why I have instinctively wanted to stop writing under this strong, candid, Reality-Creating-By-Pen account of LS Harteveld, so often…
I can’t even promise it will never happen again, that’s how much this account conflicts with what I would want from a man!
– why all men with whom I ve had fantastic sex with – with the exception of the man I had a 14 year long relationship with, but all others – did not choose for me, and left me for other women as if it was the most logical, sensible thing in the world that of course I was not chosen.
– And what is this illusive, strange dynamic that I require with a man that they were probably right, when they thought it was the most logical, sensible thing in the world to not choose me?

Secret 1:
I, NEED TO BE WANTED

Not needed.
Not allowed.
Not loved, although that’s obviously part of it.
Not a good fit, in any normal, functional, practical way.
No WAN-TED.
Craved.
Desired.

Possessed.

Secret 2
It’s hard to be ALL that you are, if someone is not doing well

After 14 years of searching I know why the relationship I was in (until 2006) was not the perfect one.
And I do not expect I will go around in a circle and we will ever become lovers again, the way I thought we would. 
Because although our bond was a day-to-day little party of two teens having fun (basically);
He was suffering in a way I could not help him with. 
I took as much load off his shoulders as I could, hoping he’d refind his strength.
But to no avail.

And because I had been with him for so long, I started thinking I was probably part of the problem since I was obviously no part of the solution. No matter what I tried it wasn’t working.

This connects to why I believe I should pick up and continue writing on this account, as LS Harteveld, for as long and as often as I can.
To avoid something like that ever happening again, I need to present the strongest, fiercest side of myself.
I need to dial up, and not tone down. And allow myself to show “my full size” so to speak. 

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Secret 3
I need a dominant partner,

14 Years after leaving that relationship, I think there was something else besides the altruistic motive of not wanting my career overshadowing him and making matters worse. 
The less altruistic reason was:
I needed him to be strong.
I needed him to be dominant.

Very.

And I wish I had known this!
Not only do I see now that relationship failing did not have anything to do with him changing. I changed. I needed something else, and I didn’t know it.
And had I known it, I also would not have needed the 14 years of dating and truth-finding that followed.

So the reason I return today here on this blog, writing, and the reason I am convinced I need to keep writing as LS Harteveld, is because LS Harteveld shows who I am, the strongest most unapologetic side of me.
If a man I am in love with, can (could, in the very unlikely case my love life with Mr.Big picks up, would) deal with being with LS Harteveld? He can deal with anything.
And if not, LS Harteveld saves us a lot of time.

secret 4
Non-Monogamy 

Firstly non monogamy for myself, although that requires some elaboration.
Non-monogamy for myself means that if there are or come other men into my life, I want my partner to be supportive of that.
A strong partner is not a strong partner, if he believes that he has to isolate his woman, because she will otherwise run from him.
As such non-monogamy is required, regardless of the chances of multiple partners ever happening for me.

But the major thing is non-monogamy on his side.

Like I said, my key element in a relationship is to be wanted. Not NEEDED.
If I m the only one he has sex with, that comes dangerously close to being needed, since who else is he going to have sex with, right?
I m not saying he necessarily has to have an entire harem – he still has to make me feel wanted above anything else, so there are of course some challenges there – but he does need enough space and time away from me, so that I don’t know what he’s up to all the time.

This complicated non-monogamy, where I require a partner to be his own man, was the hardest or perhaps most uncommon thing about my sexuality, that I uncovered in 14 years.
That I was never bothered by a desire to break free from my monogamous relationship, which in fact could explain why my new “lover” in 2006 became Writing and not a crush on another man, but that in hindsight I had been bothered by my partner not having an interest in other women.

To this day, I have not met anybody so outspoken with regard to that, who wanted his or her partner to have sex with other people.
If I would have to guess, I would think that from the secrets this one was the hardest to figure out.
I think it took 10 years.
It wasn’t until I became a mistress to Mr.Big, a secret lover, that it started to dawn on me that I liked another woman “there”.
Even if it meant I was the lover, the mistress.
I felt more at ease there than being in a monogamous relationship, that much was certain.

Needing a dominant lover was a relatively easy thing to figure out.
And when it comes to behavior between the sheets, most men are willing to do you a favor.
What took a whole lot of extra time, was realizing that a desire for a dominant in sex or a dominant lover, was rooted in a need to be wanted.
I didn’t know that.
It does explain why I feel so hurt and immediately want to leave if I feel a lover doesn’t want me.
If my lover doesn’t want me, I have no business being around him.
It may explain why I took the breakup (December 2019) reasonably well;
I don’t put up a fight, when I ve already lost.

It also took the full 14 years, until this week, which is why I consider my journey finished, to realize why all the men I had amazing sex with left me.
And that is because being domineering in bed, and being able to make me feel wanted – or even wanting me – are not the same as wanting a relationship.
And this brings me to something no one has ever brought up.

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5. The Biggest Secret I Discovered About Relationships Has Been Around Since 50 Shades

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In the entire 50 Shades discussion, where Christian Grey negotiates his liaison with Anastasia with an extensive contract about what it is they are going to do, I have not heard anything about which I consider now to be the biggest secret I learned.

It was also never mentioned in the consent/ no consent conversation around Netfix’s streambuster “365 Days” where a Massimo abducts Laura and gives her 365 days to fall in love with him.

It’s so simple though.

Not only did these men make the women they desired feel wanted.
Not only were they both dominant in bed.
But *drum roll* they also both laid out the structure their relationship was going to have!

Ana got her say in anything from her hard limits to how much time they would spend together every week.
And Laura knew she would be held captive, but never be touched unless or until she would be literally begging for it.
And Massimo kept his word.

Both women were not just consistently asked for their consent; The structure of the relationship was mapped out for them.

I bet my writing pen, my Lauren Harteveld 2.0 rebirth, and all the lovers that I will probably no longer ever have because I am the strong bold blogger LS Harteveld who nobody dares to date – I bet all those things it was never Christian Grey’s money we fancied.
Nor being robbed of our free will by Mossano.
It was never because we – let’s make that “I” and not hide – wanted rapey sex,
although of course I want that too.

No, the thing that explains both the appeal of 50 Shades as well as 365 Days is that it depicts a dominant man, who stands for his desire for a woman.
He wants her.
And yes he lives up to his end of the bargain and is a good lover.

And yet still, it was never even about dominance or wanting her, or being a good lover.

In the end what explains the appeal of the movies, and men like Christian and Mossano, is that they wanted and offered, a real relationship, right from the get go. 

The most deviant thing of all, I guess 😉 

~Lauren
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

(paragraph below is still part of the original blog/ draft. I ve kept it in because I like to share this in its complete form, just like I found it)

The Journey Has Ended – but will be continued in modest form

I really have no idea how often I will write here.
From 2006-2020 I ve written a lot- but it was tied to finding out who I was sexually and relationship-wise, and didn’t really come with instructions of what the 2020 maintenance dose should be after I had reached my destination.

Nor was it set up knowing that I would be so uncomfortable to give up writing now that we are here – at the end of our journey, and coming to terms with the fact that maybe Writing was my Lover all along…
I feel so trapped and confused thinking about how I was always not chosen as a real relationship, yet at the same time I know quitting writing is not the solution.

What I do know is that I feel strong(er) with writing, than without.
And a little less as if the 14 years were in vain.

So until next time it is then, my friend.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

 

Diabolic

Published on by LS Harteveld

my favorite “diabolic” relationship: Detective Nick Curran and writer Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct (1992) Promotional photo.

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.

Dear Sara,

This letter was originally a letter to my pen pal, the one I call “Nikki” in my 1996 series.
He had written me last week, and as excited as I was with it, I just realized this morning (Sunday morning):
“Fuck! I still have not written Nikki back!”
And in my mind I saw my week calendar coming up, realizing I would not get around to it before Tuesday at the earliest, if I did not do it this morning. 
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But before I could shift gears to the sexual, the cheerful, the playful, I needed to share what had happened here in the Netherlands, that had upset me so much.
That had in fact, cost me an entire week.
Including all the days where I could have been writing him back, and – in all honesty – that WOULD have been the better time investment.
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But then after 800 words, and still trying to understand how two scandals had been able to hijack all my free hours so effortlessly – what was the common denominator? how were these two scandals  linked? – I realized I did not want this in my relationship with him (Nikki).
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Writing him would have to wait, until I felt playful and sexual.
..
But the 800 words I had already written, were valuable.
I was certain that I would not have been so mesmerized by the news and Twitter, if it had not touched on something deeply personal.
There was a lesson in there that had already cost me 5 days, multiple Facebook diary entries (the C diaries), numerous tweets, and now 800 words.
I did not want to let those investments go to waste.
.
So here it is:
The story about what happened this week, the coachable version where I grow and stuff! 
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And then later today I ll see if there is still life, under the belt. 
.

Welcome to The Netherlands!
Where You Can Spend 1.6 billion But Not Have Sex In An Unequal Relationship

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(Dear Nikki,)
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Okay it’s a Sunday Morning now and I wish I had written you sooner!
Not because I owe it to you or something, but because I was so happy to hear from you.
But I think the damage had already been done.
The tone of the week was already set, the ship had sailed, and although I did not know it back then, I was basically going to throw away one week of my life.
.
It had already cost me my joy, peace of mind, sexuality, and possibly my future if I had not, finally, yesterday night, found a way to untie myself from the horror that was going on in The Netherlands.
.

It was not even my own accomplishment that I could break the spell and pick up the pieces of my life.
It was because by then I had witnessed for 48 hours that everybody on Twitter was (finally?);
Equally appalled.
Equally angry.

And also; Equally trying to find the nuance on a second topic that had been bogging me since Tuesday, just like the first topic had.

It is frustrating to have TWO political topics “escalate” (I think the word escalate suggests too much simplicity in the matter, when of course these things are never simple), but “escalate” in the same 24 hours (Tuesday), and to then have that day in, day out, feeling that something is so very frickin’ off!
Yet you keep refreshing all the regular, official, news sites, and the most obvious point of view or opinion is never on there.

But by Friday it had turned around.
The news sites were still mild, or only addressed it in a roundabout way:
But on Twitter there was not a single message, that was favorable to the ludicrous plan of our minister of public health to “invest” 1.6 billion dollars in a shadow “test for entrance” society, which he has set up and is already running without any democratic process.

He’s rolling out a (commercially run!) dystopian Brave New World layer over our entire society.

Even when you’re vaccinated, you will have to get tested first (with a €7,50 personal fee) before you get a 24 hour time window to visit a restaurant, cinema and so on.
EVEN WHEN YOU RE VACCINATED!

The first 0.7 billion will already be gone, {Dutch tweet thread that estimates the costs of first months at 1.6 billion euros}
but next week the minister has to pass a law to get his way.

Even though the regular news sites are not yet entirely up to speed with the anger and the rage of the Dutch;
I m convinced that by now this law cannot be passed through parliament.

We will not have a society where we have to buy back our freedom, one 24 hours at a time.

The other topic that bothered me was a politician who has been sent home because he is a 40+ gay man who has been grooming barely legal teens for years.
And now these boys have come out with their stories, about how they felt dirty or used, or just weird.
Again: This topic was on Twitter 24 hours before the first news site even mentioned it.
Basically, it was kept off the news sites, until the decision to fire him was already made, but that is extremely weird if you read on Twitter all these stories from those boys, and to then not have national media mention it;
It’s very surreal.

I m still coming to grips with it, why this sexual scandal disturbed me so much and I think I’ve finally gotten my head around it:
It’s because I resent how we allow for all kinds of power differences, dependencies, and allow for the giving away of power not just to exist in society, but we actually encourage making disempowering choices all the time.

What we call “security”, usually means a dependency on one employer or one relationship partner.

What we call “health care”, usually means a dependency on the medical world. The moment something is wrong, we throw it over the fence of the hospital and expect them to fix it.

What we call “economy”, means that we support ALL life styles where money exchanges hands, at the legalized level of life.
That’s why (street) drug abuse is not supported: Regular business and government do not make money off of selling street coke or heroin, which is why that lifestyle is frowned upon.
But because the legal businesses and government make money selling alcohol, potato chips and donuts; You can get those all you want.

I even read an interesting article about “active mobility”, doing your commute by foot or on bicycle: 
(Dutch) Fietsen is veel beter voor het klimaat dan elektrische auto

Active mobility, meaning getting everybody to walk or cycle to work, is a much faster route to getting clean transportation than to develop electrical cars.
But cyclists are not a part of economy, the way car buyers are.
So that solution is never pushed/ facilitated and we’re supposedly dependent on an affordable Tesla which will still cause much more pollution than cycling.

Dependency, is so interwoven with our society, that we don’t even see it anymore.

None of us are taught, EVER, what the difference is between having  power and not having power.
And that people who have it, will almost automatically use it for their own gain or that of their friends, so that they can gain even more power.

If you look at the FACTS, there really is no other conclusion than that human nature, is either inherently evil, or accidentally evil;
And that it takes a lot of things to have gone right in the way you were raised and in who you are, and THEN it will also take an incredible amount of resources in the broadest sense,
for you to not grow up a 40+ politician who has either just spent 1.6 billion euros of his people on a megalomaniac project that will bring his country to bankruptcy or civil war in the upcoming years;
Or a politician who has been grooming barely legal teens just dropping his name, and making sexual remarks and not taking any responsibility for hurting and damaging these boys who deserved to be protected and guided.

It takes a lot to NOT become that.

And the only difference between the two is that spending 1.6 billion  state funding on commercial parties, goes by unpunished.
Maybe you’ll be halted in your tracks after the first 0.7 billion, but that’s basically as bad as it’s gonna get.

Whereas for the sex with the teen boys you will be fired and Twitter crucified.
Which by the way, is not because the boys wanted that, but because Twitter thought that was the appropriate punishment and after 24 hours your employer/party agreed with Twitter. 

In hindsight the situations with the two politicians behaving badly, and only the sexual one being sent home, raised a VERY FUNDAMENTAL question for me!
And one I will totally bring home, but first:

By now this letter is of course entirely fictional!
There was no frickin way I was going to let it come THIS far, writing this much heavy ass stuff to my pen pal “Nikki”.
The part that was initially written for Nikki, ended paragraphs ago.

But let’s move on and bring it home.

The relevant questions is this:
Shouldn’t any discussion about financial violence or sexual violence , or simply “violence”, or maybe even “any discussion” FIRST be preceded by a fundamental analysis on dependency?

That you cannot discuss abuse of power, or power differences, before you know how there is a dependency, why, and what the instruments or weapons in the toolbox are, of both parties.
How could the outcome have been different?

For example, discussion on Twitter is now around “empowering” young gay men, or what type of protection they could benefit from.
However, there is also a lot of push back to this, because it is in part victim blaming.
It has the suggestion that if you have not properly defended yourself, the victim is to blame.
Which is of course a horrible suggestion.

However, if you start from the viewpoint that both politicians are inherently evil (meaning without empathy and selfishly going after their own gain), or that they are incompetent;
You can easily see that no solution can be expected from them.

So unless you have an idea on how we are going to turn every man to the path of the righteous and the enlightened;
The only way to deal with financial and sexual violence, is to empower the ones who can fall victim to these predators.

And that is the discussion where, if you do it from a broad perspective, you can start making lists of your resources, your weapons, your desired outcomes.

What do you need (f.e. extreme financial independence) to no longer be disturbed by government spending 1.6 billion and risking civil war?

What do you need (f.e. a tribe that supports you) to own your sexuality and therefor also be totally immune to grooming?

The reason I stared for five days at my news feed and Twitter, is because I needed that time to realize that I refuse to start discussing something at the level of the problem.
Because the problem is always the same:
People are inherently evil or inadequate.

And the solution is also always the same:
You have to strive to be completely independent.
You have to strive for FREEDOM

The moment you are willing to give up your freedom, and let someone else make decisions for you:
You re fucked.
(because: People are inherently evil or inadequate.)

You must have a clear view of why you do things, even when you do them for money. Even when you do them for your own gain!
And in particular:
If you do them to survive……

Whether it’s a normal job to live a normal life;
Whether it’s dating a 40+ year old because at that moment in time he’s the only one who can bring you further to where you want to be;
Or whether you get away with 1.6 billion euros;
Keep. Your. Eyes. Open!

Look death in the eye.
Look poverty in the eye.
Look evil in the eye.
Look in the mirror and see if evil is there!

Be there on the brink of the inferno of your life, always on the edge between what is right and what is wrong, knowing that you will most likely make the wrong choice.
Knowing that most people that evil.
And that you’re either going to end up being hurt, OR you re going to end up hurting others.

And train yourself, coach yourself, and never let go of yourself;
To be okay with that.

Because in order to find God:
You must first be undisturbed by the devil.

.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

.

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My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
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Emphatic* Thoughts On Why You Should Take The Vaccine

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

Let’s first acknowledge that I’m not writing this for those who believe in the science backing up that mRNA Covid19 vaccination is a good thing.
The people who are choosing based on numbers and science, do not need convincing.
And even more so today, when information leaked from China, that their traditional method of extracting a vaccine has supposedly led to a (traditional) vaccine that is less effective.

I am also not writing this for the ones who identify with a certain religion, a certain spiritual lineage or leader, or who deeply align with certain principles, such as freedom of choice or a desire to keep things close to how mother nature intended them.
They will not need extra information or input on their decision.

They have their faith to guide them.
And we should respect that because ultimately, no one knows the answer for certain.

What I will say, and I may risk getting my message removed from the socials, so I will speak about this in the most careful terms, is that from the perspective of risk spreading I’m actually surprised all governments seem to be aiming at vaccinating as many people as possible.
Keeping part of your population non-vaccinated is always a good idea, and although you cannot and should not withhold vaccines: If part of your population does not want it, I think that comes up with a perfect mix of 10-20% staying unprotected.

It’s like with those bananas you can get in the supermarket since the 50’s: They’re all Cavendish bananas, they’re “clones”, infertile, and were selected because they were resistant to the Panama disease that wiped out their predecessor Gros Michel.

But in 2008 the race 4 mutation of the same Panama disease started affecting Cavendish, and to this day no one knows what bananas we’ll be eating in the future.
Gen-mo bananas (which might be resistant to Panama race 4) are not allowed to be shipped worldwide.

All trade and research and development has been focused on planting and trading one sterile, cloned banana, for 70 years.

Whereas if they had kept 20% of production Gros Michel – which was also the best tasting banana!-
or if they had immediately started developing new seedless banana types, for some variety, chances to beat Panama race 4 would have been much better.

So I think that it should never be the aim to get everybody vaccinated, if 70 years from now you want to be prepared for your version of the Panama race 4 mutation.
Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.

There are stories about the black plague wiping out entire villages, but the people who survived, have brought forth offspring with DNA that protects them to hiv/AIDS.

So translating to today’s standards, where not wanting to be vaccinated is a personal choice and you will, or should, be able to get vaccinated;
Never underestimate the tremendous value of people who don’t and are willing to risk getting sick.
It might prove to be extremely valuable one day.

But I’m getting sidetracked, because this post is really not about to vaccinate or not to vaccinate from a medical or scientific perspective!
It is about why you may consider doing it from a social perspective.

I feel all discussion has polarized to:
People who see their health as something personal, are against vaccination.
And people who feel a collective HEALTH responsibility are pro.

I think the space to have more people choose vaccination, appears when we step away from the medical model of:
vaccination = immunity = protecting people
to
vaccination = REASSURING PEOPLE

The anger people who are pro-vaccination feel towards people who are not, exists because they’re assuming everybody will get vaccinated because it’s the “right” thing to do, “because” you protect other people.
There is a certain laziness in this plea, entitlement even.

A certain:
“I’m not sharing my real fear and vulnerability. I’m not asking you to put yourself on the line for me so I can sleep sound.
I want you to do it because it’s RIGHT!”

Well I don’t know about you, but I get extreme allergic reactions to assumptions made on me doing something because I have to because it is right; 
Because it is a sign I am a good person;
Or gives me the right to even exist.

I immediately throw myself in antagonist mode, because I WILL SHOW AND I WILL PROVE!
That I bow to no one.

That no one can make me do ANYTHING!

That I will rather DIE, than comply with your wishes.
Because I feel that if I start doing this for you?
It will never end.

First it’s social distance.
Then it’s test and trace.
Then it’s vaccinate
And 70 years from now you will still be ringing my doorbell with new things you want from me.

I know how totally annoying it is when you (and me) are expected to just roll over and comply.
Rebelling against that is as appealing to me as it is to you.
And probably even more to me.

But what I am offering is this:
What if we forgive people for not asking nicely?

What if we forgive people for not knowing how to ask, in an honest, disarming way:
“Covid really scares me. And it would make me feel so much better if you were vaccinated, because then I don’t have to worry. Will you do that for me?”

What if we made vaccination not something we do to physically protect each other, but to mentally protect each other?
Vaccination as a sign of courtesy that you understand the fear, and that you are happy to take the vaccine, including running any risks. That it is not your or my job to fully understand what is best for us INDIVIDUALLY;
Because unless you’re prepared to be the sole survivor of this pandemic, by making the right choice every step of the way, you have chosen to be part of society.

Behaving in a way most people need to be comfortable around you, is the price of living in a community.
Just like we don’t run around naked, but cover up and wear clothes instead.
Being naked is much healthier but we accept that wearing clothes is a price for being part of society.

And you could even take it one step further;
What if people looked up to you?
What if your position in society means that people are influenced by how you think about it, by the choice you make?

How do you think Jesus, or Buddha, or contemporary spiritual leaders, or world leaders, view the vaccine or would have viewed the vaccine?
Do you think these people would have made their choice based on what THEIR body needed?
I think not.

In Lord of the Rings Legolas the Elf points out the dangers of the approaching armies at Helm’s Deep, and how the warriors of Helm’s Deep are either too young, or too old. Their armor poor.
Legolas predicts, speaking in Elvish, that the people of Helm’s Deep will die in battle.
And then Aragorn, their future king, says to Legolas in common speech:
“Then I shall die as one of them.”

It is not up to you to avoid death.
Nor to avoid battle.
It is not up to you to judge the armor, or the condition of the warriors.

It is up to you to take your place in battle.
Side by side, with your people.

It is up to you, who shall be made King.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

[*] Probably because I am not a native English speaker, I used the word emphatic (thoughts on) , when it should have been “empathetic” (thoughts on).
Emphatic:  done or said in a strong way and without any doubt.
Empathetic: having the ability to imagine how someone else feels.
But since this piece came out so outspoken, and with great clarity, I did not change the title when I discovered my mistake.
It is indeed, emphatic.

Emphatic* Thoughts On Why You Should Take The Vaccine
is one of the 2021 chapters of
The Covid Diaries

about “GLOW-UP 2026”

In January, Google has started pushing my old posts.
Unfortunately, my website was one of many casualties of WordPress Gugenheim software updates.
Meaning the layout of this post was completely destroyed and none of the new visitors was able to read it.

Therefor I have decided to run by all my old posts, starting with the ones currently in rotation, and give them a well-deserved update that will do what glow-ups are supposed to do;
Make them better.

—
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The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU 
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Nederlands blog:
https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sexless Saturdays | 1996 diary

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
d3e85150adf706e778f660766e78b73a--a-prayer-madonnadiary 1996 ON MY KNEES Saturday April 3, 1996 Maybe it is because my correspondence with Nikki, the British Bon Jovi bootleg trader, has been slow. Because I don’t remember last year’s Easter to be so dull and slow, and that was when Bear and me were still in full breakup mode. I don’t remember if we had a late or early Easter but either way, by the beginning of April 1995, Bear and me were either not seeing each other at all, or we were in the modest coffee date phase. After that breakup December 1994 when he told me he had someone else, someone who wanted more than “just” sex (he didn’t say that but I know that is what he meant) we had months in a row when it did not seem like we would pick it up. Least of all sexually. But also the friendship he had promised me seemed to have been taken off the table. I did not blame him, I assumed it probably meant that he did have feelings for me, and needed to not see me to make the other relationship work. Yet I can’t remember Easter weekend feeling so lonely then. Even though I did not have a pen pall then who had paused our correspondence. Nor did I have the Thursday Sunday dates at the Hard Rock Cafe, that were cancelled. Like they are now. Maybe that is the key: Because I didn’t have contact with Bear, I didn’t have a hot letter exchange with a man I called Nikki, and I didn’t have anything-goes nights at the bar with like-minded souls. So I didn’t miss them either. But now I do. Very much. I can’t remember ever feeling so lonely at Easter, although in my case the worse is already over. Thursday night, Friday and today I was alone. But tomorrow and Monday I have company. It’s always darkest before the dawn. With a little luck I ll be resurrected tomorrow. . tolot-4diary 1996 HANGING BY A THREAD Saturday April 11, 1996 Since it’s exactly one week ago, I wrote in my diary last, it seems to be a Saturday night thing: Feeling lonely. Feeling asexual, deserted, hopeless. In a vacuum that is filled by movies on TV because I m too numb to even put on a VHS, or to listen to Bon Jovi bootlegs to write reviews for the fanclub. I can’t concentrate for ten minutes, let alone for 2,5 hours listening to a crackly cassette. So sexless Saturday seems to be here to stay. Today I walked, I cycled, I masturbated AND I did yoga. That’s four physical activities, that should be able to sustain some feeling of vitality or even sensuality. Some feeling of aliveness below the belt. But nothing lasted and I feel fat and slow, as if I sat on the couch and ate nachos all day. If you would call me, you’d hear an echo. If you’d water me, I would drown. If you’d invite me for a party, I would answer I have nothing to wear, because everything feels off. I checked my calendar: It s almost 5 weeks since Bear and me had sex. And it’s not even two weeks since I last heard from Nikki. A small note with the latest bootleg, explaining he would have little time to write. I received the letter on April 1st, and thought it was the worst April fools day joke ever. In particular since he sent the letter from England so there was no way for him to know it would reach me on April 1st. But I did feel like a fool. Not just with regard to him, but because I feel so dependent on men. My sexuality just seems to die, the moment they turn their backs on me. And my body even! I couldn’t go to Thursday’s Hard Rock Cafe because my belly was hurting so badly. It was one of the few spots without easily infected organs, and it responded to breathing, so it’s probably a muscle and not an organ. Nothing to worry about at all. But there were moments I could not even sit up straight, so no Hard Rock Cafe for me. . And another Saturday night at home wondering what I need to do to stay “alive”, in the broadest sense. And not shrivel into sexual nothingness the moment I am deprived of men, music and more. It will take a man or a miracle, and I suspect a miracle won’t cover it. . ~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living
New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And are published together, here on this blog. Sexless Saturdays | 1996 diary is the ninth chapter to 1996 diary  Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Road Map To Success Received. Over.

Published on by LS Harteveld

GarrapataBeach_BasicInstinct (1)“I’m a writer, I use people for what I write.
You write what you know.
Let the world beware.”

Catherine Tramell

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.

Dear Sara,

When I was looking for a new photo of rock star writer Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct, to go with this post, I could not help but wonder:
“Why am I making this so complicated?”
Why do I switch from calling myself a rock star writer, to rock star artist, simply rock star (in a brave attempt to be done with the issue), to rock star creator?
.
Only to end up on Sunday 28th March, eagerly writing you ten days before our usual date, because I feel I have such big news!
“I am a writer Sara! I m certain of it!”
.
It’s either writing you this early debriefing or tattoos, Sara.
.
Either I try to grasp this truth, by ingraining it into my very soul.
Or I get tattoos: “I am a writer! I am a writer! I am a writer!” covering my entire body.
And because I m attached to keeping my skin as it is, after not getting tattooed age 16 because I could not choose between a skull on my upper-arm or a tribal at my lower back, I m not getting the tattoo.
.
In hindsight it’s a good thing I didn’t get those tattoos, because the correct choice at the time was the tribal on my lower back because it was original and very aesthetic.
Except that was 1988.
Ten years later half of female Netherlands had one, yet the skulls-to-upper arm tattoos are to this day reserved for a small and conspicuous group!
.
The reason I already knew of the tribal lower back tattoos way before anyone else did, was because I was subscribed to a magazine, Revu, which was catered to a male audience. It had a lot of reports on crime, interviews with famous men (mostly) and leaned heavily on photography.
One of their photographers was Patricia Steur, who was good friend with Henk Schiffmacher who also worked at Revu and may be the most famous tattoo artist of the world.
I m not really sure because I once saw a documentary on a former Amsterdam brothel Yab Yub, and the documentary contained a 90s clip that it was the most expensive club/brothel of the world and it struck me how little fact-checking could be done in the 90s….
With this story about Steur and Schiffmacher taking place in the 80s, I have no idea who was the most famous tattoo artist then!
.
But Patricia Steur worked with Henk Schiffmacher at this magazine, and he was the one who brought these tribal tattoos from the Maori into his work.
So that is why Patricia had one of the first lower back tribal tattoos of the world.
.
I can’t remember on which photo in Revu I saw her tattoo, but I do remember telling for decades after, how I almost got one of those tattoos, because in the 80s Patricia Steur had one.
So that’s how I know it was her!
.
So, no tattoos again, but I do hope to remember for the rest of a life:
I AM A WRITER!
.
Even though I have called myself Rock Star * something *  for ages.
.
So before this morning’s epiphany, I was a Rock Star Creator.
Which I have been for about four months.
Although “Creator” was, and is, technically true, I knew it didn’t have the right ring.
.
And then I haven’t even discussed the 20 years where I identified as a yoga teacher!
And since 2015 a Rock Star Yoga Teacher, yes.
.
But I have discovered that the underlying principle in ALL my work, and also why ALL my titles feel wrong and yucky, is a mindset one.
.
It is the principle that reality is created by yourself, a concept often referred to as metaphysics.
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Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.
Wikipedia

The great 20th century thinkers I study are often referred to as metaphysical teachers, but I have discovered it is a bit more complicated than that.

Or a lot more complicated
And that trying to explain to what branch I belong within metaphysics, is only going to complicate matters even further.
.
It’s like if you want to know the nature of the universe you ultimately end up with mostly space and a few atoms flying around in whatever way you think they’re flying around;
Once I start studying what I do, who I am, hoping to find something solid?
I end up with endless spaciousness and limitless options of what could be true.
.
Before I wrap this up to how this ultimately has helped me find my way back, just a little word on that metaphysics being the basis from which I operate;
It explains SO MUCH about why I don’t get along at all with every day life! 
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Because I really feel reality is being created by us, because the emotions attached to it are created by us, and therefor, just like the atoms, the truth is shaped not so much based on how reality was at t=-1
But at how we responded (usually: freaked the fuck out) at t=-1
.
So therefor in discussing, or solving a problem existing at t=0 (now), I automatically, I really cannot stop this, start looking at t=-1
“Okay, let’s start at the beginning:
Who was energetically connecting with this thing at t=-1?
And who is probably still giving it their undivided negative fear-based attention?”
and:
What does that person need to stop doing that?
.
The professional, teacher, guru, who can leave the first half of the entire equation out, and start treating the situation without addressing that, but instead immediately comes up with something that automatically addresses the final part (stops people to worry, and elevates them to start thinking and believing constructively);
That person can save the world.
He or she makes the bad situation now go away without discussing how we got from t=-1 to t=0 because we thought ourselves that way.
The fictional imaginary thoughts that gave an outcome that was perceived as reality (but that were just thoughts about reality), are reversed, by giving a tangible solution or system that will reverse an unwanted t=0 back to a neutral t=-1.
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And since many professionals believe their system, their yoga, their self-help book, their medical treatment, solves the problem; And many people consulting these professionals have faith in these methods;
A lot of good is done in this world!
Problems are solved in a natural swift matter, without anybody yelling at the top of their lungs:
“Who let his or her fear-mind run rampant, and worried us all into the apocalypse? Well?”
.
I would.
.
And I would be pointing, as if it was pee or poo that someone just dropped in the middle of the living and that I simply refused to clean up, without first coming to an understanding that this is preventable if we all use the toilet.
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I don’t mind cleaning up poo, I don’t mind attending to the ones who are incapable of controlling their bowel movements.
But I am not the person to start normalizing just letting it run all over the place.
.
However, tackling t=0 problems rarely includes an assessment of t=-1,
and how we got from one to the other.
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So much for the metaphysical part of this post.
.
Am I a metaphysical teacher who writes and speaks about the nature of reality?
Absolutely.
Am I now going to call myself Rock Star Metaphysical Teacher?
Not even at t= one million years.
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So the past couple of weeks I went through a cycle of feeling “I m almost there!” “I am so close to finally defining what I do!”
Only to end up with out of control atoms, shooting in every direction.
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Okay, that was not little..
A little word on metaphysics, right? That’s how I announced it. And then it was not little. 
This makes it difficult to write this post, as I intended. Because I was going to include the whole process of how I got there, by copying directly from my journal.
I had done 7 journaling exercises to discover my values! 
Discovering my VALUES is what gave me my big OMG I REALLY AM A WRITER! moment!
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It was an exercise I had been wanting to do for some time now. It was as if I knew it (knowing my values) held information that was important. Even to me.
Although even not knowing my values I can’t really go against them, effectively.
I just blow things up, if I do something against my values.
But without knowing why, and without knowing beforehand I m going to blow it up;
So I think my curiosity to know my values was also practical. To make things more pleasant for everybody.
.
And the exercise went really well.
Because regardless of how broad my likes and dislikes were, as were the things I wanted to change, and as wide as the gap between me and the world seemed (it even included full-blown rants);
They all created a picture that was “Remarkably consistent”!
That was also the alternative title for this post. “Remarkably consistent.”
Because if I don’t count all my endless deviations where I try so very hard not to be a writer, I really am very consistent!
The only thing I really have been doing all the time, is writing. Regardless of how I label it.
.
I’ll take you by the biggest aspects of my values/ life, and how they point to being a writer. And not to anything else, not even a world famous artist/ creator.
Here we go.
.

value; being at home with my cats

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Well, “at home”? After a year of being Covid-confined, I would appreciate a week away now and then, but that doesn’t exactly count as “rocking your life and making it big”.
Keith Haring didn’t spend the last years of his life sitting at home and sending his paintings out on UPS.
Marina lived from a van for years and then had a great wall to climb.
And every big artist in history has multiple houses, which they visit in the scarce weeks they are not touring the world.
.
Staying at home in the world of art, is not really a thing.
Unless?
You guessed it; Unless you’re a writer.
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A writer is the only person of whom it is accepted that they only visit the real world. Occasionally.
We don’t like leaving the house.
Or as Catherine puts it, when Nick Curran and Gus come to her house trying to make her come to the station voluntarily:
“Read me my rights and arrest me, and I’ll go downtown. Otherwise, get the fuck out of here.”
There is a silence and she looks at the detectives:
“Please.”
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value; freedom

.
Freedom in the broadest sense, for example sexually, creatively and financially.
But that’s not exclusive to being a writer, so I m going to focus on why “freedom” was insufficiently guaranteed by defining myself as a speaker, artist, creator and even “author”. Since author means you have a publisher.
.
The freedom a self-published writer has, that almost no other artist has is:
Not being bothered by contractual obligations!
I did not stop having a company, stop being a business, to prevent having to deal with legislation surrounding that (such as privacy of data, financial administrative obligations, terms of service, liability) to ever allow for even the scent of administrative and communicative obligations, expectations, fine tuning and so on.
.
I have total freedom to create whatever I want.
And then you are free to pay me because you desire to do so, you can shower me with gifts or you buy from me. Or you don’t.
It’s that simple.
.
So it’s not that I would not be able to entertain, to enlighten, to surprise, and to charge thousands for a public appearance or make tons of money from a tour.
It’s just that I don’t want to because I don’t want the paperwork, liabilities, and professionalism. The availability to other people’s agenda.
I ll just be a writer.
.
And if you want me to come over?
Then YOU get the paperwork in order and take care of my transportation downtown, offer me coffee, and tell me where to sit.
.
And then I ll cross my legs and give you a show you’ll never forget.
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value; being in my own world

Fortunately, this is something many artists value, and many artists get to have!
However for teachers, entrepreneurs, leaders, entertainers, and service providers, “being in their own world” is not on the menu.
Their job, the aspect of their work they are paid for, is; They have to relate to other people.

Non-artists directly have to invest in the relationship with their public, audience, tribe, and actively participate in it.

When I, really, already feel slightly nauseous when I “have to” repost a blogpost I wrote myself, to give it a better exposure, and to be present on social media. 

On social media it makes a lot of difference when you post; if you post twice you really do get twice the number of readers. But that already feels, to me, out of integrity. Even though up until now I have done it. 
I feel I owe it to my work and also readers, when deep down?
It is not what I really want. Nor what I feel is in integrity for me.

This feels in integrity to me:
Write whatever I want. post it. The end.

And on days I do not write (for that account) I still have not found my form in how to communicate, really. How to not be a total jerk on social media, by not showing up unless you have something new;
But also stay true to myself and not repost , when I m really not feeling the same urgency as I did when I wrote the post….

But having said all this, deciding if you “have to” repost your own work, is still VERY different, to what your job is if you have a non-artist job.
Because you are paid to anticipate to what other people think and (most of all) what they need to feel better.
When, as we discussed in my take on metaphysics, that is not my forte.

I do have the empathy to see that everyone who is sad, in trouble, hurt, or just a bit flat and in need of some direction, deserves to be heard, helped, and inspired to do better and to make their life totally rock by some amazing system or show that you have for sale or that you are going to provide!
Amazing! Keep doing that!

But I m the person who touches their chin and wonders:
“Really? And what happened before that, at t=-1?”

Or: 
“Are you arresting me?”
“Can I change into something more appropriate?”
“Why would I need an attorney?”

I would ask:
“I’m using you for my detective. In my book. You don’t mind, do you?”

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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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Touched For The Very First Time | 1996 diary

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
hqdefault (2) CHOOSE WHERE I AM HURT THE MOST Friday March 12, 1996 I have no idea if the worst is over, because in that case it was pretty doable. But even if I have another wave coming of feeling worthless, hopeless or have a panic attack, I know now that I choose this. Because where you feel the most, you love the most. It’s not even 7 PM on a Friday and I have a lonely weekend ahead of me. A date got cancelled tonight, so there is no escaping what I have been pushing away since Monday. Bear and me had sex, for the first time since summer 1994. He broke up a few months after. Months in which we saw each other only once, as I recall. From infrequent, his calls seemed to disappear entirely. Until he set a date and we saw each other and he told me he was seeing someone else. Five years ended, just like that. Five years in which I knew I wasn’t the only one, and I think he has cheated on other women who were in a relationship with him. But it wasn’t all that obvious. Certainly not at the point where I could be held responsible. Which is not to say I accept responsibility today, because I don’t. His choice, his responsibility. Not mine. So there it is, the first weekend after we had sex and I know he’s with his girlfriend. They’ve been together every night since Monday of course. They live together. But still. It’s the weekends that hit the hardest. Where I am alone and he is not. And that hurts. There is no way of telling how hard this is going to be, but I have decided to see the pain as a sign I made the right choice to go with my heart. And not a sign it was the wrong one. Irritation. Impatience. Indifference. If I had these emotions it would be a sign I could get out, and would feel relieved to start anew. Anger. Reasoning. Blame. It would destroy me to feel so negatively about someone I had been so intimate with. But a heart that feels like its bleeding left to die. That’s a sign it was the right man. Where we’re hurt the most, is where we love the most. . THE EYE OF THE STORM Saturday March 13, 1996 The worst was indeed over. I went to bed way too late, but I slept alright and today is extremely productive. Although a bit lonely; After yesterday’s date falling through, today’s walk with a friend also got cancelled because of the weather. It’s storming. Originally I thought I was gonna go no matter what, but then I saw a piece of roof flying by. I live on the third floor! A piece of roof, like corrugated sheets but without the corrugation. I really wanted to go outside but the moment I realized that might include getting beheaded, I called him and we cancelled. So I didn’t have any daylight, fresh air, outdoor exercise nor social interaction. Which is not healthy, but at least I still have my head. Yesterday I had what I thought would be my final take on sleeping with Bear even tough he now has a girlfriend. And the pain of him leaving and not being my boyfriend, was more intense than it had been during all the years of what should probably count as “an affair”, even though he didn’t seem to be cheating, and I wasn’t seeing someone else. But the lightness of it, was “affair-worthy”. It’s strange that the same man leaving after sex now, going to his girlfriend and their house, is so much more painful than when I had no idea if I was the only one, yet I pictured him coming home in the student dorm and falling on the big couch in the man cave that was their shared living. And I was right, the worst really was over yesterday. Perhaps the whole process of getting over it and finding peace also came from reaching the conclusion in yesterday’s diary entry, that he was the right man. Not despite the pain but because of it. That we only get hurt where we love the most. To be in the calm of the eye of the storm, you need it to storm. Just don’t lose your head. . SHINY AND NEW Sunday March 14, 1996 When it rains it pours! But only good things, this time. Contrary to the last two days where I had no social interaction, and even daylight and fresh air got cancelled because of a storm; Today was filled with so much excitement, I feel my whole life is starting anew. That tomorrow, a Monday, my whole life will be healed, filled with meaningful relationships, and of course lots of sex. I haven’t felt this sexual in years! Me and Bear finally hit it off again, and me finally having all the way sex, first time in 18 months, seems to have sparked something. Something good. I haven’t felt this alive in ages. Today was spent with a friend, had lots of exercise, had to go to bed around dinnertime because I was so tired! And then tonight I went to the hard rock cafe which had “reopened”, after its unexpected and unexplained shutdown about a month ago. Still don’t know if it was by the health inspection or if those were just rumors. It wasn’t an official reopening or anything. They had opened the doors this afternoon, and put the chairs outside on the terrace, and word spread fast. A friend called me to tell me the good news, waking me from my nap. I only had one beer, but I talked to so many people and it feels so good to be back. Back in the land of the living. . TOUCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME Thursday March 25, 1996 It worked! I really am back in the land of the living. And the consequences of needing a sex life, or to saying Yes! to sex when the opportunity arises (and in case I m absolutely crazy about the man of course), have become clearer. They are indeed, inevitable. I refuse to live a sterile or monogamous life. Having one partner who is totally devoted to me, would kill my creativity, as much as living in a monastery would. People always think that I want to be the one who fools around, that not being in a relationship has perks because “then I can do whatever I want”. Which I think is so revealing about them…. It is they who wish they could do whatever they want. They have sacrificed a unique part of themselves, their sexual expression, because they thought they had to, to be worthy of love. When the part I would find suffocating, is him being monogamous to me. Not me being monogamous to him. That aspect of monogamy, is my default. Which is not to say I do not aspire to become more versatile. Nor do I intend to say No to a new lover, to being in love, to exploring one night stands or other non-committal versions of sex, with a man when I feel attracted to him. But it is not what comes easily and in all likeliness it will not be something I excel at. It will not come as natural as being faithful, but that does not mean it isn’t healthy to pick Life up on an adventure. I also insist on having a non-monogamous relationship (or no relationship!) because I m not okay with a man being jealous. I want him to be supportive of me, happy for me, take care of me when I come home. That sort of thing. Being faithful is easy for me, but another reason I would not make it into a promise, is because it would allow for things inside of him to stay hidden. An undesirable inequality could arise, where I politely work around his insecurities. Something that ultimately would not benefit anybody, least of all him. Promising him I would be faithful, would feel like doubting his ability to be bigger than that. After the first hurt was over, or maybe even when it was still there, the thought of Bear living with his girlfriend started to arouse me. It’s not that I can’t see how great it would be to be together. Just that it no longer keeps me from appreciating the special situation we are in. There is too much good there, tension and interesting-ness. I can’t write it off as a dumbed down good (he chooses for me!) versus bad (he doesn’t choose for me!) situation. The current situation with me being the friend he started sleeping with again, is preferable to the staleness of monogamy. I heard someone say that if you find the pain you can fall in love with, nothing can stop you. Two and a half week after he was here, having recovered fully and counting my riches, I can say; I ll take this. . ~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living
New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And are published together, here on this blog. Touched For The Very First Time | 1996 diary is the eighth chapter to 1996 diary  Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/