So, I guess I like hearts.

I'm getting ready for my GRAND opening here in Wheeler, and decided I needed garland. Actually, I should capitalize that, too. NEEDED. Specifically, I needed tar paper heart garland, and something to do with all this left over wax paper, and these cellophane sleeves that the poinsettias I NEEDED a few months ago, and have since died, came in. And so I was cutting out hearts when a new friend decided to swing by the gallery and help me out with a bottle of wine.
The gallery at the moment has definite motifs going on. One is assuredly hearts. There's the resurrected heart wall, the drawings of the resurrection, and a piece involving a heart to advertise the flirtation devices. But when the friend asked me if I liked hearts I responded "I like holidays." What I meant by that, I went on to explain, is that I have a desire to decorate. I separate that from my desire to create things I would classify as "art." Making garland is not art- there is no risk involved. Even the drawings of hearts, to a certain extent, are not exactly artistic to me because they are more like exercises. Practice for some real creation I cna't currently envision.
To use sports as an example- not every run is a race. Most runs are not races. No one would expect an athlete to only run races. Or would they? I'm not sure.
This is something else that has been happening to me. I want to make assertions of what I'm thinking, but what I think may not actually be what I believe. I don't know if I've ever tried to work around that idea before. I think it comes from spending way too much time alone cutting out tar paper hearts and listening to TED lectures.
Anyway, the evening went on, including the midnight eating of day old waffles and the drinking of all of my beer, and me trouncing my new friend at cribbage, at some point I stretched and my belt was revealed. With my belt buckle. Which has a red heart with wings on it. "Ah, so you do like hearts?"
How to dodge it this time? Why was I afraid to say "Yes. This is my symbol. This is a thing I collect, that I look for in puddles and clouds, that I default to for lack of a better object. This is my cultural comforter, the thing I can almost always find and understand. I am a true, passionate lover of my friends and of the earth, and I clasp this thing around my waist almost everyday to prove it."
Yeah- chickened out. I don't even remember what I said in response.

addendum- I later asked this guy what his faults were- he said that he was too vehement. BRING IT!