Author Archives for Ellen

The day the time went ahead one hour. The day i went out for lunch at Donner. As i do usually on Sundays. The day i walked through town, observing people walking by. The day i went to the launderette and got the laundry of my landlord. The day i mopped the floor upstairs.

The sun is shining. Some trees are blooming. The pink blossoms are already fallen down.

The past week i felt not good. The work i do currently is good, yes. But not to my liking. I want to be free. I want to be free to work on my website, to make videos, to photograph, to make drawings. To write about the world.

It is not so.

Yesterday i felt i should give up working. To just leave it behind.

I won’t do that – not suddenly, not without something to go towards.

But it does give me something to think about. For three years i have been doing this work. Just as an in between phase. To learn something. To work for people who need their houses cleaned up.

The past week i thought about my life. My earliest memory which came back to me in a dream. The drawings i made in 1986. The same drawings i gave to Green Gartside in 2016.

My life isn’t a straight line story. I sold my house seven years ago. I felt so stubborn at that time, so determined to make something of my life. So full of this work, here on this website.

I don’t feel the same way. I have changed, my life has changed. The world has changed. Everything is changing the whole time.

But the core of me is still the same. I don’t know what i want to do. I don’t know how to get ahead. To move into a better life for me.

Something in me keeps holding on to the dream i still have. The dream of finding something better, finding someone to love, finding friends with whom i can have talks about the world and the people living in it.

The world feels cold. I hope i can manage to find some warmth. I hope i can manage to make my life worth something more than it does now. To me, my life is all i have.

Salute!

I am stubborn.

I feel stuck in my life.

I don’t need to feel that. I know that. But still, i do.

I try to do my work with pleasure. Sometimes i do, sometimes i do not. It is difficult for me.

I picked this work, house cleaning for people with an indication from the municipality, because it was simple. I work at people’s homes. I have colleagues, but i don’t see them. Once i went to a staff evening. It was nice, sort of, but not too enticing.

I do feel lost in this world, in my life. I still live with a friend. I don’t have a place of my own. I sold it.

I actually sold it.

My life is difficult. I don’t see a way out. I feel it sometimes, but it’s so small. Tiny.

I don’t know what to do.

I feel lost.

This morning around 12 i went to the bookshop Donner in the center of Rotterdam. I took ‘snert’, a thick pea soup with smoked sausage called ‘rookworst, rye bread with ‘katenspek’, a sort of bacon, but then different. I read the newspaper, my usual one the Trouw (Fidelity).

I sat as i do usually at the large reading table. It has room for my lunch and the newspaper spread out. I was surprised to be asked out for a lunch somewhere else by a gentleman who sat at the same table. I simply answered i lunch at Donner. I didn’t even say no, but i think it was implied by me. Well, i felt a bit flattered, but at the same time i had no desires at all to go out with the gentleman. I have other more important things on my mind, thank you very much.

The last week i had thoughts about this website. Halfway through it the thought crossed my mind to change my frequency of posts. To make it more lively, so to say. To give myself room to make more or less posts as i wish. So i will start after this post. I don’t know what will come out of it. But i hope i will have more posts, most shorter, some drawings, some photo’s, some clips. We will see!

So i will post something in the midst of this week, not at my usual time of 6, but simply when i upload or write something. I hope it will work out!

The past week Messy was in my head almost the entire time. In the beginning of the week i just had the song on my mind. I saw somebody on Tiktok talking about it with the song playing. I thought “hey! that’s it!” and looked it up on youtube. Ha!

I don’t know the lyrics yet. I don’t mind. I love this song. And only yesterday i found out this song is in the UK at the top of the charts. And here in the Netherlands at number 6. I’m happy this song is doing good. Love it!

I will be listening to the entire album this week.

Messy
Lola Young

You know I’m impatient
So why would you leave me waiting outside the station
When it was like minus four degrees?
And I, I get what you’re sayin’
I just really don’t wanna hear it right now
Can you shut up for like once in your life?

Listen to me, I took your nice words of advice
About how you think I’m gonna die lucky if I turn thirty-three
Okay, so yeah, I smoke like a chimney
I’m not skinny, and I pull a Britney every other week
But cut me some slack, who do you want me to be?

‘Cause I’m too messy, and then I’m too fucking clean
You told me, “Get a job”, then you ask where the hell I’ve been
And I’m too perfect ’til I open my big mouth
I want to be me, is that not allowed?
And I’m too clever, and then I’m too fucking dumb
You hate it when I cry, unless it’s that time of the month
And I’m too perfect ’til I show you that I’m not
A thousand people I could be for you, and you hate the fucking lot

You hate the fucking lot
You hate the fucking lot
Hey, hey

It’s taking you ages
You still don’t get the hint, I’m not asking for pages
But one text or two would be nice
And please, don’t pull those faces
When I’ve been out working my ass off all day
It’s just one bottle of wine or two, but, hey

You can’t even talk, you smoke weed just to help you sleep
Then why you out getting stoned at four o’clock
And then you come home to me?
And don’t say hello ’cause I got high again and forgot to fold my clothes

‘Cause I’m too messy, and then I’m too fucking clean
You told me, “Get a job”, then you ask where the hell I’ve been
And I’m too perfect ’til I open my big mouth
I want to be me, is that not allowed?
And I’m too clever, and then I’m too fucking dumb
You hate it when I cry, unless it’s that time of the month
And I’m too perfect ’til I show you that I’m not
A thousand people I could be for you, and you hate the fucking lot

You hate the fucking lot
You hate the fucking lot

Oh, and I’m too messy, and then I’m too fucking clean
You told me, “Get a job”, then you ask where the hell I’ve been
And I’m too perfect ’til I open my big mouth
I want to be me, is that not allowed?
And I’m too clever, and then I’m too fucking dumb
You hate it when I cry, unless it’s that time of the month
And I’m too perfect ’til I show you that I’m not
A thousand people I could be for you, and you hate the fucking lot

You hate the fucking lot
You hate the fucking lot
You hate the fucking lot
You hate the fucking lot