Let’s divide up the world into the damned and the safe







Two of my friends from Amsterdam moved to Berlin recently and had their housewarming last night. Photos by Ima.







Two of my friends from Amsterdam moved to Berlin recently and had their housewarming last night. Photos by Ima.
Somehow I have the feeling that this summer is gonna be a special one, I can’t really put it in words but I’ve been up to so many things and it just feels different than the years before.
Barbecues in the park, walking in the Transgeniale Christopher Street Day parade, drinking wine and dancing to techno music in the streets, helping friends move, watching the football and actually enjoying it, dubstep, staying up all night and sitting in the morning sun at the riverside, Bar 25 nights and days, Sternburg beer from the gas station, meeting new people, lighters and lipsticks, even more barbecues & friends coming over to visit, messy bedrooms & glitter makeups, super-artsy gallery openings & porn exhibitions, stealing flowers, free cocktails & anchovy pizzas at the beach bar, jumping into the Spree in underwear & going swimming in the morning sun, a lot of work to do, sitting on a big swing in the heavy rain & sitting at the campfire, making plans, sitting on my living room floor cutting each other’s hair, sidecuts, randomly watching the football in the office of a political party, getting home & having someone waiting for me with dinner, housewarming parties, wearing some neon for the sick and lonely old.

Today Vero and me grabbed two pairs of scissors and decided to get a new haircut. I’ve always wanted some kind of sidecut, ever since I cut Janna’s hair that night in Amsterdam, but everytime I made plans to finally do it I failed (Only last weekend my co-worker brought a shaving machine all the way to Bar 25 and guess what? I wasn’t there as I was home taking a nap. Oh well.) It’s kinda funny, the more exciting my life gets and the more I’m doing (more on that later), the more I get bored of myself and, luckily enough, if things are exciting I’m a lot crazier than usual and just generally care less. So I cut my hair and no, I neither broke up with someone, nor am I in love, I was just bored.
Some more random captures from my life of the past few weeks.








After a long night, hardly any sleep and a few coffees and energy drinks I took a tram to Prenzlauer Berg to meet Teenagersintokyo for an interview at their hotel. It went pretty well, I said goodbye, walked through half of the city and spent the rest of the day with Edvina and Adam walking around Neukölln, sitting at the canal and watching duck babies.
The thing I like about Berlin (and probably every other big city) is that everyone who lives here kind of approaches the city in their own way. The people I know here all have their very own areas, places and things they like to do and depending on who I’m hanging out with I do all kinds of different things, see and do things I probably wouldn’t see and do if I was on my own. Everyone has their own lifestyle and everytime I’m part of something else.






TEENAGERSINTOKYO. I’m interviewing them tomorrow so if there’s anything you’d like to know, give me a shout.
❤ working - I have two jobs at the moment & it feels good to be productive, make money and do someting ❤ The Last Gingers ❤ having a couple of drinks in the city & watching people watching football ❤ Internet Vices - “Twitter is cocaine. Fucking ANYONE is your friend. Yuppies do it on their iPhone. Cheap. Short. Fruitless.” & “Myspace is huffing spray paint. Destroys any chance of looking credible. You will be perceived as having the mindset of a middle schooler, and probably do.” ❤ Sunday coffee dates ❤ Spotify - such a good invention & it’s about time for it to be available legally in Germany as well ❤ making future plans & trying not to get too excited for no reason ❤ our new shop window - oh well… ❤ 7 Keys To Discovering Your Life Purpose ❤ thinking about more radical things to do, like, dying my hair pink or finally getting my first tattoo ❤ Bonaparte - Boycott Everything ❤ “Find out who you are & do it on purpose.” - Dolly Parton ❤ Facebook Marketplace ❤ wearing trousers again - seriously, I haven’t done so in about 3 years ❤ discovering new places & spending all day in the city ❤

Do you know that feeling when you think, think and think but just don’t come to a conclusion? (Well, a friend of mine would say “Yeah, that’s how men must feel like all the time.” but whatever.) At the moment I’m stuck in some kind of vicious circle which I used to think was just the usual twenty-something life drama but it turned into some more general issue which doesn’t let me sleep and haunts me everyday and at any possible opportunity.
The thing is: Everyone seems to have some sort of goal, something they want to achieve one day, even if it’s something rather unrealistic-sounding like “become a rockstar” or “marry Megan Fox”. Or even “have a house in the countryside, a child and a big car”. I just feel like I have none. No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot come up with something I’d like to do with my life.
Life advice books and sites ever so often say things like “make a list of your goals, split them into pieces and work towards them” or, more radical, “Get off your arse, stop moaning and do something!” - which is a pretty fair advice, given that you know what exactly it is that you want. Well, I don’t. The sad truth is: I don’t have ambitions. I mean, it’s not that I’m an unambitious person, I just don’t have anything to be ambitious for. There are so many things you can do with your life and they either bore me or make no sense. Like, of course I want to travel and share my life with someone I love - still, all these things are just additions and external circumstances that will never make me happy unless I’m happy already. If life has taught me one lesson yet, then it’s definitely this one.
Most people around me seem to be very focused on their goals and carreers which is something I admire on the one hand and am scared of on the other. If I know one thing, it’s that I don’t give a fuck about my carreer. Seriously, I don’t. All these things like money and success become so trivial once you realise that there are other things that truly matter and make you happy and that it’s impossible to enjoy and appreciate your circumstances if you aren’t happy and haven’t yet fixed yourself.
Recently I’ve realised that this seems hard to understand for most people - how can somebody not care about a well paid job, not be bothered to settle down, refuse to suck up to people for the purpose of getting employed and just generally don’t care? The idea of jobs nowadays just becomes more and more ridiculous the more I think about it. You spend all day doing something, you get paid, you become more successful, you get paid more, you get a house, car, flat-screen TV and spend your rare free time moaning about how busy you are. Seriously, I just don’t get the point.
Of course, being constantly broke and barely able to pay my bills - which is basically the state I am in now - isn’t exactly what I’ve imagined my life to be like, neither do I want to end up in crappy student jobs for the rest of my life, simply because I cannot make up my mind and figure out what I want.
I. Just. Don’t. Know. Writing this down somewhat helped to get it all out of me, I’m still not wiser, I’m still not a single step further but I do believe in fate, I do believe in coincidences and thus in random, spontaneous enlightenment which will hopefully strike me one day.
“And if all you ever do with your life is photosynthesize, then you deserve every hour of these sleepless nights that you spend wondering when you’re gonna die.”
❤ collective Facebook hangovers ❤ free bars ❤ baking muffins - “my” muffins even gained some sort of fame among my friends, haha ❤ Booster Energy drinks - I know, they’re probably very bad for you but super cheap & tastier than Red Bull ❤ making mixtapes ❤ having my Dutch friends staying over & finding them the perfect flat to move into soon ❤ American Apparel nail varnish ❤ the weather - I really should enjoy it more, you never know what comes next ❤ doing interviews ❤ cooking - you might not believe it but I actually started to enjoy making myself food ❤ tasty looking meals like this, this & this ❤ “We are all somewhat damaged & in that realization we are beautiful.” ❤ fortune cookies - we went to White Trash for dinner the other night, got cookies with the bill & mine said “Perform a good deed today.” & “Don’t overlook the obvious.” Hmmm… ❤ last nights dream which included me swapping wardrobes with Zana Bayne, haha ❤ the fact that I’m basically out of uni for 4 months now ❤ funny coincidences ❤ sneaking into my parents’ hotel for breakfast & having an all-you-can-eat orgy ❤
“Get dirty. Get fucking filthy. Get poor. Get off your ass. Get desperate. Get dangerous. Get vilified. Get vile. Get romantic. Get fucked. Get moving. Get productive. Get pro-active. Get started. Get your own life. Get doing something. Anything. Because before you know it you’re 40 with kids, a mortgage, and responsibilities that cause your fun to come second. So before cancer, before children, before 50 hour work weeks, before back and knee problems, before school loans, before you lose your sense of humor… Fight. Fight and fuck and run and smile. Smile because the older you get, the less you will. So yes, “quit being such a goddamn pussy,” because bitching and whining and worry never made anything better.”