Category: The Time Travel Project

Treading lightly!
That’s probably the best strategy in this unknown art form called timeline travel.
Which means I am in the process of teleporting myself to 1990 until I feel I live there.

My end game is to only come to 2025 (and beyond, as this is a long-term project) to do the job of whatever online work is required.

Like how you’d go to work in the morning, but want to leave at the end of the day.

I don’t reject professional use of the internet and smartphone, but as I progress I want it to be restricted more and more, until it really feels like work.
And no longer something I do in my free-time.

Obviously, being, or not-being, online is the most identifiable area where 1990 should start feeling entirely different than 2025.

And I have been successful with this, but it is still very much in the “doing-stage”.
So my online behavior is different, but I don’t feel different.
The grey noise in my head which has become my companion, is not lifting.

A few successes have been the moments when I imagined my new-body. Sometimes I imagine my actual former 1990 body, but usually it’s easier for me to envision a body from a book from the 80s, I keep next to my bed.

I make sure not to lose sight, that this is not a body make-over challenge in any way.
Because yes, it would help if my body became the physical reminder of the fact that I am pretending it is 1990.
But the real goal is to feel the era in my mind.
It’s a brain-make-over.

I am prepared to do whatever it takes to really get that open, quiet offline consciousness that was so normal in 1990.
And I know getting offline is key to achieve that, yet so far I hardly have any 1990 progress after cutting my online presence in half.

The real results are much quieter…
Like fairies or ghosts. Glimpses that appear one moment, and that I then try to catch!
By taking on the glimpse, expanding it, living it, seeing through its eyes, by letting the images unfold like a reel;
I hope the experience grows big enough to hold to.

One of the most powerful yet largely artificial “memories” that helps me to get into the 1990 feeling, is the movie Atomic Blonde from 2017.
The movie is situated in Berlin in 1989, to the backdrop of the wall coming down.

The wardrobe of the female protagonist, as well as her London apartment, is totally minimalist, only black and white, which is of course the most timeless look the 80s produced, and would seamlessly move into 90s minimalism.
The color of the year 1990 was eggshell white.

At the time itself, I wasn’t into the combination black/white at all, but right now, and no doubt sparked by that movie Atomic Blonde, it is one of my favorite time travel tools.

Also both London as well as Berlin remind me of the era as well.
I can think of those cities, and myself in those cities in that era, and have 1990 wash over me.

I also know exactly what Madonna was up to that year.
Touring the world, which would be documented and released as her tour movie in 1991 (not mentioning the title since it depends on where you live)
And in December she would release her Immaculate Collection, which would also contain her summer hit Vogue, which was released on the album I’m Breathless, which was promoted as a soundtrack to the Dick Tracey movie instead of a studio album.
Making it a niche album, despite Vogue’s unprecedented success as a single.
The release of December’s Immaculate Collection was promoted with the to-be-banned-by-MTV single Justify my Love, which was written by Lenny Kravitz.
Justify My Love and nude photos by Steven Meisel, which were shot in December as well, were in retrospect the start of her new Erotica era.
Which would last for four years.

1990 was in many ways a landmark year.

Maybe it’s a sign of how much my brain has already eroded from all the internet use, that I still cling to being offline as my roadmap.
As if being offline is what classified the year 1990, or the decade it broke in.
It didn’t.

Just that for now at least, my brain seems too far gone to grasp the truth about this monumental year.
It is captured in its own 2025 prison of small-mindedness.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

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

If you could see me now, I would not be able to wipe the smirk off my face.
And the reason I’m over the moon is not the usual suspect of Man-Interest-Going-My-Way.
Because that is very much not going my way, and has been a great and apparently necessary lesson in what happens if you make yourself too available!

No, the reason for this euphoria is because I finally got myself injected into the 1990 timeline. 
Where an 18 year old fictional Lauren has just started her gap year, unsure if she’ll join university in August 1991, or if she’ll become a yoga teacher.

Finally, after years of trying to time travel to HERE, there, 1990-ish
– a process which intensified over the past couple of months when I was really trying hard, yet it was still not working –
I now managed to get this highly coveted job of timeline jumping DONE.

And it may actually have been the silent slap on the nose in the Man department that did the trick, because what was I doing making myself available like that?!

It was the perfect incentive to time jump, because if I was successful, it would allow me to go from leaning in, to meeting his demands to keep this as casual as casual goes;
To disappearing.

*soft poof sound*

Not just no longer showing up, but vanishing, sinking away in time.
First a big leap to 2019, the year I started my first timeline experiment.
Then another giant step, to 2007, when I started dating again after a 14 year relationship.
A step to the year 2000, where my current retro timeline stranded. Knowing it would end here, and that I would jump back again, to 1990.

I would step lightly, and affectionately, onto 1994, for having been my fictional starting point in 2019, when I started this whole experiment with timeline jumping.
In 2019 I went back to 1994, a timeline where it is currently 2000.
I would smile at 1994 and say:
“Love you! And going back to 1990, so see you in a few years!”

And then arrived, both feet in, in 1990. And smiled because I thought it was so cool, that I finally “did it”!
Even though I don’t think anyone, not even me, knows what that means.
But before I could worry about that, within a day, I realized Why, I had landed here.
What it was about 1990, that made this year so magical.

‘Cause ever since 2023 I have been trying and wishing and begging for the timeline 1988 – and failed.
And as one year passed, it became 1989.
About which I still had memories, and had that panned out, then it would have been perfect too.
But 1990?
Although I was happy the timeshift had worked, part of me still felt like 1990 was nothing more than a two-year overdue 1988.
A delay, because I was crappy at time travel and it had taken me two years to figure it out.

But oh no Baby….. Oh no!
This is all so very perfect.

One year from now, I will meet the man who could have been, and in all probability should have been, my first real love.
If, I had waited.
If, with super powers of restraint I definitely did not possess, I had refused to have sex or a relationship with anyone unless I was madly, all encompassing, sanity devouring in love?!

Then I would have stayed a virgin and in summer 1991 I would have met the man of my life.
I, a 19 year virgin who had saved herself for 27 months after her heart was broken – She, would have met an experienced young man, exactly her age, who would have been my/her ideal partner for a number of years.
And in all probability;
I, would have been his ideal lover too.

One year from now.

Which gives me exactly one year, to get ready.
To get Lauren 1990, ready.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

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

There’s a new man in my life, and I feel he’s entered on the wrong timeline and is connecting to the wrong woman.
Or not connecting, it all remains to be seen.

The chemistry is undeniable, yet undeniable is a strong word for someone old enough to see people deny everything from purpose and callings to carbohydrates and the primal urge to get together with the one you love.

Everything, can be denied.
And people who stir every cell in your body, are among the easiest.

If it is followed up upon, then it is called a mistake, a fling, a being carried away and blamed on not thinking straight.
Stripped bare of its alchemy, its higher meaning or the visceral urgency of it.

So of course I know that even if he would have similar feelings, which the chemistry implies, he can walk away from this in a heartbeat.

But what makes the whole situation frustrating, is that he does not know me under this name.
Just under my local name.

And part of me is happy about that, for multiple reasons all of which are boring as well as irrelevant to this conversation.
But what bugs me is that consequently the story is unfolding on the wrong timeline.

Because under my real name I only live on one timeline;
2025

Whereas under alterego I live in 2025, where I write all these blogs.
I live in 2000 where I keep an offline diary, recording how I try to rebuild my love life as a 28 year old who has been with the same man since she was 17, and who has now been alone for 1.5 to 2.5 years, depending on how you count.
The 1990 timeline is where Lauren 2000 is building a new life for herself.

Pretending she’s still in 1990, she wonders: 
“If I had not hooked up with Bear (her longterm lover) in the first place, and also had not gone to university, and also not become a writer but had focused on doing yoga and becoming a yoga teacher instead;
How would my life have unfolded?”

If this man would become a lover to the 1990 timeline version, that would be awesome! 
Lauren 2000 would write in her offline diary, how she was giving her younger self a clean slate, a brand new love life.

But even if Lauren2000 would not know how to do that, and would start dating this new man herself, it would be something she/I could write about in our offline diary.
(yes lots of consent conversations to be had beforehand, don’t get me started, I know)

But me dating in 2025?
Absolutely impossible, I have zero desire to.
In 2025, and in particular in my real life under my real name, everything is contained, planned and polished.
For me life in this timeline is so exposed, so vulnerable, so cramped in between the expectations of society as well as digital and other surveillance-
There’s no way I’m bringing my love life there.

So there is a new man, and next to the normal doubt of not knowing how this will pan out the upcoming months, there is the frustration that he’s seeing a version of me that is literally impenetrable, by design.

2025 Version of me has been stripped bare of its alchemy, of meaning and of her visceral urgency.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

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

Books 

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

Books 

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

Books 

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

.A
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

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

So there I was at the theater March “2025”, but still playing it was 2000.
Seeing a commercial that I not just did not understand but found downright repulsive.
You can watch the commercial here (Hornbach, a gardening center).
There is no dialogue, so you can watch it.

I guess the good news is that after six years I am standing firmly in my own Y2K truth that this commercial is portraying serious mental health issues as entertainment.
The neutral fact is that I can never go back to my own timeline, which is a story for another day perhaps, but there is no way I could sustain the barrage of media and interpersonal communication ever again at any point in my life. 

But the bad news is that seeing unsettling commercials does not even begin to scratch the surface of all the weird things I have discovered, both researching timelines as well as flat out experiencing them!
From being frustrated thinking: “Gee, I’m so flaky with this living in the past-thing! “, I am now at:
“Oh my God, I have no idea what I’ve unleashed…”

I thought ending this project concluding it was getting nowhere and considering it a very lengthy yet ultimately flawed artistic experiment, was the worst that could happen to it.

But now?
The worst outcome would be that I have opened a doorway to another dimension and entities that do not belong here on earth are coming in.
If you want to create your own timeline scare this weekend, I suggest you look for Montauk Project which directly inspired Stranger Things, including a demon coming from the other side, as well as CERN where it is said the find of the God particle in 2012 has (as Stephen Hawking predicted) ended the world as we know it, and we have gone through a blackhole to another time.
And that we have been living in a simulation ever since.

It was enough to make me delete all my playlists on YouTube with regard to timeline “magic”.
Which is just as good since I’m in 2000 so I shouldn’t be on YouTube anyway!

So instead of making the 2000 trip as “real” as possible, in a mind blowing What the Bleep Do We Know – way, I’ve taken it into an entirely new direction.
Rooted as deeply as I can in the 3D. Into matter. Into the NOW.
I’m taking my Y2K project into the physical experience of living in this body, in this city, on this earth.

This tree is not going anywhere.
She’s home.

.A
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books 

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

I was watching a 1998 episode of Sex & the City this morning (on dvd, because I am pretending I am living in the year 2000) and it featured a man who not only slept with models;
He also secretly taped them.

He had a whole collection of videos which he could not show to the public “yet”.
“Yet” was his own word, when he showed his collection to Carrie Bradshaw.
He was an artist who had never sold a single painting. Carrie’s classification, not mine. 

Yet this 27 year old scene was surprisingly on point in illustrating my prediction I will in all probability never have sex again.
I feel so overwhelmingly unsafe, so objectified, so assaulted, that I am pretty sure I will never trust anyone with a mobile phone with my secrets let alone my body, ever again.

And I was already a few paragraphs in linking these safety issues to our era, when I realized that first of all, if I would go down that route, this piece would become just as toxic and frightening as male internet culture itself.
And secondly; That the old Sex & the City episode proves that this is not a new thing.

Ever since the invention of video, every woman having sex, trying on clothes, changing clothes or using public bathrooms, has risked being exploited by someone secretly filming her.
It’s just the scale of it, that has changed.
And that’s without counting the number of times something that was shared in private was later posted to the internet or shared on WhatsApp.

Oh well that got pretty toxic even after I deleted the paragraphs I refused to finish.
Guess it just can’t be helped.

And maybe because I originally started writing under this name because I thought a life of sexual freedom was desirable, and also interesting to write about, it is not so strange that I feel both angry as well as anxious, that it has become seemingly impossible to continue.
I really don’t see how I would ever have sex ever again.

But this post is titled the updated rules of engagement, and how we are going to date as if it’s the year 2000.
So obviously, I am not ready to throw in the towel.
Not yet.

Because I think that if this is MY problem?
If I feel so unsafe that I can no longer have sex?
Then that is not just me, then it means something bigger is at play.

In 2019 I wrote a post called The Rules of Engagement, about the project that has helmed the majority of my sexual writings, which is the timetravel project.
At that time it was 1994, in that world.
And in the article I wrote that any new men would have to be aware that I was writing about my love life.

So even though in the 10+ years I had already been writing about my sex life at that time, and even though this had never lead to any problems of any kind, I did know I had a pretty much ongoing responsibility to keep thinking about the consequences and to keep improving on my disclaimer and consent policies.

In other words, I knew what any writer knows and that is that having someone write about you messes with your head.
Their head, as well as mine.
The moment you write about something reality changes, and the moment you do that with the emotional charge of having a sexual affair, the chemistry becomes incredibly potent.

I don’t think any writer really understands the power of it.
And if we did, the responsibility would probably immobilize us.
Or me, anyway.

Anyway, I don’t know what I put onto paper in 2019 because I have not reread the article, because I feel such a Last Hope urgency to tackle this with a fresh pair of eyes.
But if you are interested you can read the 2019 version of The Rules of Engagement here.

So what did I come up with, for the 2025 Rules of Engagement?
What will happen if we start hanging out, and become friends?
What will happen when we fall in love, and become lovers?

In the case of friendship, nothing will happen on paper.
I have not written about any of my friends for absolutely years, so that is very simple.
It is also good to point out that a friendship, meaning hanging out together at dates which are scheduled in advance, is a prerequisite before there ever happening anything else.
There are no casual visitors in my life.
Everybody who is in my life is a friend, meaning a reliable person who is free to be seen with me in public.
And enjoying it!

Scenario 2.
If you fall in love with me one-sided, nothing will happen either.
I have never seen this end well, and we will both go our separate ways, and that’s it.
You will never have to worry about there being anything in my writing, because there won’t.

Scenario 3.
I fall in love with you, one sided.
This is absolutely amazing chemistry, and again, nothing will be there in my diary.
We just hang out, and then off you go to wherever it is you go off to, and it will be brilliant.
Out of all scenarios, number three is absolutely the best possible outcome possible for both of us!
No drama, no fuss, and an empty diary.

Scenario 4.
We have so much chemistry, we have no idea what hit us.
Two ways to go about it:
1. We talk about it.
This will be very unerotic and I will fall out of love immediately, and no diary writing will be needed or desired.
2. We don’t say a word
And just have these ubercool dates with subtext and hidden flirts, and our friendship coating is so thick and slick it will fool anybody around us.
Just that you and I both know this will one day be a hell of a lot more.

So in the very unlikely scenario that we both fall in love, and manage to not say anything about it but instead play it super cool?
Yes, Lauren living in the year 2000 will be writing about you.
OFFLINE!

And you will get a different name, and locations, situations and dates will be altered and none of your personal information or stories will be shared in any way.
It is a reimagined version of a timeline that never existed. 

You will receive any sexual entries by email, or other content as well, if you wish.

Ultimately the interesting entries from the diaries will be created into printed books, in the vintage diaries which I am still in the process of creating the first volumes (1994-1996).

There will no longer be an online version of anything happening in my or our lives, April 2025 moving forward.
I have taken all diary writing offline.

The time between anything (sexual) that could happen between you and me, and writing the diary entries, offline, on one hand;
And the printing of the journals, thereby making them available to the public, will be 2 years minimum, most likely longer.

So there they are.
The rules of engagement 2025.

And our phones are tucked away, in a timeline far far away.
It’s just us now.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living