Yesterday’s clothing choice was not intentional. You’d think being called “wild and boorish” after entering college would make me revise my clothing choices a little bit more. But alas, you thought wrong. I cared for the first few hours I was told that, but after that I realised I didn’t have the capacity to care anymore. It wasn’t until I went to a local textile shop with my mum that I realised, rather narcissistically, that I reminded myself of Matty Healy, lead singer of The 1975, in his floral shirt. Rushing my mum to head back home before the sun went down, I spent two hours at the empty lane next to my neighbour’s house while residents from the nearby kampung appear sporadically to stare at me incredulously on their motorbikes. I half expected street harassers to make their appearances as well (I had my defense mechanism ready: look as murderous as possible and grip onto my guitar like a deadly weapon) but thankfully none appeared. It’s so sad that street harassment is something to be expected every single time you step out of the house. And societal norm once again expects you to just accept it as something to be accustomed to. Head bowed, lips sealed, don’t say anything. Don’t retort, don’t retaliate, just keep quiet and suck it up. There is nothing you can do. Boys will be boys. Men will be men. Darwinism my ass.
I don’t even know what this photoshoot is themed. It’s saved in a folder on my pendrive labelled “matty”. That’s it. I suppose in a way I was going for the music-festival-hippie-touring-rock-band-member kind of vibe but who cares, really. I wrote this in a Tumblr post last night, that doing this makes me feel like I’m actually doing something and that in itself makes me pretty happy (even though I might not actually know what I’m really doing). I also read this post by May Zhee in which she says, “Do not ever think you’re too stupid for art. Too disadvantaged, too untrained, too uninterested. Stop paying attention to what the art is saying, but how they are saying it.”
This entire week of art therapy at home is going well so far and I’m glad.
michelle teoh 
