{ originally posted in 2017 }

The Thing?
That is when you know you can be successful in every other area of you life, but as long as you maneuver around IT, you will always feel like you missed your calling.
Because you walked away.
You didn’t even properly try.
Maybe a weak attempt, but you already knew beforehand that at the first sign of resistance or inconvenience you would drop it like a hot potato.
Little word of advice; nothing is worth trying (in fact I resist the word trying altogether) if you know you’re going to drop it as soon as things get more difficult. Because everything eventually will have it’s own hiccups and challenges.
And if it’s The Thing?
It will have even more.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic stated it most clearly when she said;
“Always do the project that scares you most.”
The only requirement for this advice to work, is that you view your life as a work of art. And that it fascinates you to grow beyond your fears.
I’m not saying to grow beyond irritation.
Or beyond boredom.
I m not saying to grow beyond “That is not for me.”
Or “I I don’t fancy that.”
I’m not even bringing in anger, or obsessions, or any unhealthy behavior you might nurture, into this equation.
I m focusing on fear. On that feeling of;
If this blows up in my face?
I m toast.
If this, fascinating, alluring, exciting thing, takes a wrong turn?
I collapse into the ravine along with it.
If I go on this life altering journey?
I may never return.
When I was a child I lived in Africa. My mother always warned me not to pick up large stones, because there could be scorpions and snakes hiding underneath. Years later, I confessed to my mother that we did turn the stones. And then we ran away, before we slowly crept back in, curious what we had uncovered.
My mother said;
“That’s okay. You were careful because you were warned.”
Just like snakes, it’s often enough to be scared. It keeps you from doing anything reckless. It is never meant as something to make you stop doing it altogether.
Last week I almost pulled a book from being published, because it scared the f*** out of me. Book one to seven were clear. They were written a long time ago. They didn’t have any emotions attached to them anymore. But book eight could blow up in my face, drive me into a ravine and get me lost, never to return.
The moment I realized that therefor book eight should not be cancelled, but in fact favored? That was a huge thing for me. That the fear had not been a sign that it should be pulled from publishing.
It had been a sign it was THE THING.
All I regret now is that I waited so long to publish the first books. I missed the chance to publish them when they were still warm, and I still felt sensitive about them.
A book can be well written, an evergreen or a bestseller. But only when it still has the fear and excitement of the writer attached to it, is it
THE THING

<3LSH

An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

That thing that scares the f*** out of you? It’s THE THING will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

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{ originally posted in 2016 }

When cafe The Fuzz opened its doors it was a breath of fresh air. Originally run by both father and son, the male grungy energy set it apart from all the fresh, light, frumpy lunch cafes.
Even now, four years later and with half a dozen vegan, eco friendly establishments entering the market, The Fuzz still only serves bread (and was one of the first in the city to offer pastrami) and toasted sandwiches, with an amount of cheese that can only be digested by the fiercest of stomachs.
The Fuzz is warm and welcoming but it has that edge that makes it so much more pleasant than mainstream lunch cafes.
Meanwhile, humans were not the only one drawn to this.
Bert, a ginger cat, who was over ten years old at the time, immediately included The Fuzz in his list of daily hang-outs, which also included a hair dresser and an accountancy firm. He lived in a nearby neighborhood, but every morning he crossed the busy street to hang out in the inner city of Nijmegen. After half a year, the people from the Fuzz found out Bert had stopped going home. That’s when they started feeding him, to make sure he would eat enough. They have also been the ones who have saved his life at least twice, over the course of four years.
Last summer Bert would sleep at the Fuzz but currently he doesn’t sleep at the Fuzz, nor do I see him at night when I cycle home. From what we know from past stories, he has sleeping addresses all around the block, always with women, and usually in their early twenties.
There have been women falling in love with him and missing him. At one time Bert was gone for days and when he returned he was wearing a collar. Clearly someone tried to tie him down, which was of course a lost cause.
The collar you see on Bert now, was from a later date.
The Fuzz owners gave it to him, as a sign he was taken care of.
What I realized is that Bert’s behavior is entirely human, and matches how men behave (or would like to behave). Bert hangs out with the boys during daytime, yet he spends the night either with young women or by himself. And without making any commitments. Even on the street he behaves manly, since he can’t multitask; if he’s on his way, for example to the hairdresser (who always leaves his door open) Bert needs to focus on traffic and on the journey ahead. He doesn’t want to be petted. But if he’s just hanging out on the pavement, or on the chair next to the entrance of the Fuzz, he’s cool with a little extra attention.
I remember a conversation I had with a man. I was fascinated by him, but I knew he couldn’t commit. He wasn’t honest about his whereabouts, but it most likely included a whole string of women who were all still crazy about him.
“I can’t get with you,” I said. “You’re bad news.”
He was offended and said:
“I want you to understand that I would never, ever, do anything against your will.”
And I laughed and answered:
“Of course not. That’s for amateurs.”
And I realized it was crazy to fight this, because I love men who behave like Bert. They don’t do anything against your will and you eagerly go along. The terms of the agreement are completely irrelevant.
You’re under their spell.
And you know that even if you somehow manage to put a collar on it;
It’s not going to change even the slightest thing, about their ways.

<3LSH

An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Fuzzy Bert will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

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{ originally posted 2015 }

A few weeks back I read that men were much more capable of relaxing than women:
They could ignore the mess and everything that needed to be done in housekeeping, and go fishing. Read the paper. Or watch porn.
Well actually I made that last one up, but you get the idea.
Men are surprisingly easy going creatures in domestic areas. To some degree they all remind me of The Dude, from The Big Lebowski.
Men have the unprecedented ability to prioritize and don’t sweat the small stuff. Which makes them born ready to rule empires, acquire Guru status or develop a cure to overcome death.
It is also what makes them disastrous to live with.
It’s not that I don’t love men, I adore them, especially the rough type like The Dude can make my knees melt and my defenses vaporize at the sight of all that laid- backness. 
But I wouldn’t want to live with one. And that’s coming from someone who would love daily sex, and doesn’t mind a guy watching porn. I have a caring nature and make soup when someone is ill and I m great with relationships.
But despite all these nurturing traits there is one thing I can’t stand: clutter.
In a former life, I lived with my partner and I remembered a conversation about a set of tools, an overflowing toolbox and an extension cable that were neatly stacked to the hallway wall.
After a week I said:
“Listen, I want to put them away for you. But where do they belong? In the shed, or in the closet?”
Both places were already high-jacked by his tools and spare parts, but I didn’t say that.
He answered:
”Pumpkin, if I tell you I have no idea, does that help in any way?”
That’s another reason I love men: they have the best sense of humor.
Like most stranded relationships, there were multiple reasons why we eventually broke up. But it didn’t help that I felt his clutter monster was growing stronger every day. And that I had no idea how to fight it.
His new girlfriend did, so that story ended well for all parties. And I started living for myself, and finally, The Big Clearing began.
I don’t consider myself a minimalist. Nor do I have that Marie Kondo thing nailed down to the last box with cords and computer appliances I never use.
I have spare pillows for on my couch, spare fleece blankets for over the couch, a single duvet including covers that I use as an extra for in winter or when I have a snoring Lebowski in my bed and prefer to sleep on the couch.
And I have a whole guest set incl two pillows, that I exclusively use that one night a year I have a friend over.
So I cannot claim mastership over the Marie Kondo method.
But I do understand why (most) women cannot relax unless the house is done, and why we flee from a guy’s clutter monster. Because having a clean and decluttered house is our key to happiness.
There have been days when I didn’t feel good, and this is something I discovered years ago, but then when I cleaned and cleared my house, it was done. I felt better. On moments like that I feel I should have it in ink on my forearm, so that I never forget:
Wait! Before you do anything to solve your problems, clean your house.
99% chance the bad feeling you had, is gone.
Last Sunday I was at a birthday party and suddenly the most peculiar thing happened.
Two of us had used the Marie Kondo method, and we explained it by folding a few children’s clothes to illustrate how it worked.
The third woman then got so inspired, that without buying the book of Marie Kondo, she dived into her closets that same day, and started clearing out. She sent pictures to the host of the party, to thank her for the inspiration. It was so obvious that she had found tremendous joy in this clearing out of her house, and that she would make the house a nicer, more joyful place to live for everybody.
Judging from the stories I hear from others, even men will give in the moment they see their wife’s side of the closet so neatly vertically stacked and stored. But they need to get a visual first.
Marie Kondo urges you to throw everything away that doesn’t spark joy. So start with what do you want to keep?  It works best if you have an idea what you want your house to look like. Or what kind of house your future self would have.
On the outside it may seem that your house is not significant. But for a lot of us, our house represents our world within. And that’s what you’re changing:
By beautifying the world around you, you change the world within.
And that ain’t no small thing.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Spruce up your nest will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

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{ originally posted 2015 }

I was never more inspired by a celebrity, then the years when Angelina Jolie was a single mom to her newly adopted son Maddox.
She had applied for the adoption together with her then-husband, but before it came through the two separated.
“We changed overnight,” she said.
Although in some interviews she admits the thought of becoming a mother simply gave her a whole new perspective on things. A perspective where the man you share knife games and tattoos with might not make the ideal parent.
“Once Maddox came into my life, I knew I would never be destructive again.”
She was so worried about her son, that she took him in a baby seat to the bathroom with her when she indulged in a taking a miniature- shower.

April 19, 2005

Early 2005, still officially single but already suspected of being somewhat involved with Brad Pitt, she talks to Vanity Fair about how her life looks.
She basically still sleeps and breaths with Maddox, but has acquired two lovers with whom she occasionally has sex in hotels (one at the time, although Vanity Fair does not press for details).
The lovers are not invited to see her son.
“But I know if I ever saw a man be great with my child, then that would be it for me.”
After giving the interview and before the print, a photo with Brad Pitt and her son, appeared. And my infatuation for her disappeared. My idol had been the single independent woman who took full responsibility as a parent and arranged her sex life too. Luckily for me: that Angelina never fails to inspires me (more to that later), even though the real Angelina transcended to a whole new level, and started to inspire the rest of the world.
For the past year my life has been much like that of the early single Jolie; it revolves around my cats, in particular the bigger one which has been non-stop sick since June last year. And just like with humans, sickness starts with thinking it will be okay, progresses to what-the-fuck is this, falls back to fatalism, spirals back up at the first hopeful sign.
And then it starts all over again.
I ve currently just come out of the latest cycle, where I nearly killed my cat with two back-to-back med courses that were supposed to save his life. I gave it up and stopped the second one after five days.
Now I focus on restoring his original health level.
So for a year I’ve been from home 4-5 hours max.
Since six months I can’t solve this by letting anybody else take care of them.
Since four weeks my clothes have been dirty from force feeding, my skin scratched from VET visits and I probably look grey with worry.
But every time I think I can’t go on any longer, or when I m afraid I ll accidentally choke him with the meds, or when I have to take him to the VET, I invoke my inner Angelina Jolie…
I can feel my thighs shrink to a size that does not allow for pizza Nutella.
My teeth get round and smooth, my lips grow to Hollywood stardom and I wear imaginary eyeliner and mascara (sometimes I put on real one, to make sure it works).
My hands somehow seem more elegant, and my voice is steady and motherly, when I tell him everything will be fine and that mommy knows best.
My cat is being taken care of by Angelina Jolie throughout the most difficult year of his life.
And how this Angelina manages to hold up, and how she spends her me-time?
Oooooh…. you’ll figure it out 

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

What would Angelina Jolie do? will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

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right: 2013

{ originally published in 2015 }

Madonna started it herself, breathing life into the whole myth of her and Sean Penn coming back together again.
Or at least toying with the thought.
Or toying with him.
Maybe the birthday tweet in which she commemorated her own birthday (16 August, also their wedding day) and his birthday (August 17) was just her way of saying:
“Hey you! You’re single again! What the f*?! is taking you so long?”
Because in recent years he had truly been testing her patience.
Or lack of it.
It was early 1985 when Madonna and Sean had their meet cute at the set of Material Girl.
At 24, Penn was already an acclaimed actor and a notorious hand-full, and Madonna was a beginning star.
The Material Girl video made no secret what her ambition was.
It had people admire her with lines as:
“The biggest star in the universe right now as we speak”.
But although those words were prophetic, she had not acquired world fame yet.
Her 1984 album Like a Virgin was out, but it wouldn’t be until they added Get Into the Groove, in the re-issue from July 1985, that it became a bestseller world wide. 
America knew Madonna from her gyrating performance in wedding dress at the first ever MTV video movie awards, an appearance that was noticed by Sean Penn who immediately took an interest in her. But in Europe we were years from having MTV.
The only Madonna we knew was the mother of Jesus, but she would have to make way soon.
Madonna and Sean marry on her 27th birthday. The marriage was as passionate as it was toxic, with him switching between being the best lover she ever had, and being a terrifying, abusive alcoholic. The physical violence climaxed December 1988. She left. It was over.
Or was it?
Over the years the two kept in touch, from when she was dating Warren Beatty, to when she had her baby Lourdes in 1996 and invited Sean to be present during the delivery.
Very curious how he sold that to his then-wife Robin Wright Penn.
And if he accepted.
In more recent years there has been a whole series of meet, greets, and flirtations going back and forth. There was the photo for their birthdays this year, but also last year, when she dressed her son up as a character Sean Penn played.
That’s two years in a row Madonna did not let the birthdays/ wedding date go by unnoticed.
He divorced Wright in 2010, and attended Madonna’s concert October 2012.
They probably had to rebuild the Los Angeles Staples Center after putting out the fire the two caused.
And in 2013 things got into a higher gear:
In September he attended her Secret Project Revolution.
In November he and Madonna and her son Rocco hung out in Haiti, touring his charity projects.
In December 2013 Sean Penn announced his relationship to Charlize Theron.
Excuse me?
After three months of him and Madonna continuously sharing public displays of affection, he’s with Theron? You re kidding right?
I can only imagine how p*ssed off she must have been over that one. But thankfully to all of us who like a good story: Charlize Theron ended things a few months ago. Penn is back on the market. And we’re all praying this time he’ll make the right choice.
With chances of a reunion soaring, what could be the reason Madonna and Penn act like a latter-day Taylor and Burton?
First, there is the obvious: he looks like her father.
Okay, that was a cheap one, but stuff like that matters!
With her father too, she had a troubled relationship. Madonna was 5 when her mother died, and after that she competed her siblings to get attention of their father. This was the first relationship she had with a man.
No wonder she didn’t shy away at the first sign of difficulty with Sean.
But there is another reason I think she will always love Sean: He was the only one who treated her as an equal. And that’s why he was so violent. Because he wanted her down, he wanted to control her.
Something no one in their right mind has ever tried since.
And thirty years after their marriage date, and probably thirty young, old and versatile lovers later, Madonna will see that Sean was the only one that stuck. That kept a flame burning and the only one who ever tried to defy her.
And this time?
She’s ready.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Madonna will always love Sean will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

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{ originally published 2015 }

“I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch” 

Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic p.172

A few years ago, I gave a book called Parenting illustrated with crappy pictures to a friend. It was so appealing yet I couldn’t put my finger on it. Why was I giving this (in all honesty- hilariously funny book) instead of something eh…well, a little more polished.
Something that would lift a young mother out of her daily grind.
But now I know why: because those crappy pictures were an authentic expression. And the fact that they were not polished, and that she was obviously clueless how to use a computer to draw, made it all the more endearing. It was her son who had told her they were “pretty crappy”. So this was book written by a woman so desperate to create, that she defied the judgement of her 4 year old.
She still did it anyway.
Elizabeth Gilbert published a book last week:
Big Magic: creative living beyond fear
When we say “creative living” we obviously think of crafting things, writing things, musicianing things and maybe dancing things.
But behold!
This is a narrow definition of creativity. Liz gives two inspiring examples of two women living creative lives.
One is a woman who picked up ice-skating in her forties. Three times a week, before work she would go to the track and skate with a coach, or alone. She was making something of herself, and of her life, through ice skating!
Another woman started studying Mesopotamia (devour books, visit archaeological sites, talk to experts) in her 80’s, and now she’s in her 90’s and people visit her as an expert on Mesopotamia.
And there are a lot of people who find their creativity in doing yoga every morning, in running, in travelling: the possibilities are endless. But the need, Liz says, is universal.  Liz truly believes that we all have this force within us, and describes what will happen if you don’t do anything with it.
A creative mind (and remember- that is most likely any human mind) is like having a border collie for a pet:
You need to keep it busy or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble.
Like eating the couch, digging a  hole in the living room floor, or biting the mailman.
Unless you spend sufficient time with your border collie mind, creating something, studying something, or taking an AM 10 mile run, your mind will cause havoc. It will turn aggressive and start to destroy things.
First of all your own inner-peace.
I m still amazed how easily my mind can find one little tear, one tiny insecurity, only to then grab it, yank it, and keep yanking and pulling it until my  inner-peace, self-worth and general sense of well-being are effectively torn to bits!
But if I see my mind as this highly energetic dog, that just needs to be entertained, I understand why it starts to behave badly.
And how to prevent it.
If you work on a routine where your creative mind, your inner border collie, gets a good work-out, just see what a lovely pet it will make! 

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Big Magic will be published in the first English book under my real name:
I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW

To read new posts and updates follow Twitter;
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