Project 88 | 1996 diary

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
Sunday March 7, 1996.
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Madonna by Marcus Leatherdale 1983
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.
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Or, if that was no longer an option biochemically or for other reasons; then at least I tried.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Which makes that I have two reasons to long back to the time of that photo, to 1988
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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.
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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.
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~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“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Through The Looking Glass | 1996 diary

Published on 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.
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Yet I do love this project, and hope to pick up writing/ living (!), soon.
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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.
.
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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Wednesday February 17, 1996
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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“.
.
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/

Sex first. Writing second. And yoga got cancelled

Published on 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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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!”
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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.
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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.
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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?!”
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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.
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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 by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
THE WORST TIMING
Saturday February 6, 1996
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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“.
.
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/

In The Jungle Where We Play | 1996 diary

Published on by LS HarteveldLeave a comment
photo Madonna, Michael McKenzie 1981
“ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS CAME NATURALLY” Monday February 1, 1996
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Let’s do this!
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
 
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photo Madonna, Richard Corman 1983
UNDER COMMAND Tuesday February 2, 1996
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If staying home on Sunday nights and going to bed early was frowned upon, I d be rockin’ it.
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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“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

The Rock Star Yoga Teacher

Published on by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

Bad news first: I went through another round of blowing everything up.
And I do mean everything.
I considered deleting all my websites, all my social media accounts including LinkedIn, and I m talking about both my accounts now.
LS Harteveld as well as everything under my real name.
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I could quieten the rage by only quitting writing here, for Lauren Harteveld. It took the edges off and gave me time to think.
But I was so self-destructive.
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And the irony is that I can still feel that rage inside of me. It’s not gone. It’s just that by giving myself massively complicated topics write about, like an adult pacifier, I can distract myself.
And by now I m so caught up in them, that I am already thinking of the future. 
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Is there really no way to make money from my art? 
Or have I even tried?
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This morning I got a message from a consultant I gave an interview to earlier this month. He was hired by a company where I am a customer, and he was getting back to a few things we had discussed.
One of the things he asked, but that was more of a chitchat thing since it wasn’t relevant to the interview, was;
“How is the yoga by referral coming along?”
A term or job I came up with, when I had heard that he did not have a website or even social media profile. 
He was a “referral-only” consultant. Which had an elusive ring to me.
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“If I ever start teaching yoga again, I will be a referral-only yoga teacher!”
I had answered.
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Although I am usually quick to brush things like that off, because I really do not want to be teaching yoga again, but in this case I had asked the Universe to SHOW ME the means how I was supposed to make money.
Because by now I want to know if I am supposed to be looking for a job, or set up a business or or or, what, right?
I was sure the Universe knew the answers, and I literally asked God to show me before I went to sleep.
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Not remembering my dream when I woke up, I assumed I had not received an answer.
But then I opened my email.
The consultant had sent his email with the yoga teacher by-referral, at 6 minutes past midnight: 15 minutes after I had fallen asleep.
How’s that for a speedy delivery.
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And there is also the 3-part vision I received, the three sentences, about half a year ago.
They were my three guidelines from God or the Universe, how I was supposed to develop myself.
They were (and like all religious texts they could be interpreted in multiple ways):
1. Get in front of as many people as possible
2. Yoga is my art
3. Album tour. Album tour.
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Especially the third one, not being a musician I have no idea what that could mean.
Am I meant to go on a book tour, and are my books my albums?
But I only publish books under this name, LS Harteveld, and I want to be known and get “in front of people” under my real name.
Am I supposed to start publishing books (albums) under my real name too? Or should I be making “yoga albums”?
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Even the second clue, “Yoga is my Art”: There have been weeks when I “felt” that. When I had an intuitive understanding that yoga was indeed my art.
And that I would go back to it.
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And then there are moments like this when just thinking about picking up the phone and someone wanting a yoga lesson would be enough reason to throw myself off a bridge. 
I would not even go through the trouble of deleting my profiles first.
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So all in all, the three clues from last year, as well as last night’s yoga teacher by-referral, has not brought the finite vision to which I have a (positive) emotional response. 
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And then (another clue the universe is working its butt off to get through to me!) I went through a stack of notes, and they were like a “best of” series of insights I had jotted down in the past 6 months or something.
Different paper types, different pens, and also some notes made more sense or spoke to me more than others.
But even with not everything falling into place immediately, one thought shot through my head;
“Oh my God. It’s all there……”
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One by one, I had written down all the things, all the pieces of the puzzle. And I instinctively knew the puzzle was complete.
I did not need to look anymore, or wonder if it was going to fit.
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This was everything I needed.
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So I want to share those notes with you, so that in our coaching call, we can see how they fit together.
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note 1: I AM THE KATRINA RUTH OF YOGA!! *)
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This is so true.
I don’t even think it’s about me comparing myself to her in terms of being a badass leader. It really is not about me, nor about her.
What I mean is;
If there had been someone in yoga, like Katrina Ruth, I never would have stopped teaching. I never would have stopped practicing. And since there is no Katrina Ruth of teaching yoga, this means I am the Katrina Ruth of yoga.
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I can be for yoga what she is for female entrepreneurs:
The positive mirror, the loud older sister who tells you you can fucking do it. The unapologetic bitch who tells you that IT IS time to put your foot down and stake your claim.
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So that no one like me, ever has to leave yoga again because we just can’t breathe there.
We could level up, where the air is still clear. Go the extra mile, because as we know; It is never crowded there 😉 
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note 2: PERFORMANCE ART
To be in a state that makes art inevitable. Steward of this energy. Experience of living.
Big ass wave.
Pond.
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(note 2, last two entries, are a mystery)
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note 3: EXPRESSIONIST
Putting forward what’s in me, into the world.
Being the guardian of my inner-life.
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note 2 and 3 were made during one of our coaching calls, although I can’t see when that was.
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note 4: Teach yoga (like being a psychologist who stays faithful to their craft) the way I believe it should be taught.
To people who will drop out of yoga// get turned off, the way it’s currently commercialized/ taught.
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note 5: characteristics Historian
Take 25 years off.
High-pressure cooker. (no idea what this means)
We define someone how he makes his money/ instead of by what someone’s interests are. 
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And finally note 6, which I made just this weekend, and which originated from writing a meaty article on my love life and things I would never again ask of a man, of a lover.
But I noted it down for in our conversation, once I realized that if I reversed it, it fully applied to what people could ask from me, when I thought about it in terms of me offering a “service”, or being a service provider.
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So where my conclusion in this article I had written on my love life had been:
“I will never expect of a man (after a date), what I would not expect of Jon Bon Jovi (after the show).”
It now became, applicable to me as a service provider;
“No one can ask of me, what they would not ask of Jon Bon Jovi.”
Meaning: I can deliver a peak performance, but the boundaries and roles are clear. 
And of course, then what you do is not service. Not in the way we think of service providers, and in particular not the way we think of yoga teachers.
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If you deliver a peak performance where the boundaries are clear;
You’ve put on a frickin’ show.
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~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

*) You can find business coach Katrina Ruth on YouTube, Facebook, and she has the best optins (freebies) and great content in the email sequence you get after.
Current Optin:
Everything You Know About Success is Wrong.
A 4-Part Video Series with Quantum Success Coach Katrina Ruth
(or go straight to her website)

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/

A Successful Sweet Sixteen | { reboot } 1996 diary

Published on by LS Harteveld6 Comments
On 25th January 2021 I decided to quit writing. There was no way to give Lauren96 a sex life with her lover Bear having ended their affair late 1994, and my real-life body being stuck in Covid struck 2021. 
But apparently, she has more to say! The Lauren96 Reboot: 
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Madonna 1985 from “Adore” limited edition photo book by Kenji Wakasugi
Saturday January 30, 1996 6.15 P.M. I’m at my desk with a cup of coffee, very much like the year I’m sending myself back to; 1988. Yesterday, I was at my mother’s and we were filing our photos.  One of the years that came up was 1988, and I had such an intense experience of traveling back in time. To the virgin year before, shall we say “all hell broke loose”. 1988 was the year I had my first relationship, but with the knowledge of today, I wasn’t in love.  I found him exciting, attractive, and I had known him most of my life, always captivated by the way he seemed to be above of it all. But at least for me, there was no real way to connect or relate to him, and therefor there was no real way to fall in love with him. Even though he was extremely attractive, intelligent, and artistic. Combined with the large distance between us, since we were living on other sides of the country, and the fact that he was having trouble at home, I had probably selected the most difficult first courtship imaginable.  It didn’t turn sour until the very end, but it was very passive aggressive, from his side. Mine was probably overtly aggressive because I was frustrated with him just opting out by not answering phone calls, vague excuses his family made for him. I have not seen him till this day, that’s how painful it was. And that’s how easy it is to avoid seeing him. I m glad he was my first boyfriend because he was at the time someone I had been fascinated with for such a long time. But I paid for it. And by the time I met Jonathan, in the final days of 1988, I was still not ready for a new relationship or courtship. Jonathan did become my new boyfriend however; And that ended even worse. By the time I sat down with Bear for coffee, late 1989, my heart was still showing signs of Jonathan’s breakup. It’s just that I chose to move on anyway. Bear became my lover, and he stayed my lover all throughout college until 14 months ago when he broke up with me. That my heart no longer had the resilience it had had after Jonathan should have been the first sign it was taking a toll, I could no longer pay. But I chose not to see, or not to do anything about it. Until today. Because yesterday I saw those photos from 1988, the year before Bear, before Jonathan. It was a year spent on my room in the attic, like most years were.  And it was spent with school, sunny holidays, and dreaming about boys. And the occasional meet up with my first boyfriend. It was this predictable schedule that spoke to me. One of those daily routines was being behind my desk every night after dinner, with a cup of coffee. Just like I am now, although I was here a bit earlier today. In 1988, I would be in my room and study from 7 until 10. I had tried to recreate that rhythm earlier this year, or maybe even late 1995 I can’t remember. I thought it would help me to publish my books! By seeing them as school projects, I was sure I would be working on them every night from 7 until 10. Just like back then. And I could also see how the daily schedule would help me lose weight because all I had to do was stick to the food I ate then, and get the physical exercise I had right then. Without success. My (bad) habits stayed the way they were. The only thing I did do was quit smoking, but this has made me gain even more weight. But yesterday I saw the photos that were taken in this school period. The time when I had that highly efficient and strict rhythm. And what I saw was what I will call “the body of bodies”. My 16 year old body, was by far the most beautiful body I have ever seen in my life. And I ve seen quite a few, because I read a lot of men’s magazines and photo magazines. But Lauren Harteveld 1988 wins, sorry guys. Lauren Harteveld 1996 however?  I have gained a lot of weight. It started late 1993, when I would spend days at the office during my internship.  Then writing my thesis in 1994. Followed by a job at the publisher’s sitting on my ass all day, and now I ve finally freed myself from that, but publishing my own books is not going well. I have not given that 16 year old girl the future she deserved. The future she worked hard for, every night between 7 and 10. The other moment I started to gain weight was, of course, late 1994 when Bear broke up with me. He has a girlfriend now, and he’s living with her. Although we still like each other and for a long time it appeared as if we’d start an affair. But I don’t think we are. I feel I lost him. We have seen each other, intimately. It was weeks ago already, but I have not heard from him since and did not want to talk or write about it.  Still don’t. It’s really sad because there really isn’t anyone to blame, it’s just that things are no longer working out between us, even though it seemed like they would. Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it. He made his choice, there’s nothing I can do. But it is the right time to focus on my career and getting my 16 year old body back. I owe it to myself. ~Lauren96 An unexamined life is not worth living
A Successful Sweet Sixteen | 1996 diary is the second chapter to 1996 diary  New diary entries will be posted on my Facebook page when they’re small; Or will be bundled together/ immediately published here on this blog. To receive all, find the subscription button on this page. Archive: “1994 A Performance Project” and “1995-1996; book 2 of my performance project“.
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Books 
My diaries are available at LULU New books will be added. The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready, is to subscribe to this blog. Button on this page, probably on the top right. Or follow my Facebook page / Twitter: @LSHarteveld
Nederlands blog: https://zegmaarlauren.com/

Goodbye for now

Published on by LS Harteveld

Convinced it would be The Bestest Way to communicate daily, I started a diary on Facebook.

Little did I know it would turn out as the worst five days of 2020 and 2021,
and (once again) end with me quitting writing.

I have about 20 posts where I quit writing so I ve decided it’s going to be one of my new books (all posts where I quit writing), so that we at least can have a laugh over it it one day.

~Lauren

Creator’s Diary Day 1 to 5

 

day 1
digital minimalism

To support my project of writing a diary as if I m living in 1996,
I m reading a book about sensible/ functional use of social media.
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Just like other forms of minimalism, it’s about recalibrating your life so that what you spend your time AND undivided attention on, reflects your values.

Although I m definitely not a purist in implementing this book –
I highly recommend reading it.

The vibe of it has already freed up so much time usually spent on social media/ email/ scrolling;
The book has created its own time to read it!
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day 2
our online Bermuda triangle & how online (youth) culture began

A topic I m currently investigating, is how our minds got hacked by online media.
And how to get them back.

We are currently losing time, daily, checking our likes, reading new shiny things.
By now, it’s just not social media:
All sites have been engineered to reward staying and reading more.
Where we put our awareness and our time seldom reflects our values.
The things we really find important.
The things we would really like to spend our leisure time on.

Many of us do not even have leisure time/offline time anymore;
We are always behind on what we want to do, what we want to achieve, and when we do fun things we want to document them.
As if they do not exist unless we make it public.

Today I discussed this with a friend, and he pointed out that at the turn of the century, the youth in Finland were already communicating with each other in SMS “bubbles”.
They had a culture where they “hung out” on SMS, and then met each other in real life/ a certain place in the city.
The youth of Finland was the iGen generation (born after 1995) avant la lettre.
Before any other culture, they lived in an online community with its own rules, its own risks of being thrown out or excluded.
A culture not understood by their parents.

When I got home I investigated this culture further and it brought me to the history of texting.
It is very ironic that texting was seen as a way to communicate, not to bother other people.
A call was intrusive, especially at out of office hours for example.
But by texting two people could communicate with each other at different times.
“I didn’t see your message.”
or
“I only just read your message.”
Were perfectly viable explanations.

Aside from maybe the Finnish youth, immediate answers were never expected.
Let alone residing next to your phone, and being addicted to your notifications as we are today.

Twenty years after the avant-la-lettre iGen generation in Finland, most of us are acting as if we are in such a highly-pressured peer group as 15-25 years olds usually are.
(And always have been)
There are few fixed rules, and in order to be a part of such a group, you need to be constantly tuned in and watch group dynamics like a hawk.

In the book I m reading, Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport, he gives a number about which percentage of the mental brain-width goes to social interactions.
I think it was somewhere along the lines of 80%
And that was not counting SMS and online culture, I think this percentage might even come straight from the chimpanzees.

I think in the upcoming decade, we’re going to see an enormous shift in our presence on internet.
That just like with smoking that went from something everybody did everywhere, and was marginalized;
Using your smartphone will no longer be normal, but become functional again.
And this will happen within a decade.

I found many studies about the negative effect of online culture, both in Finland as well as globally namely on generation iGen (born after 1995)
But although a youth that was (in my opinion) unprepared and not properly guided in the exposure their phones would cause, is no doubt the saddest of all effects;
I think we only have to look at our own lives, and if we’re born before 1985 we very well remember it without technology;

If we look at that, we can see what we’ve lost.
And maybe it is our responsibility to do our part,
and bring offline culture back.

So that at least the youth has a choice, where they want to live.
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day 3
The Matrix/ Ready Player One reality check
& why I have decided to severely limit my time
“in The Oasis” (read: online)

click to go to the video

A few minutes ago, the Netherlands got their first Covid curfew, which will last two weeks minimum.
I ve just deleted an entire paragraph about how long I think this is going to take.
Or why Covid has been very unfair to everybody under 25;
And just like climate change, no more houses being available and phone and media addictions that are altering their brains and creating anxiety;
We were unable to stop it from happening.

We have not protected our youngest generation the way I think we all wished we had, or maybe a better way of saying it is that we are not giving them the world we wanted them to have.
The following is not addressed to those under 25, but those older.
In particular those born before 1985:
Being addicted to refreshing your news feed, checking your mail, your likes and so on, is addictive behavior that means you do not FEEL what reality is.
It’s like Ready Player One, where the reality is so bad people are only in The Oasis.
They have internalized this reality.
Even at the end of the movie, when the government becomes more humane, they close the Oasis for one day a week.
But they keep using it as an escape for 6.

In The Matrix the human bodies are used as batteries, and their minds are entertained in The Matrix,
If you meet someone from the resistance you can choose between The Red Pill, which will awaken you,
or The Blue Pill, which will leave you in your state of blissful ignorance.
Few want the red pill.
Many choose ignorance.

I feel that because my generation and the ones before have failed to create a sustainable future, a sustainable now, AND we have raised an entire generation addicted to The Oasis, asleep in the Matrix,
the least we should be able to do, is to be present and aware in the world we created.
Yes, that includes being online.
But not to be entertained, or feed an addiction.
We should be online in service of others. Because we have something positive to contribute.
And because we owe them.

In the Netherlands 8 out of 10 young people are going to respect curfew.
They don’t respect “curfew”:
They respect us.
Us.
But do we deserve that?

The 8 out of 10 that would take the blue pill.
The people in Ready Player One, who keep going back to the Oasis.

Let us focus on the positive, and on the real world. Real connections.
Let us be there for the ones who do want to take the red pill, and are ready to wake up in the real world.
And make sure it’s one worth living in.
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day 4
Curfew night 1

Last night Covid curfew started in The Netherlands, and it was dead quiet.
I was in bed at least an hour earlier than usual, and it was after having this eerie desolate feeling for hours already.
As if, especially for a Saturday night, something was very very wrong.
And most will agree it was:
.
Whether you’re mourning the Covid tragedy or the loss of freedom, I think few will argue that in a country with a curfew something is seriously wrong.
But “the few”?
.
Last night, going to bed in a silence that could have meant I was the only living creating within miles, I wondered;
“How many people will love this silence so much, this measure wins by popular demand?”
.
And when I woke up, as if I had spent money on a holiday in the mountains that serene, that sensation was even stronger.
We have to be weary to not get used to this.
It was dark.
Since the sun doesn’t get up before 8.15 or something that didn’t mean much so I checked and to my surprise it was already 7.30.
If the clock had said 4 I would have believed it, because it was so quiet.
I went about my day.
.
At 10 AM I had to leave, and by this time, it was still so quiet I got an I Am Legend like feeling.
From the movie where Will Smith plays the only survivor, in a world taken over by zombies and wildlife.
Since I had not checked any news, could I even be SURE the rest of the world had not been (quietly) eaten by zombies?
So I checked.
According to our news sites, the world was not overtaken by zombies.
.
The silence really was the silence of curfew and a country that didn’t have a good reason to get out of bed.
.
Today there were Covid protests, and they got out of hand.
For the first time since, I don’t know, the eighties?
There were/are riots, clashes with the police, property destroyed.
.
Turns out what I was hearing last night was the quiet before the storm.
.

day 5
GOODBYE for now

Five days ago I started a new series:
CREATOR’S DIARY
Tonight’s was going to be number 5.
I m quitting this series for a very simple reason:
Because these have been the 5 worst days of my life.
.
I spent the last hour logging in/ logging out from one half of blogs (under my real name) to the other half, which are these under LS Harteveld.
And the only reason I did not delete any websites, and all social media profiles associated with it, was because I could not decide which account, which half of myself, to destroy.
.
Five year worth of YouTube, all my Facebook pages under my real name and personal account and a promising future as an artist and writer under my real name?
.
Or 15 years of writing and honestly not having a f-ing clue what to write about anymore, on this one?
.
The thing I am, was, most excited about is my 1996 diary, which you can find on the tabs in this website.
But Lauren96 doesn’t have a man in her life anymore, after her boyfriend Bear chose for someone else after having been her lover for 5 years.
And in combination with my real body being stuck in Covid struck 2021, this means she’s celibate.
.
If you’ve got nothing better to offer your 23 year old protagonist than being celibate, I think you better stop writing.
So I am.
You will hear nothing until I have created a world, worthy of my 23 year old protagonist.
Or until I decide it’s hopeless and end this account.
.
Lauren96 is a project that got a serious blow when my lover ended things, and its death verdict when Covid begun.
That’s how I see it.
I really hope I ll have the togetherness to save and publish my books. If I do, you can find them at:
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/LaurenandLulu
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I once became a writer because my love life was so complicated I needed pen and paper to process it.
.
But long story short, now it has become so complicated pen and paper won’t suffice.
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For a very long time I ve known that without a good sex life, I would not write.
And I tried to make it work, I really did.
In particular because I started dreaming of deserts; there were signs of God action was required!
.
But I m done, I m hurt, and I want to blow something up.
.
I hope that by leaving before I can decide which part of myself to take this out on, I won’t..
.

.
~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/

No Longer Hiding, No Longer Dropping Balls, No More!

Published on by LS Harteveld

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

Dear Sara,

It was tempting to not write a public blog post, and just like for our last call two weeks ago, to write a private email.
Except: I didn’t really have a good enough reason.
There were no matters that were affecting me, and that needed to stay private.
There was no reason to only email, aside from the fact that I had kind of liked that. It had felt like skipping class, to break my self-imposed rule to always write a blog post preceding our call.
To “earn” your coaching, or to justify spending money on myself.
To first work.
.
So there was nothing going on, compared to last time.
But the fact that I wanted to not write, was a pattern that I have witnessed the past two weeks or perhaps even longer.
That I don’t feel like writing for my LS Harteveld account, or even hesitate writing my pen friend The Saint/ Nikki;
It is all related.
And in a way it feels like mourning.
For a lot of things: Sexuality, my lover (we still see each other but our affair is over), but most of all that I m not further along the road with my art, and in particular with my books.
.
In autumn last year I cleared my agenda to publish my books, as LS Harteveld, so that I could start fresh with a new career under my real name in January.
But it didn’t work.
I barely published any books, and yet I lost three months as well as my entire productivity.
.
Where I used to write one sometimes two posts a day, or create a video and a post, usually under one of my many accounts;
Since autumn it has been terribly quiet.
.
I started 2021 with even less than I had in September or early October.
Feeling massive disappointment, I had screwed it up.
.
And I think that’s most of all what I m coming to terms with on a deeper level. That I can’t clear my agenda to create books. It has cost me three months now, but this has been going on since 2018.
We’ve been here before.
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It feels like I have been so destructive by throwing all that time away to nothing..
I hope writing it out as bluntly as this, will speed it up. But it feels raw.
.
The good thing that has ultimately come from it, but no sooner than today which is why I am writing you much later than I usually do, is that I understand that creating and posting (so creating something that gets done) has to come before creating things that have a longer cycle.
.
For example, under my real name I make reviews from old Bon Jovi concerts for YouTube.
That usually costs me 5 hours, preparation only.
.
And another example would be publishing the books for Lauren Harteveld/ this account.
That can take anything up to a few days to a few weeks per book.
.
What I learned is that I am a daily creator first, long cycle creator second..
Combined with other obligations this will mean that the long cycle posts and the publishing of books more often than not will not get done.
.
Another thing is that for so very long, I have considered, tried, structured, planned to do important things every day.
And on days when I have a lot of time, I do enjoy it to add half an hour of this and half an hour of that.
.
But Friday, Saturday and Sunday were three days in a row where I had a minimum of two long appointments a day, as well as many people who asked me things and so on;
And all the good habits, and mental peace I had been building during the week, went overboard.
.
By the time it was Sunday night, I was so extremely frustrated over not having done even one blog post in over 72 hours, nor making any headway with my art.
.
So from now on it’s creation first.
Everything else second.
.
And if the publishing of the books of Lauren Harteveld gets done somewhere in the upcoming decade;
That’s soon enough.
.
.

~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/