ticky tacky

so many boxes, so many boxes.

i've always loved this song, probably as most do, and like most, i some how assume that i have bypassed the sameness, in a kind of arrogance assume i am not in a little box. and perhaps i actually am not in the standard box (arrogance?); but mostly i wish i was. well, except for the golf and i don't like martinis. since i am in houston i'll sub kayaking bayous for golf and margarita's for martinis. a degree of sameness is needed for society to function. a degree of sameness is needed so that i can simply get along and understand the complexities of the life that streams so quickly by. i do try to slow it down. perhaps the speed at which i do life, can alter my need for ticky tacky. slowing reduces the dictates of required ticky tacky. perhaps? boxes provide an illusion and some real safety. i crave difference. i crave sameness. when i go to a different city, i hope for its uniqueness but it usually looks just the same with it's super-sized eating and shopping boxes. difference can be found, but hunting is required. i need a balance of sameness and difference. i need you to be the same but different. today, again, i would like to be made of ticky tacky and be just the same, just the same. i don't want to even have the illusion that i may be slightly off or different. i want to fit into little boxes on the hillside, all just the same. damn i don't seem to fit in that box. crap. crap. crap. pretty much always wanted to...not in a way that would make me run after it; but in a kind of natural way of just fitting in...i don't really have the ticky tacky of the art world or the ticky tacky of my historical outside the loop history, or the ticky tacky of church dogma and practice...don't fit into the art world, don't fit into the history from which i come, don't fit into dogma, can't quite find the box that is my size...crap. so i sit at a meal here and there with people i like, and try to really listen, be fully present in that moment, to hear between the lines (which is where i spend most of my time), and i internally stumble when i make polite conversation back instead of asking them how is it really with their soul? and their boxes? and discovering at least a hint of the complexities of who they are instead of just mumbling in the shallow end. is this were all the regular returning to boxes in my work comes from? an attempt to fit, contain? but the work clearly shows indicates that i don't know how to work my materials into boxes all just the same. every damn one of them is different; everyone of them cannot contain it's contents; the contents spill out, push out, overflow. how can i be the age i am and not have my box just right? how come i didn't fit in my old box? i wanted to; i really tried to...crap. and then again isn't ticky tacky the stuff flies get stuck on? crap. and they are all just the same.