#684 Sint Jan

The Netherlands is a small country, which allows me to say that I live in a big city about the small city I live in. If I wanted to. In this big/small city, there's a famous ancient building called the Sint Jan. I've had memories of it for as long as I can remember. Because of my disinterest, I st...

#683 Weird Girl

I'm one of those people with weird parents; when people look at me, I feel them (annoyingly, correctly) assume so. But they're the good kind of weird, I promise. Their friends, the few they had, often turned out to be the bad kind. Many weird people are; the weirdness starts as fun, but when furthe...

#682 Stolen Ice Cream

There's this girl who keeps showing up at my apartment. I'm not sure how she does it, but she keeps convincing me to let her in; she practically lives here now. And some time ago, she convinced me to go to a theme park with her. Which might not sound crazy to you -- but I hate theme parks. Maybe h...

#681 Drunk lady

How often do you act like you're a good person? This painting is about a day I did twice, or at least as far as I can remember, which I probably would as I generally remember any time I do something good for somebody (because I'm not a good person.) The first good thing was picking up my girlfriend...

#680 Well dressed homeless

Waking up in a bed that isn't yours, for whatever reason, to me at least, is a little disorienting. Even if I've been doing it daily for what feels like my whole life, it never gets easier. Though, this morning, when I awoke, I felt something special. I'm not a spiritual person at all, but the brai...

#679 Learning to wait

Anticipating something good is often almost as pleasing as the thing itself. Add in uncertainties about whether you'll receive anything and what you'll receive, and you've got significant parts of most addictions described. But if the wait is too uncertain or prolonged, it can be one of the most ag...

#678 Lost in translation (2)

This painting is about a girl who, like most people, was born in a world where she didn't understand the people around her but slowly learned. Nothing is fascinating about that. It is very intriguing, actually, just not extraordinary at all. But then, one day, (not so) out of nowhere (after taking...

#677 Lost in translation (1)

While walking through the beautiful Den Bosch, I frequently wonder about all the genius ideas people that pass me by are having. They don't know me, so they'd never tell me, and if they did, there's a big chance I wouldn't get it. It's hard to explain interesting ideas sometimes. I knew this geni...

#676 Bruges Is Dead

What's the craziest thing you've ever done for someone close to you? I like to see myself as very rational. I've got emotions, of course, but I don't drastically act on them much. But when my girlfriend asked me to go on a small vacation to Bruges, I couldn't help but say yes. I know—very crazy stu...

#675 Disabling my lights

At some point in my life, I decided I liked drinking coffee. I don't remember when that happened, and there are many things like it. I also developed a hatred for ads at some point, perhaps because I don't particularly appreciate feeling like the easily manipulated sucker I am. But I know that the...

#674 Cutting an onion

I'm reasonably intelligent (the cleverest person I've ever been), so today, I'll grace you with a story about the most important lesson I learned. Here is how I learned why you should never sincerely try to help anyone with anything: My girlfriend told me she was a horrible cook -- she worked as ...

#673 Living in garbage

If you're at home right now, I want you to do something for me (if you aren't, you might try as well); look around you, and what do you see? I'm trying to understand if the stuff around you is useful. Or does it just sit there without any acknowledgment? Because of laziness or perceived meaning, if...

#672 Frustrated psychologist

Being in a, at worst near constant & and at best frequent, state of anxiety is just a hobby of mine. But due to circumstances I'm too ashamed to admit, my family and girlfriend hosted an intervention, ugh, consistently ruining my fun. So, a while ago, I started going to therapy. I guess to learn h...

#671 To take a picture

For those who don't know, there's a small & magical city called Efteling in the Netherlands. It's mostly for children -- when you get old enough, all that mystical stuff is much less endearing. So my girlfriend, who's slightly childish sometimes (and an alien, so unfamiliar with the city,) wanted t...

#670 Ja!

Some people are born wise, and you're probably not one of them. Though maybe, if you're lucky, you've met or even known someone who was. These kinds of people seem to come out of the womb with knowledge from outside, which is easy to understand but hard to figure out while being more truthful than...

#669 It's okay sweetie

Normal people are scary for the same reasons monsters are: because they don't exist. When someone is strange, it will feel like at least you know what's wrong with them, instead of the fake normal ones for whom you'll have to figure it out. Anyway, these scary people like going on vacations, yuck. ...

#668 Far from home

This Thai lady is lying on my couch -- don't worry about how she got there; it's a story I'll reveal some other time. I had told her she would look great as a painting, which she struggled to believe, only making her more beautiful. She allowed me to sketch her anyway, and because I didn't know w...

#667 From the floor

Somehow, this girl found her way into my museum. She won't leave, and I frankly don't want her to. (I do know how she got in; I let her. But still, it's surprising she's here. In the same way, it feels weird when you switch a job or something.) Because of me, we fell on the floor while we were pla...

#666 (artist) screaming into void

The biggest problem with cliches is how good they are, yet how unoriginal it feels to use them. Maybe being unoriginal shouldn't matter much -- maybe most cliches were created as other cliches dressed up in a fancy enough coat to make everyone forget their nature. Even what I wrote before seems cl...

#665 Hating the gift

Lisa met Johny in a comment section for a post about a new pair of shoes that, for a couple of days, everyone seemed to talk about. They discussed and bonded over their shared hatred for the original poster -- who, in their opinion, wasn't cultured enough to voice their opinions. They quickly sta...

#664 Long legged monster

If you don't know, you may be one of them, but in this world, there are a lot of monsters. There isn't much of a problem being a monster, and if you want to be friendly, you might choose not to call them that -- what is a 'monster' anyway? But there is no need to be friendly around these parts. I ...

#663 Date in the wrong city

Do you ever run out of your house in a frenzy, almost late, after checking you've got everything you need, only to remember you forgot something when you're just too far not to want to go back again? I don't date much, but I'm trying to see what more than art (& family) I can appreciate in life. An...

#662 Ruined food

If you've ever wanted to do anything exemplary, you'll know that that journey is filled primarily with failures. Those who end up with anything worthwhile may start seeing them as successes; you overcame them after all, didn't you? That's a success, right? Maybe so, but that's a little optimisti...

#661 Anxious dissociation

We all know that the universe, and life in general, is bizarre. There's no way to talk about it without repeating what billions of others have thought and without sounding pretentious. And worst of all, it doesn't seem like anything meaningful is ever actually discussed when talking about it. So I ...

#660 State stole my bike

Unlike most Dutch people, who own 5-10 (one for each workday, perhaps a weekend, a vacation, or a birthday one, with some local regions having their own, admittedly weird habits too), I only owned one bike. So here's the story of how I neglected her and eventually, due to that neglect, lost her at ...