So I was bored and decided to get lost in thought. And somehow, I started thinking about how you hear many cliched sayings like “Like is like a…” It interested me in how you can make a saying into anything, so I decided to try some out. So here I go.

Life is like a pencil. It works out better when you keep it sharp.

Life is like your mailing address. You know it by heart like no one else does.

Life is like a keyboard. You have all the letters and symbols there, but you can use them however you want.

Life is like an kiwi. You may think it is too sour or too sweet, but you’ll never know unless you try every time.

Life is like a pair of socks. Even if you lose part of a whole, you can get creative with what you’ve got.

Life is like a toilet. Every once in a while, something big comes along and you just have to work harder to unclog it.

Like is like curtains on a window. No matter what you do to keep out the light, it still manages to shine through.

Life is like a meowing cat. You want it to shut up because it’s straying your focus, but you can’t help but listen because it is calling for you.

Life is like the internet. Whether it is a blessing or a curse, you need to get back to reality.

Parakeet Watercolor pencils =)

Stranger: Wow, Michelle, your art sucks. I could do better.

Me: Please. If you made love like you make art, you wouldn’t even get it up in there.

Stranger: I didn’t know you could say such vulgar things.

Me: Yeah, well, my mind has always been as dirty as my ears. I just forgot to wash out my mouth with soap today.

I can be pretty badass in my dreams.

What is there to fear, but fear itself?

What is there to hate, but hate itself?

What is there to pity, but pity itself?

What is there to be ashamed about, but shame itself?

What is there to feel happy about, but happiness itself?

What is there to love, but the love in this world?

What is there to feel grateful for, but everything?

What is there to feel sad about, but—

But nothing.

Emotions are funny things.

We call them complicated and contradictory,

but they are simple and straightforward.

We were meant to feel everything, except for nothing.

***

Sometimes I find myself questioning resolve, and end up dissecting all the emotions I go through that led me to make my decisions. I found out that, only when I dig through my negative feelings do I find myself in an endless ditch. But I remember reading in a book (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, I think?) that there is nothing in the world worth crying that hard over. I don’t know if that is always true, but they stuck with me. If that is true, then we should really be grateful for everything in our world. And if I apply that thought, that means gratefulness should pull me out of that ditch every time. The theory makes sense, but I still find myself depressed more often than not.

That’s when I read somewhere else that we only feel self-pity because we are living too comfortably, and that the only people who deserve it, live it. (I actually think I got that from Love in the Mask by Han Yu Rang…) If that is true, then is my self-pity justified as natural? It’s strange to think that such a destructive emotion is humane. But that cleared up a lot of my misconceptions about the human condition.

Still, I can’t say I understand what, why, or how I feel the way I do. I guess I fail to comprehend something as mysterious as nature, and yet so clear in nature. SO I will bury the shovel instead.

I haven’t written an essay in a while, but today in English class I had to write an essay prompt about the separation of public and private life. Usually, I have a phobia of timed essays. But this time, my creative juices were flowing wildly, as if a dam had burst. It felt so good to spill my creative juices, and it got some other ideas of mine flowing.

Actually, I have been stuck on what to do for a painting recently. I feel a lot of pressure about coming up with a good portfolio and choosing a concentration for AP Art. But writing an essay reminded me that it is useless to worry about those details for so long. My life is a story, and I always need to come back to it to get the main idea. And since I’m an artist, I started to think of my life as a painting. Hence, the story.

And thanks to this story, I came up with a great idea for a painting just a while ago. I can’t wait to get started. It has been a while since I have felt so excited.

Everyone starts out beautiful—a pristine white. But as we grow, why do we become tainted? Who are the people that maliciously stain us with color? And how do we stop it?

***

For a long time, I have recognized that my childhood was never as bright as it should have been. If I could characterize my younger years as a color, it would have to be a violent, burning red. Instead of progressing through life fluidly, and without care, the scenes in my life were strung in jumbled knots, which frustrated me. At one point, I was a helplessy, blank canvas. I was at the mercy of the hands that reached out to me, wanting to mold me over again. And from then on, every time someone new approached me, I felt a cool chill bearing down upon me; it violated my innocence.

Eventually, that red calloused around my conscience until I was a dark, dark blue. The impressions that others had left upon my surface covered me in bruises. I could not cover those marks by slathering on an outer appearance. Those wounds felt as if they bore as deep as scars. I did not realize that bruises healed.

And then came the yellowing, and the fleshy pink tone came back into balance. Indeed, I was stronger, and I would bot return to those bloody days. I had finally realized that the only ones who get hurt are the ones who fought back. And so I submitted. I became a neutral brown—the underpainting.

But that did not feel right either. I still flinched from an outsider’s intrusion. I still remembered the suffering. No longer was I brown, but grey—the middle point between white and black, and my personal hell. Contrary to what a majority of people think, grey does not express the void of emotions. It is actually the place where everything converges into indiscernible chaos. It is where colors and dimensions in a painting are suspended and immovable, leaving the viewer anxious for contrast.

And that moment of grey was precisely the turning point I needed in my life. In the midst of all that self-pity and loss, I had tried to find an answer. I wanted to be freed. I wanted to feel again. And more importantly, I wanted to direct my outcome. No longer would I be shaped into someone I was not, and no longer would I blame others for controlling me. Even though I was still a canvas with wet paint, I would be the one to stain other with my audacious colors.

Coincidentally, that time in my life was precisely when I decided that I had a passion for art, and wanted to be an artist for the rest of my life.

Blue Moon Cereus

If I were the Supreme Court and I had to deliver justice right now, I would probably declare Murphy’s Law unconstitutional.

The cat is over here and the dog is over there, so why is there still a problem?

Only on rare occasions does the dryer come before the washing machine.

As long as we use money, we must pay for our lives.

Is a door better open or closed?

Am I weird?

I don’t have Yahoo Messenger. Sorry!