It was after dark and she was sitting on the Copacabana beach, her pale arms around her knees. She was a golden haired and white skinned eighteen year old. She seemed oblivious to the fat black man sitting across from her. He was studying her cleavage. A skinny boy from the favela sat next to […]
moreLast week, I went to a colleague writer's book launch. I usually enter this kind of situation feeling like I have to arm myself. You see, the entire world is my enemy and therefore so are my peers. My choice of weapon is usually an exaggerated smile. It's not a very defensive strategy, in fact […]
moreDuring flamenco class, my teacher said: “flamenco isn’t simply a collection of individual sequences or steps that just happen to be there. Every single step leads to the next, they are all interconnected. While dancing a given step, you should already be flowing into the next.” One day I should print all these flamenco wisdoms, […]
moreFor my Dutch speaking friends out there, here's an article I wrote that was published in this months magazine 'Opzij.'
moreToday was Botox day again. I’m always nervous, this time even more so as I was treated by a newly trained ENT doctor. I’ve been wondering why the procedure still gives me heart palpitations after ten years. I suppose it doesn’t help that they stick a needle straight through my neck. But there’s more to […]
more9.30 am. In the supermarket, a woman bumped into me. She was squeezing plums, checking to see if they were ripe. They weren't. She scowled. Not only at the plums, but also at me. She wore a cap against the rain and was carrying two bags: a lap top case and a sports bag. They […]
moreWe returned from the Caribbean three days ago. I vowed to not drink alcohol or eat sugar for a full month. I broke this promise only moments after I had expressed it. In fact, the mere thought of abstinence had me eating twice as many cookies and getting drunk. And so now, I'm going to […]
moreI'm on a holiday. While holidaying, people engage in all sorts of exhausting activities such as scuba-diving, cat-sailing, wake-boarding, cart-racing, mountain-biking, beach volleyball and so on, all of this simply in order to relax. I suppose it works in a similar way for me. One of the most effective ways for me to relax is […]
moreLanded on the island where I was born, in the Caribbean. You would think my son swallowed Duracell batteries as he's running around all over the place, his arms flapping uncontrollably out of sheer excitement. It's surprising as I can never seem to get him to go outside in Amsterdam. I suppose he doesn't like […]
moreI'm about to go to the Caribbean and have tons of practicalities to take care of. Instead, I couldn't resist working on a scene in my novel. I just closed the file I was working on and couldn't help but think the paragraph I had been working on feels too constructed. By now I have […]
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