LS Harteveld

Road Map To Success Received. Over.

Published on March 28, 2021March 29, 2021 by LS Harteveld

“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.

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!

.
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.

.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

.
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

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.
.

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.”

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.

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?”

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Books

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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
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Nederlands blog:
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Touched For The Very First Time | 1996 diary

Published on March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

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“.

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

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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, 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/

Sex induced creativity spree

Published on March 18, 2021 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

I ve linked my creativity to sex before.
And yet, the moment I had to decide if I wanted to go all in on that, I don’t think I even took it into consideration as a reason to do it.
In fact, it wasn’t even to gain anything.
It wasn’t even to gain sex!

The reason I went for it, and see myself making this same choice over and over again in the future, the choice to take sex with someone you’re attracted to when the moment arises and to not wait for perfect circumstances, was because I saw very clearly where the other path was leading.

The path of caution.

Reason.
Fear.

To dying without properly living your life.
A concept we should all be familiar with by now, since we’ve all thrown away the past 12 months to self-imprisonment.

After 2020 the fact that avoiding risks and waiting for better circumstances before you live your life comes at a price; Is KNOWN.

.
The illusion that risk can be avoided, like you can choose to not go into a roller coaster, is gone.

.
After a year of letting the loneliness and the despair seep into our healthy bones, we all realize we need more than just health.

More than being safe.

A life well lived tastes so sweet, because it always has that pinch of danger and mortality.

But I didn’t think it through that deeply.
Like I said, it was the knowledge that if I would go with fear – fear of Covid, fear of being used, fear of being judged – I would be on the run forever.
My life would get smaller.
Always.

If I kept assessing now and forever more how “okay” it was to have sex?
I would perpetuate being in the same claws the entire world has been in, since March 2020.
I would become one of those people whose life had ended but with a few decades to go before I was actually dead.

THAT is why I chose sex.
To avoid death on a spiritual, God-given plane where my life had purpose.

My motives were spiritual, philosophical, and deeply personal.

But it paid off a hundred fold.

I wrote chapter after chapter for Lauren 1996.
Three blogposts on this blog, but there are three posts on my Facebook page, which I still have got to bundle up.
And under my real name, I started a business channel for which I ve already filmed three videos. I wrote five articles, three related to Bon Jovi and two on my art and philosophy blog.

And tomorrow I am starting my biggest art project to date.
It’s called daily Bon Jovi yoga. And it’s just that. After saying goodbye permanently to teaching yoga and deciding I am not going to reinvent yoga to Rock Star Yoga.
The answer to everything I knew was meant for me, yoga wise, and yet it was never what I thought it was, was so simple!
And it was literally on my vision board for 2021.
I had two words up there (only two): “Bon Jovi” on the top-left. And “Yoga” on the top-right.

“Bon Jovi Yoga”

And last year I “got” three signs from God about what my purpose was. And the second one was “Yoga is my art”.
I even got that one on repeat, every time I went to bed asking for a sign what on earth I was supposed to “do”, make money from, or just what my purpose was.
The answer when I woke up was always the same:
Yoga.
And then I would be excited and have another go at it, and then it would all turn to dust, slip through my fingers, for a moment I would be okay having parted with it;
Until the cycle of accidentally getting inspired or me asking God for clues, began again.

So “Yoga is my art” and “Bon Jovi yoga” means;
My art is to do Bon Jovi yoga.
DO.
Not teach, not reinvent, not show, not share (as in video, or anything where I have to “show up in spandex”; Something I swore I would never do ever again).

Every day, starting tomorrow, and I do this under my real name;
Everyday, I do Bon Jovi yoga.
Make a tweet and a facebook post, mentioning the album or concert I used.

The end.

I ve also claimed a domain, and have so many stories to tell about this project Bon Jovi Yoga. My mind is overflowing with ideas and insights.
So I will write a lot!
But the art itself is in the doing;
Do one cd of Bon Jovi Yoga a day.

Will do it to the day I die.

It feels so enormously powerful. I m consciously saying goodbye to the first half of my life, without that yoga without that art.
Feeling grateful I had it.
But I feel the absolute thrill and excitement of knowing this is it!

Yoga really IS my art.
Just not the way I thought, because I don’t change yoga itself into art.
I am the art.

One of the trainings I took from Katrina Ruth, I remember her words so vividly, was that you should find the thing, the habit, the “business”, that is an activity that you just love to do every day.
That you’re really like: “OF COURSE I want to do this for the rest of my life!!”

Well; Of course!
If doing Bon Jovi yoga every day would be the only art that I would ever be allowed to do, I would die fulfilled.
Even if I could not write about it.
Even if I could not share it on Twitter or Facebook, so then technically it would only exist as an energy but it would not be known;
Even then I would be fulfilled.

I feel so light and happy and boy! Who would have thought my decision to have sex would have such far reaching results!

It was also the best sex I ever had in my life.
Obviously.

~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/

Pretty Tied Up | 1996 diary

Published on March 11, 2021March 11, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

disclaimer: NSFW, triggering, sexually explicit, 18+

Video: On Wednesday, 10 March 1996, Lauren attends a screening of Guns N Roses, Tokyo 1992. Pretty Tied Up was the 7th song of that VHS. And on Tuesday and Thursday she writes in her diary:

PRETTY TIED UP Tuesday March 9, 1996 I feel I m in way over my head! Sunday I came up with this idea to clean up my agenda, my social life. And get the healthy and productive lifestyle of Me, at 16! No more Sunday night bar benders. Which didn’t seem too hard, since the Hard Rock Cafe is closed because of holiday or hygiene reasons. Either way my Thursday and Sunday fan nights are already cancelled, so it was a relatively small step (or so it seemed) to getting back to my high school rhythm. Just the thought of having close to 10 productive hours a day, made my mouth water! I m a freelancer, and I only bill effective hours: Combined with how easily distracted I am, and often having the overwhelming urge to do my own work first (writing new work, even though I still have not picked up publishing my old work, my books) this means it often takes three days before I can bill 8 hours. It’s hopeless. And then I power through, work until way too late like I did yesterday night after having lost the entire day because Bear came by. He just stayed a few hours, early afternoon. But it killed my workday and maybe also because I didn’t want to feel the pain of him leaving; I chose to work until after midnight instead. So within 24 hours of starting my Project 88, 88 days of living my 1988 life, my current life had already spun out of control. Instead of better, it had gotten worse. And today a new neighbor brought me 5 gigantic homemade cookies, which were the best cookies I have ever eaten. And eaten in the shortest amount of time, I imagine. So on this project that was supposed to bring back my 16 year old size 6, one entire meal consisted of cookies. But there is also good news. About my books. And it was such a surprise, and also shock! I felt so free and happy and bold! I even checked with the publisher if my new plan was actually allowed. All ISBN numbers, meaning all my books, are already registered at 1995, via a publisher that allows you to publish your own books. It’s totally different to having a normal publisher. So I asked: “How strong is this push to hire an editor and designer, and make it look professional? Because I would like to try something else, but I don’t know if I am allowed to.” I was very proud of my choice of words “try something else”. I had thought long and hard about that. I didn’t want to shove it down their throats, because they have been so good to me. But I also didn’t want to go ahead with something that is, three months after registering all the ISBNs and hardly making any headway publishing my books, clearly not working. The task of publishing that many manuscripts is impossible. So I asked: “What if I would give myself one day for every book? And that I print them however they come out after that one day? No more, no less.” And they agreed this was interesting and that they would help me! In particular with coming up with some kind of cover format that we can adjust for every book. So that was all very exciting (maybe you’re noticing I m not talking about Bear being here yesterday, but I m still trying to not think about it until the first pain of missing him has worn off) and then another thing happened! Guns N Roses fans from the Thursday group at the Hard Rock Cafe are throwing a potluck party, and it’s tomorrow. Someone has the Live in Tokyo VHS, and that’s what we’re gonna watch. Shame it’s not the Sunday group with Bon Jovi fans, because I would have loved to see that special guy where I had, rubbing-crotches-in-passing-by-with-drinks contact with. But then again, maybe throwing home parties on a Wednesday night is more of a dirty thing. And Jovi fans would be too modest or hardworking to take it that far. Let’s take it that far.

PRETTY TIED UP – part II Thursday March 10, 1996 The potluck Guns N Roses night, with the show Live from Tokyo, was a success. Although I did sleep through my alarm this morning, for the first time this week. I m on an 88 day challenge to get into my 1988 high school rhythm. But I slipped within 24 hours, when Bear came by my house and we had sex. It wasn’t that I could not have foreseen that, because as opposed to other times when he didn’t announce himself until last minute, or he didn’t announce himself at all, I knew he would come by. I think as far as thinking what this meant for my chances of returning to my 16 yo virgin lifestyle, on the day my former lover would come by, and thinking those chances were higher than zero; That was because I was still holding on to the idea that I wasn’t going to have sex with him. He s living with his girlfriend, and I didn’t want to be a mistress. Still don’t, not really. If he had wanted me he should have chosen me. First time we had sex was January 1990, so it’s not like he didn’t have a chance to mull things over. And he broke up with me December 1994, and we’ve been flirting since spring 1995. Toying with the thought of starting an affair, and meanwhile also toying with each other. So we have been fooling around, and we did have sex but it was not all the way, and just in general not as intense as we used to have it. We deliberately kept it very playful and not too intimate. Yet it was difficult, and I often had panic attacks after he left. But it was also hot and exciting. A year, since we started flirting! So I too had plenty of time to mull things over. And I am glad I did, because man! Monday, first time real sex, was so intense! Despite my superficial “keep it light” decision, “don’t get caught up”and so on, which implies I was going to stick with other things than full sex, on a deeper level things had been both more complicated, as well as more simple. More complicated because I knew I had outgrown the phase I drew lines in the sand, or above my panties. But simpler because I was going to follow my heart, what felt good. Fully aware that more sex included a higher chance of meltdowns, emotional backlashes, and more recovery time. After over 1.5 year without full sex and still madly in love, I had ran out of reasons to play safe and be the good girl. So I stopped being a good girl. And it was hands down the best sex I have ever had in my life. It was as if I was a virgin physically! I know it’s not possible, but damn it was tight! And it stayed that way, no matter how often he penetrated me. Which was often. But not as often as the times I had his dick in my mouth, which was deep! I apparently have a very deep throat, or so I have been told twice after I had to stick my tongue out at a doctor’s office. One exclaimed I was the dream “test patient” for the throat area because you could look so far into my throat. Well, however deep it was, it didn’t have spare space when he took me deeply. Bear knows I like that. Something other women do not like, or so the few female friends with whom I have discussed my sex life have told me. Ever since I know that, I appreciate Bear even more. Before that I was just….spoiled I guess. Didn’t appreciate it. But exactly like with all other things sexual, including anal sex if we had that, he reads me. He’s never strong or rough in a disconnected way. The guy is psychic! The smallest twitch, or hesitation, and even things I do not know myself, and he sees it. He stops. He asks. This all didn’t happen Monday, because my entire body was one big screaming Hell Yes. When I say I gave more blowjobs than I have fingers on one hand, and how deep it went, this is an illustration of how much I was into it. Not to accuse him of not being sensitive, nor of blaming him for the backlash that I can feel will still come…. It’s one thing to have an affair with someone who leaves you afterwards. But to have one with the sex we had Monday? That hurts down to your bones. I m on day four of holding it at bay, hoping that time will take the sharpest edges off before the blow strikes. Yesterday, at the party with about eight other Guns N Roses fans from the Thursday gang, watching the VHS from Live in Tokyo, I noticed Slash was wearing a black T-Shirt with a white print. For a moment I thought it was the same shirt Jon Bon Jovi was wearing in 1995, of Thin Lizzy. I went up very close to the TV screen. But it wasn’t Thin Lizzy. It was a cartoon. And the disappointment over not having guessed the right shirt went over to disappointment about not having the right boyfriend. And feeling less like Thin Lizzy, and more like a cartoon.

~Lauren96

An unexamined life is not worth living

Pretty Tied Up| 1996 diary is the seventh chapter to 1996 diary New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And will be published together, here on this blog. Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

Books

Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Project 88 | 1996 diary

Published on March 7, 2021March 8, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

Sunday March 7, 1996.

I could have settled this weeks ago! Mom and me have been going through old photos. Ordering new prints, completing our albums, laughing our socks off, those sorts of things..

And early January or maybe even late 1995, I came across a series of holiday photos from 1988, that showed my beautiful 16 year old body.

. I have always known I have been fortunate. Even now, the weight I put on doesn’t bother me aesthetically. But the moment I saw that size 6, 16 year old girl, that could eat all she want? I longed to be so thin again.

Or, if that was no longer an option biochemically or for other reasons; then at least I tried.

But it was as if the simplicity of that body, stood for a simplicity in life that got lost afterwards. Because I didn’t just long for the body; I also wanted to live her life, and be as productive as in 1988.

I had made full schooldays, five days a week, low on social interaction if any.

At nighttime I studied.

And yet I was not unhappy. Not at all.

. I had a hobby, I was a photographer and I knew people outside of school from that. And I also had friends where I lived and at school, although those ties were not intensive at the time. I was mostly by myself, and at school.

. The only thing I did that could explain my Sports Illustrated physique, was 45 minutes on my bicycle twice I day.

. Early this year or late last year, I already realized having this routine to fall back on, was gold. “All” I have to do to lose the kilos and get the work done publishing my books, is to copy 1988. And if that doesn’t work, then that doesn’t work. But it was 100% worth trying.

Except back then, I didn’t.

Partially because I was enjoying myself too much in bars and cafes to put myself on a social diet. And I was also doing really well if I went out. Both creatively because I was feeling more alive, as well as doing well productively, in terms of working on my books,

. So there was no immediate reason to act on those “size 6, and the grades to match” photos. Even though for a moment there, I thought I would.

But things have changed.

The Hard Rock Cafe where I used go Thursdays and Sundays, is closed. Officially they are on a holiday. But there is no end date on the sign when they will be back and rumors say it was closed by the authorities because of lack of hygiene.

. It has given me time to find out how badly I want to sacrifice my Fridays and Mondays, to having a good time the night before. I m guessing not that badly.

And sexually, Bear and me are in a difficult place, that also makes me long for simpler times.

There is of course still the matter of him living together with his girlfriend now. And even though I know it doesn’t make that much of a difference if we have sex as in oral sex, or sex as in intercourse; Emotionally, they are a world apart.

. So when he comes over we always kiss and cuddle but we rarely have sex. And if we do, it is oral sex. I have received, let him touch me, only once. And I had to mentally recover from that for weeks. It was a full-on, emotional meltdown that was productivity wise the equivalent of a fortnight at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Which makes that I have two reasons to long back to the time of that photo, to 1988

If I decide to go with “her” schedule and the place she was in her sexual development, both things fall into place.

So I have decided to make a project out of it; Project 88

Five days a week, I m going to exercise preferably by cycling; And as much as possible, I m going to keep school hours and homework hours at my desk. Go to bed on time, and get up at 6.30

And since it’s March 8th tomorrow, and the year I m going back to is 1988 (and it’s called Project 88), I m going to keep it going for 88 days.

So: Start date (day 1): Monday March 8, 1996 Get up at 6.30 Monday – Friday Exercise preferably cycling, Monday – Friday To bed around 10.30 P.M. Last day (day 88): Thursday June 3, 1996 Work on publishing my books, school hours and homework hours. Have fun sexually, but keep it light.

It brought me a good life then; And it will bring me a good life now.

~Lauren96

An unexamined life is not worth living

Project 88| 1996 diary is the sixth chapter to 1996 diary New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And will be published together, here on this blog. Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

Books

Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Through The Looking Glass | 1996 diary

Published on March 6, 2021March 6, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

introduction

It’s been over two weeks since what became the final post for now, in my 1996 Diary.

Ever since the breakup with my lover (late 2019) and Covid, this time travel diary has become quite the ordeal to fill with interesting stories. My body is stuck in 2021, and can’t give Lauren96 the life she deserves.

Yet I do love this project, and hope to pick up writing/ living (!), soon.

You can follow this blog, and receive these stories bundled up in your Inbox.

Or follow on Facebook. Where I made this single entry, 2,5 weeks ago.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Wednesday February 17, 1996

When I looked at the clock, I honestly had no idea what time it was going to be.

That’s how far in I was, editing my books. A project I have not worked on since last year!

I had been procrastinating and tonight I managed to finally get on with it, by telling myself I did not have to make headway or accomplish anything.

That it was just to become friends with my manuscripts again.

The first one is about the final two years with Bear. It’s like a diary/ novella, because it’s only 8 chapters, or diary entries, about our affair.

And it sucked me in so deeply, that when I tore myself away from my computer I felt like I had been in another world, and was spat back out violently.

My body and my consciousness still don’t seem to be reunited.

My living is cold, the balcony door has been open since I made myself sit down and pick up this work tonight.

Just for an hour.

And then the hour turned into God knows how long.

I feel I should be happy, that I did this work. Finally. My real work, my future as an author.

But I feel I went somewhere I did not belong. Somewhere I was in way over my head. Somewhere I barely escaped from and found my way home.

I still have that eerie feeling I m in serious danger, because I really do not know where I am going.

Or I do;

But it’s a place no one I know of, has ever gone before.

They say it is impossible.

~Lauren96

An unexamined life is not worth living

Through The Looking Glass | 1996 diary is the fifth chapter to 1996 diary New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And will be published together, here on this blog. Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

Books

Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Sex first. Writing second. And yoga got cancelled

Published on March 1, 2021March 2, 2021 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

The last time we spoke, I told you I had started a project, a YouTube channel (under my real name) where I was going to investigate how to either reinvent yoga and after 20 years in (and out) of the yoga business, become the rock star yoga teacher I knew with 99% certainty I was meant to be.
Or to leave yoga behind, once and for all.

For 2,5 years minimum I ve tried to quit yoga, and I did actually quit, but it kept coming back.
But by now I believed I was destined to do yoga. 99% certain was really 99%

.
Although there had been times I cursed myself and the world, for having wasted 20 frickin years in a professional environment that had little to do with the yoga that I had FELT, in the three years before I got officially trained.
And it had nothing to do with my personality, with my values, with who I was or even with what my core talents were.
It had in fact conflicted heavily with them.

Yet, I still thought this YouTube channel researching and investigating my love for yoga, or lack thereof, was a formality.
That it was no longer a question if I would commit to rock star yoga;
Just a question of when.

Because the cursing had stopped.
And the vision of the life and the work ahead of me, was rapidly taking shape.
I had been in a hurry to start the channel, before even the last of my doubt and resistance and the final lap of my existential crisis had vanished and only the New Reinvented Me remained.

.
And although I did not believe my yoga, or me as a rock star yoga teacher, were in any way boring;
The journey would have ended.
The exciting part of becoming a rock star yoga teacher would be behind me.

But if I hurried, and maybe exaggerated a little bit about doubt which I no longer really felt, just for some dramatic effect;
Maybe I could then squeeze out some videos before I made my finite choice to reinvent yoga and totally rock being a rock star yoga teacher.

Victory.
Redemption.

Or maybe even a big fuckemall and toldyoufrickinso!
That was the energy I could feel, on the other side of reinventing yoga.

Until the day when I was on my bike, cycling to a location where I wanted to shoot a video for my yoga-reinvention channel, that I had made my decision, when I changed my mind.
I had a handful of A4s in my backpack, that provided an outline of the rock star yoga practice, but also the business model and my own values it was based on.
But suddenly it ALL felt wrong.

Having to map out a new form of yoga that would rock, felt like having to make a list of why it was a good idea to have sex with someone, or to date someone!

If I think of the past 6 years where I have had a secret lover, and currently we re more like friends with occasional benefits, but whatever it is we have is secret;
I don’t have to make a list to know that for all six years that I know him, the reasons to not have sex with him, would have been endless.

And only reason to do it was:
Because I wanna.

And I regret nothing.

Yet all the years before him? The years of being single between 2006 and 2015?
I had no bad experiences, but I would have traded all, largely respectable, single, honest, goodhearted men, for one night with my last or maybe even current lover.

To know 20 reasons why something is not going to work, and 20 more why it is a terrible idea, and yet still following your heart?
That is me!

My style is not to after 2,5 years of not being able to quit permanently, to then finally “get” yoga, learn my own rock star yoga blueprint, and film my official rock star yoga launch video.
And then for the next 20 years be the yoga teacher who redeemed herself and her craft and found herself or fucking something.

One moment to the next the whole idea of rock star yoga absolutely disgusted me.
Or of ever having to speak the Y word ever again.
It all felt so constricted and awful.
An artist has full creative freedom, and to be a good artist you must always go into the unknown.
Like Marina Abramovic once learned from one of her art teachers:
If you can draw with the right hand, immediately shift to the left.

After 20 years of drawing with my right hand, I had been on the verge of leaping into two more decades of drawing with my right hand, whilst explaining why my drawing with the right hand was entirely different from everybody else’s drawing with the right hand.

And I had been 99% certain I wanted to go down that road!

If I look at it in hindsight, I can’t believe I came that close.
Just the right hand left hand argument, and the general distinction between being a yoga teacher which is a service provider (or a high-level, world famous version of that) or being an artist, are enough of an explanation.
Enough reason to know I m never going back.

.
But there was something else, which was on that list the day I cycled to the location to shoot my Yoga Commitment video. Something else that was ultimately the reason I knew I had nothing more to say.
Not about yoga.

It was that I had written down in the Rock Star Yoga outline, what the two biggies were:
Sex and purpose.
Rock Star Yoga was going to be developed with full understanding that when it came to increasing your energy, those two were king.
And suddenly I realized that someone who has Sex and Purpose on number one and two, of her list of Things That Matter, was only a true to her word rock star yoga teacher if her Purpose, was indeed to be a rock star yoga teacher.
That she would value sex more than her purpose, was acceptable.
But after that she was to immediately run to her yoga mat, fully inspired!

Except my yoga mat is not at all where I run to, do I?

I am a writer.
Left “unsupervised”, I run to my desk to write.

And just like my love life, there are no reasons to write.
Writing is not practical, it’s time consuming, it makes little to no money unless you do it to promote something else (fe yoga) or write on assignment.
I could easily fill five A4’s with reasons why writing is a terrible idea.

Just like I was never short on reasons why I should not be with my lover, or male friend for whom after 6 years I still have feelings so intense, it makes me cry just thinking about it.

There is no logical reason for my love life.
And there is no logical reason to write.

Yet the moment you need even half an A4, to map out why you got it right this time?
With 99% certainty? And the list and the proper plan to prove it?

Immediately switch to the left.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Wanna join me?
I m going to do yoga, starting from scratch because I m yoga free by now,
But I ll be using my own book

White Tigress Yoga Workbook
by LS Harteveld (me)
For anyone who had a decent chance of staying healthy
but screwed it up and now needs something that works. Fast.

I like the no-fuss, kick your ass into gear energy of it!

PS: Here’s the page with all my other books as well!
(Dutch/Nederlands AND English)

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/

Wine at 2 PM on a Monday

Published on February 15, 2021February 15, 2021 by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

Although I had the title “Wine at 2 PM on a Monday”, right there from the get-go, where get-go stands for WordPress Blocks, which is a year old software update I am very skilled at avoiding except when I create a new post by copying an old one. Then I immediately save, get the hell out of there and open the new draft in Classic Editor;
That draft was already titled Wine at 2PM on a Monday.
So I knew what my angle would be, but I did not know it was going to be about sex.

Aside from the evening curfew which has made daytime alcoholics of us all (you’re also only allowed to have one visitor per day per household), I had no idea what this post would be about.
Because everything was so…. perfect?
Hopeful?
I even have a new 8 step daily to-do list, with a secret priority code embedded that only I know of. I am still nowhere near where I want to be in terms of doing yoga, and clarity on my business;
Yet, I ve got this covered.

Step by step, I know I ‘ll get to the ultimate destination (body, money and career goals), and there’s little I need to do, or even can do, at this point.

The only thing I can actively DO in terms of selling/ having something to sell, is that I have decided today, that I m going to publish the non-dating, and non-fiction material I wrote under this account, and in particular the coaching and business blogs, under my real name.

Since my future is under my real name, I want to have books under my real name asap.
And I have way too much material here, for Lauren Harteveld, anyway. It makes a lot of sense to separate it;
Diaries and sex are books for Lauren.
Business blogs, coaching and even writing (life of a writer), go under my real name.

All posts where I keep my clothes on, are good to go!

Which excludes this blog post, because although I knew the title of this blog was going to be wine at 2 P.M on a Monday, and I wanted to tell you the Rock Star Yoga Teacher vibe from the last letter I wrote you is on the rise!, I didn’t know what else I was going to write about.
But it’s sans clothes!

With the first glimpses of my future as the new face of yoga, and the 8 step secret prio list which will basically and ultimately get ALL the shit done, there was very little to get worked up about.
Even my sex life seemed to be stable and sensible. My secret lover and me occasionally see each other and we have sex to a level that doesn’t freak me out, and I can just pull up my pants, or his pants, and say:
“That was fun!”

Although one time things did go wrong, emotionally. I got so intensely sad and hurt afterwards. It was horrible. But I worked through it with friends, put a new sex protocol in place, and I m good to go.
I got this, there’s no more drama in my sex life.

So I went through my downloads looking for an illustration to go with this post. Not knowing exactly what I was looking for until I saw a promo photo of the movie Basic Instinct. It depicted the two main characters making love; my writer idol Catherine Tramell and her lover the detective Nick.
The ultimate playing-at-high-level sex couple!

I knew immediately, that this was going to be the picture for this post, and that I wanted to uplevel my sex game!

Although I am very grateful to the friends who helped me do damage control and get me the fuck stable, after I basically broke in the weeks after I saw him;
That is not me.

No one has to pick me up, you can just send me home if you re my friend, I don’t care. But I am NOT going to waste sexual encounters coloring within the lines of my comfort zone.
And do you know why?
Not because I think I can do “this”, and be a cool chick or something, but because in my last letter I told you what my vision for my future is;
After 15+ years of being a full-time yoga teacher, 20+ years of being a practitioner; And currently yoga-free business-free, and contemplating a new career based on the vision that’s inside of me; I wrote you how I saw my future.
Rock Star Yoga Teacher.
That was how I saw myself.

And although doing yoga has not come to me, as strongly as I would have liked.
My new yoga body, strong and lean, sometimes seems impossibly far away.
And I even catch myself staring at the secret 8 step system, like Harry Potter staring at the wall that says Platform 13 3/4, thinking;
“Will it really work?!”

Even though all of those things, all that doubt and uncertainty about can I and will I; I do know one thing! For sure!
Rock Stars do not coast through their sex life, staying within their comfort zone.
They do not say “oh well I have to be careful, because I can get really emotional when I m intimate with someone.”

That is NOT a thing.

So although it’s still unclear how to do yoga as a rock star, let alone how to teach that yoga, I have ALWAYS known how to rock my sex life!

And now more than ever is the time to rock it!

At 2 P.M. if we have to.

Because curfew has made daytime lovers of us all.
And only one visitor per household.

~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/

There is no doubt you re in my heart now | 1996 diary

Published on February 14, 2021February 14, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

THE WORST TIMING

Saturday February 6, 1996

I m starting to get restless. What if Nikki doesn’t write again?

Or what if he just sends me the Bon Jovi bootleg, but nothing in response to my letter?

Maybe he will stop writing me letters, with the bootlegs or the separate ones (just letters) that never needed the alibi of a package with cassettes.

Maybe our correspondence has come to an end and maybe it’s because I wrote about sex.

Not “let me turn you on” sex, but “I slept with my ex lover Bear who now has a girlfriend, and I feel so awful and have no one to talk to” sex.

The type of sex you would roll your eyes at thinking how could I have let it come this far?

A question I would not know how to answer.

I don’t want to deny Bear his future. He seems to want to start a family, and his girlfriend already has a child.

And I don’t want to deny myself a sex life either;

I didn’t have sex with other men in the years he was my lover, and there is no one else in my life right now either.

So although I can understand Nikki’s silence, and dread the day I get a business like small note, excusing himself for not writing properly or something;

What options does he think I have?

I wasn’t angry with Bear, and I didn’t feel guilty or dirty afterwards. It was way worse than that.

I felt jealous.

Nikki and me have been writing for four months now I think. Maybe longer. But it has never taken him so long to write, and from all the moments he could have dropped out of conversation this has been the absolute worst timing.

Next to losing my boyfriend or lover, or whatever you want to call Bear, I now seem to have lost the anonymous friend who gave me a feeling that I too, had someone special.

. IT S ALWAYS ABOUT A MAN Monday February 8, 1996

When will I unlearn? Or learn? Unlearn to beat myself up over going out three to four nights a week, and learn that in the bar, at night, is where I live. Where my adventures lay, my lust for life. My getting over Bear, because finally I flirted with another man again. Possibly multiple. I don’t know what it was, but the atmosphere seemed to be filled with anticipation and sexual innuendo! It was as if everybody was in a flirtatious mood, and the same people that were there last Sunday, had suddenly all taken a Sexy Pill (including me) and we were all different people. I didn’t go home with him, and technically, we didn’t even kiss. But I can’t remember the last time I was so openly sexual, openly interested, stood so close, pushed my hips back, brushed his hard-on, smiled over my shoulder, and thought: “I can do this.” Today was the most productive Monday in months, and I m going to hit my yoga mat and get back to my practice. And I want to lose the weight, now more than ever. The thought these clothes might come off soon, with a new man, was the incentive I needed to finally get my act together and make it happen. I came by a sign from the fitness studio on my walk: “Don’t wish for it, work for it” I will. .

I JUST SAVED MY OWN DAY Tuesday February 9, 1996 Bad news first! I did not magically snap into actually doing yoga, after Sunday night’s nearly-encounter. I knew chances I d run in him again were close to a hundred percent. And I also knew that I wanted my old body back, before having sex with a new man. It didn’t feel right to have the weight I gained during my time with Bear, still on me when I would start a new relationship. It wasn’t right. Even though Bear probably didn’t have anything to do with why I gained weight. I still can’t figure out exactly when the weight gaining started, but before college I was thin that much is certain. And I ve been doing, correction “did”, yoga since I was 15. Although not that much, that was later, when I was around 19 or 20. I had a real dancer’s body, and it came mainly from cycling to school. But nevertheless, when last Sunday the sparks between me and the new man (who I have not yet renamed to write about, because I don’t know how serious this will be) flew over, I did feel inspired to pick up yoga again. But yesterday night, despite my good resolutions, I did not do yoga. However, today I got an unexpected visitor! He had tried to call me, but because I am so focused since Sunday, and work so very hard, I had not picked up the phone. I was actually very proud of myself for being so mature to not pick it up during my productive hours! Then about an hour later the doorbell rang, and it was the photographer who had filmed me when I was around 20. It was a professional gig, because I was one of the very few models who could do yoga. It had been the only thing I was asked for regularly. The biggest job I ever had was filming instructional videos. Just the video, the audio was a voice over by someone else. They were filmed for a teacher training, and had been extremely valuable and not available on the market. I never received copies for myself. But the photographer, who had shot the videos, had received a copy, but he was clearing out his stock and didn’t want them anymore. So he thought of me. He had tried to call, and when I didn’t pick up he decided to drop them by. It are 19 VHS tapes! I knew it had been a large gig, but I had no idea it had been this big. 19 VHS tapes of me, at my peak: Strong. Lean. Confident. I just got saved by my younger self that’s for sure. . THERE IS NO DOUBT YOU RE IN MY HEART NOW Valentine’s Day Sunday February 14, 1996 My entire love life got fixed on Valentine’s Day! Yesterday, the mail man brought mail from Nikki; The envelope clearly had cassettes in it, but from the soft thick feeling of the package it was also clear there were papers in it. A letter. I m so tuned in with these packages, I can estimate how long the letter is, just from feeling the envelop. I can’t remember the last time I got a letter that was this long! Eight A4-ish papers, written on one side only, torn from a notepad. He thanked me for my honest letter and wrote that he felt for me. That he was sorry that my lover was now living with someone else, and although his first response had been one of anger and frustration that I was still sleeping with my former lover (he said “your ex” but I have never called Bear that), it was none of his business. And he had gotten me something special. That’s why his reply had taken so long. Wrapped in gift paper, he had arranged a bootleg from the 1988 Netherlands show of Bon Jovi. Even though it came out of his own pocket; This was not a bootleg that would be reviewed since it had been released for a long time. There was no reason to give me a copy. Except that he knew I had gone to that show, and that it had special meaning to me. The two cassettes felt like a true treasure. And I have been listening to them all weekend. And then this afternoon, when I came home from an afternoon with a friend, I found a postcard from Bear. I don’t know if he had rung my doorbell, but apparently he had managed to get away from home on a Sunday, and brought me a card. It was pretty neutral. As if, if his girlfriend found out, he could get away with just making a nice gesture to his ex. But he used my pet name, and said he hoped I was doing alright, which could refer to anything, but because we had sex the last time we saw each other and I had not heard from his since, I took it as an apology. I still don’t know if I m cut out to be the other woman. It was such a hard landing, being all by myself the last time he was here and we went further/ had done more than we had in the dates prior. There have definitely been moments when I have sworn to not go down this road, and take my chances as a single. That nothing is worth, feeling this miserable. Nothing, but a Valentine’s card with your pet name on it.

~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living

There is no doubt you re in my heart now | 1996 diary is the fourth chapter to 1996 diary New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And will be published together, once or twice a week, here on this blog. 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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Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

In The Jungle Where We Play | 1996 diary

Published on February 5, 2021February 5, 2021 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment

“ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS CAME NATURALLY” Monday February 1, 1996

Let’s do this!

After being inspired by photos from 1988, the summer I turned 16, and seeing my body was naturally thin, curvy around the hips like Sharon Stone, and with broad shoulders like an 80s bathing suit model;

I got to work.

There really is no excuse for my current weight, since I had such a good start. And it came entirely natural.

I remember this because I studied my body in the mirror, consciously saying to myself:

“Always remember this came naturally. You never have to do anything for this. This is who you are.”

What I meant was that I don’t have to go on a diet or workout.

But I also interpret it as:

“You never have to do anything else than what you are doing right now.”

Because that gives me a starting point to get back.

So I got to work.

What did I eat when I was 16?

What did my days look like?

How much did I move?

I scheduled out best I could a week planning that would mimic this.

Some things are different now.

My mother was taking care of me, so in 1988 I did not have to spend time on grocery shopping, cooking, housekeeping.

And the life of a 23 year old writer and a 16 year old high school student, will be different;

But I think I got the gist of it.

Here’s what I came up with:

-smaller meals

I ate every 3 hours or so.

Which was not ideal, because at 4 PM I would come home from school and eat the largest bowl with banana, yogurt, raisins, nuts.

After I had satisfied my appetite I realized I would not be hungry for dinner, but I was so starved I just couldn’t help myself.

But it does illustrate I never allowed myself to be hungry and was never shy of eating.

The other two aspects are 1,5 hours of cycling or walking, 5 days a week.

And a 30 minute walk, also 5 days a week. Which I will be replacing with yoga.

Finally, every night between 7 and 10, I would go to my attic room with a cup of coffee (that was the only moment of the day when I was certain I drank coffee) and do my homework.

So night times will become working hours.

I ll let you know how it goes, tomorrow. And I’ll also tell you about the perhaps not so smart choice I made yesterday night, which has given me a groggy Monday morning start, my 16 year old self would never have approved of.

UNDER COMMAND Tuesday February 2, 1996

Is it possible it’s only Tuesday morning and that I already broke my week?

That I already did not do so many things of the things I said I would do? In particular because I had decided to go back to my 1988 schedule of working (studying) at night.

I should have won the week, by looking back on a strong Monday.

I think the positive way to look at it, is that I have changed since I was 16. And also that it may have been the remoteness of the village where we lived, and the humdrum of living at home, that kept me indoors.

Living and working independently, getting up early and saying No to going out, is much harder.

If not impossible.

However, I still remember seeing that photo last Saturday, from when I was 16 years old and so many kilos younger, so many productive hours a week richer, and daily bike rides as a given.

It was entirely ingrained in my daily schedule.

Sunday night, I started the week on the wrong foot, or at least a very entertaining foot, when I went to the weekly Bon Jovi night at the Hard Rock Cafe.

I ve been going there since high school, although then not on a Sunday night obviously!

Throughout college I kept going there and never saw other students. It was one of the sanctuaries, just like Andy’s Room at the back of Warhol’s.

This reminds me of 1994!

When a painter who looked like Slash came to paint my house.

We kept running into each other, and sometimes consciously seemed to be staging a meetup.

One of them was at Andy’s room;

He had casually mentioned he went there every Saturday, but when I went there to see if he was there, he was standoffish and the bar lady was being very possessive.

Even though she was not his wife.

It did straighten out, months later. When he made an effort to see me, talk to me, and we had coffee and oliebollen (Dutch New Year’s treat).

I think that was the last time I saw him and that 1995 went by without him.

Last Sunday at the Hard Rock Cafe (note: This is not A Hard Rock Cafe, the franchise. We don’t have one here) it was good to be just a Bon Jovi fan.

There is something about that music that makes being with people who love it, easier than Guns N Roses fans.

It’s all ages, and at least on Sunday night more men than women, but at concerts it’s 50-50.

Bon Jovi are coming to the Netherlands this Summer, but I didn’t buy tickets. I don’t feel like it.

Sometimes I think I m just not someone who can stand the inconvenience of travel, and waiting in the sun.

Crossing the country in the dead of night.

And sometimes I think it must be something else that just doesn’t click…. So I don’t know why I love hanging out on Sunday night in a bar with other Bon Jovi fans, and I forgot to mention I work for the international fan club too!

I make their bootleg reviews, that’s how I know Nikki, the guy from the UK who trades them.

So there are days when I think I am a Bon Jovi fan, and that I can achieve anything I want, if only I work hard and stay optimistic.

And then there are times like this, when I can’t make myself do anything. And I resist being under command.

Even if it is from a regime that gave me the best body I ever saw, and the fast lane through high school.

I can’t make myself do things. And when everybody goes A I always go B.

If staying home on Sunday nights and going to bed early was frowned upon, I d be rockin’ it.

photo Rosanna Arquette and Madonna on the set of Desperately Seeking Susan 1984

I FOUND MY 16 YO SELF IN A BAR Wednesday February 3, 1996 I’m not saying hanging out in bars (two nights out of three) does not take its toll. It does. I slept in this morning and was unsure if I would not get sick, from yet another night in a smoky bar, but now I feel fine, so I guess I m getting away with it. Besides: On Monday night I was in, and yesterday morning I opened with: “Is it possible that I already broke my week?” So statistically speaking the worst day came after a night of staying in. And a worst day it was, emotionally. Little did I know the evening would bring the best most bad ass night of this year, if not this decade, where I totally found my mojo with help from my friend Sara! So what happened? Well it was with Sara, and we went to a bar and drank beer, and I complained her pretty little ears off of her head, whining about how I had lost 20 months after graduation already, and still didn’t have a frickin’ clue what I wanted with my life. That the beginning of this year was marked by removing some toxic people out of my life, and removing myself out of toxic environments; But it had been the same environments that held career options, money, fame, becoming a well known author and so on and so forth. In other words: Although I was happy I had gotten myself out of it, I had paid dearly for it. And I wasn’t my old self again. I was not just separated by a fuck load of kilos, from the 16 year old self I had seen on the photos mama and me sorted through last Friday; I lacked that 16 y.o. mental spark more than anything else! Her confidence, her naturalness. She did not hang out in bars on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights looking for fun and deep conversation, because she lived in a village; She also did not need those things. She was fine being her, and comfortable in her own skin. So I told Sara about finding those photos and how I felt I had deteriorated. How I had become less vibrant, achieved less, didn’t know myself anymore, and whatever my talents had once been, I would not be able to name them if they hit me in the head. From the moment of graduation/ university, June 1994 to now, February 1996, I had wasted the already mentioned 20 months. But in all likeliness: From summer 1988, the moments those photos were taken, to now; I had wasted 6,5 years. And the only thing I gained was an education and a lot of kilos. So I was telling her all those things, and being aware we’d been here before, and it was getting repetitive, I was very aware this was going the wrong way. I could not go on like this. Even if wallowing had ever been justified, for example because in December 1994 Bear broke up with me, even then it was enough. I was done. And I could just feel the power, who I was all those years ago, flow back into me. Like that movie Highlander where you get the power of the one you kill. I did not kill anyone, but I felt the life force of 16 year old me flowing back into me. And all the years in between just fell of me like dead weight. I’m back in the land of the living. IN THE JUNGLE WHERE WE PLAY Friday February 5, 1996

photo Axl Rose, who (as someone pointed out to me just recently) was very androgynous in the 80s.

The good news is that I don’t have a hangover from the third night this week, I went out. Bad news, is that I did spend the first two hours after waking up, worrying sick about how I am going to make it in life. Analyzing (and in response paralyzing!) all the parts where I had lost my power, and in all honesty did not have a clue how to get it back because I do not know any people who have made it into adulthood with the same aliveness as they had when they were a teen. The ones who I know who are already working are taking themselves so seriously. If they ever were creative or had dreams, they tell themselves they’ll get back to it one day; Only to then hang out at the Rock Star Cafe on Thursday night. Just like me. Just like them I too need to first touch base with who I am, my own identity, my independence. Thursday night is Guns N Roses night, and it’s like the church of lost souls. Where Sunday’s Bon Jovi fans, seem to have at least some kind of connection to Tommy and Gina and everyday life; The Thursday crowd looks as if they’re hurt by it. With eyes filled with relief, to finally be with their own people and feel human again. Sunday’s Bon Jovi fans have a We Can Make It mentality, but in a humble, non-NLP way. There is nothing shallow nor overly ambitious about it. Thursday’s Guns N Roses fans have a I m Unsure If I m Still Alive mentality. I don’t know any of us who are on drugs, or have visible problems, and yet it seems like we’re eaten by life itself, every single day. Maybe it’s an extrovert introvert thing – Sunday is definitely more outgoing! I feel at home in both the groups, but I know I am a Guns N Roses fan at heart. Maybe unfortunately, but either way it’s just how it is. And I too needed to see them, before I could decide on what to do. I mean I know what I want, but how in God’s name am I going to get there? Still don’t know, but a remark one friend made did stick. It was a really weird one, and you’re probably going to think I m crazy. I bet she didn’t even know herself what it meant, and forgot about it immediately after. And yet, to me it clicked. The conversation went something like when I pick up my new life, or have better understanding of how to express my true identity, it will be really good for my sexuality. “My sexuality?” I asked. Since I was unaware I had a problem with my sexuality. Things have been slow since Bear ended our affair, and my aids phobia pretty much preventing me from building a sex life as a single. But I don’t consider my sex life to be problematic. She repeated it would be good for my sexuality, and specified: “For your masculinity. You have been among women too much, and it’s draining you. You’re male.” I was absolutely baffled, but I immediately knew she had spoken the truth. It were the words I needed to hear, at the time I needed to hear them. I’m not talking body stuff (and neither did she), I m not unhappy with the fact that I’m a woman; But working in a female working environment at the publisher’s, and even my internship before that, has indeed fucked me up good. In order to feel better, and see where my path leads, I need to man up.

~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living

In The Jungle Where We Play | 1996 diary is the third chapter to 1996 diary New diary entries are posted on my Facebook page ; And will be published together, once or twice a week, here on this blog. Find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.

My diaries en erotica are available at my BOOK SHOP

Books

Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/