highlight_of_the_day crOwl sometimes it's hard to find a highlight of the day. maybe it's greg stuttering, trying to explain what made him sick last night. "you know that feeling you get when you know you're going to throw up?" he says to me on the fone. or maybe it's ann telling me she had a dream last night that i was raking her leaves while i really was raking her leaves. could be the smell of mushroom soil, earthy and crisp. or greta asking me what kind of dog i would want to replace sandy who recently died. she wants a greyhound. 041202 ... monee finding out about a new winter market, in the arts&culture centre,...open every saturday till spring, when the outdoor markets return. 041203 ... crOwl could be when we were standing in line at the cheese shoppe waiting with a number in hand to get gruyere and fulvi. each time a number was called, this litle 3 year-old in her mother's arms next to me would repeat it. could also be later in the day when we destroyed our old couch so we could get it out and make room for the new one.. just took a knife and sliced it. then a sledge hammer and pounded it. i burned it later and the flames rose almost twenty feet in the air. 041206 ... crOwl could be when i visited hilary at maggie's, the vegan cafe she works at. no customes came in so we sat at a table and talked for an hour about stuff, about love, about souls, and her eyes were as blue as the sky breaking free from the heavy clouds. she told me she wished she could be turned inside out so her bones could protect her. 041207 ... slothisily missed my fucking calc final not a good highlight but still a highlight 041207 ... crOwl could be watching a small boy crying, walking into the mid-morning sunlight streaming in from the huge plate glass of a barnes&noble cafe, the only sun we would have this day. his little hand was shielding his eyes and the other was reaching out for his mother. his oxford shirt rose up exposing his belly. then his mournful wail died away as he melted into her arms. could also be about an hour later. we were christmas shopping and i overheard a little boy talking with his dad about what to get for his mom. they were looking at bedsheets. "she yikes red," he said. and his little voice went on and on about presents and what his dad might want. you could tell he was fascinated with the whole thing. perhaps he was four and the whole giving spirit had gripped him. i followed them around secretly, just so i could hear what he would say next. 041208 ... crOwl could be when i was cleaning the parking lot of one of my accounts, just raking up debris from a recent storm and i found something rather odd-looking. turned out to be a bird's leg that some cat must have left behind. kinda big and quite gross when i thought about it. actually i was hoping it wasn't the baby bird from summer that inspired a portion of neues_leben because it was the same location. that even made me feel worse when i had that thought. 041209 ... crOwl could be the check-out man at home depot when we asked him for directions to 279 north. he paused for a moment as if he was trying to figure it out. "got to turn on the map quest," he said, referring to that part of his brain. we laughed and so did he. i love it when a total stranger comes into our circle. could also be when i was talking to the supplment girl at whole foods later this night. i asked her for some help concerning a friend of mine who is physically sick from stress. she had this amazingly cute lisp. so i kept asking her questions, just so i could hear it again and again. 041210 ... suicidalchinadoll mayhaps rolling over in bed still entirely covered by a fleece blanket, with sun streaming in through the window, and a cat next to my face who looked as drowsy as I felt, but let out a good morning "mrooawoh"... that or venting to my mother about how much my place of work hates me on the phone tonight..not the subject matter, but the conversation. 041210 ... monee highlights) dancing with my cat laughing with my mother washing four woolen shawls 041211 ... crOwl definately when hilary and i took off in the truck and drove a stone's throw up county line road to cut down our christmas tree and one for grandma as well. the creek was swollen and we could hear it's song( "winter's coming, the french and indian summer draweth to a close") when we started down the deer path. their unmistakeable cloven hoofprints were a half-inch deep in the soggy earth. the land belongs to friends of ours and is rich with evergreens, all kinds, white pine, fir, norway, spruce. beverly started it as a christmas tree farm twenty years ago but gave up, so most of them are way too big, yet seedlings are emerging every year and of course the babies grow into teenagers, and that's the ones we cut . snow fell softly and silently. the ground was too warm for it to lay. the rickety bridge had freezing water flowing on top of it and it found its way through the cracks in my sorels and soaked my socks and feet. i didn't care. there was a fire to come home to. hil thanked the trees for giving their lives and i told her they like to be chosen. don't we all? we dragged them up the hill and back to the truck, stopping only once to feel our hearts racing in our heaving chests. they're on the farmhouse porch, now, and when we walk outside we can smell their freshness. they're waiting for us to embellish them, waitng for their time to shine. 041211 ... suicidalchinadoll I sat down during dinner to play for the residents tonight.. started by running a recital piece that sorely needs work, and ended by randomly harmonizing and modulating the tune of silent night over some weird..but not too weird..chords. about halfway through, someone's little girl came and asked to sit on the bench beside me, and I succeeded in actually forming english words, whilst still playing, enough to say sure, and ask her name. so little four year old Hannah accompanied me for my 6 minutes on the bench tonight, and she made me smile. 041211 ... aM i DiStUrBeD? A little brown pencil that Hannah found on the floor. Nothing much. About the size of my thumb nail. Given to me, probably just 'nothing much'. Plain, brown, small and inscribed with the word 'Hope'. It's my symbol that there is hope left in the world and left in me. 041212 ... crOwl no doubt this morning at the beehive, perhaps THE hippest coffehouse in the nation, located in the southside of pittsburgh on carson st. we started the day there, me and kathy. she had green tea. i had a bagel and oj. but it was the children's paintings on the wall, hung by clothespins on a string that i loved and a jewish boy with short hair except for the long strands at both sides of his face that are a strict religious observance. his mother bought a whole struddle cake and they sat down next to a huge plate glass widow where snow was falling heavily outside. i wondered if someone was to do a watercolor of that scene how would they capture the velocity of the flakes? 041212 ... bsc window, not widow. oops. 041212 ... suicidalchinadoll tripping over a dusty pile of old sweater sitting in the sun streaming in through the opened door, and seeing a kitty yawning as she untangles herself from the mess. luckily I didn't kick her. 041212 ... crOwl i took teedo, my chihuahua, with me to the bank. he absolutely loves to go anywhere in the subaru. it's one of the few times he will display his incredible ears completely extended. last time i took him the lady at the drive-up saw him and asked me how old he was. she even put a milk bone in the vacuum canister. teedo loved it, chewed on it all day. and of course, he expected another one today. he was extremely disappointed when the canister did not include a treat for him. 041213 ... unhinged feeling the overwhelming urge to punch some bitch in the face in theory class today after she told me what i had to say was bullshit 041213 ... crOwl could be the taste of real gingerbread, fresh, hot, and yummy-soft, just out of the robin_hill oven. an undeniable taste of christmas. and poor teedo, no milk bone again today, even when i actually requested one through the drive-up mic. hmm. was she ignoring me or did she just not hear me? in any case, teedo was definately bummed, especially when i got him all excited. he was all mini paws up on the car door, tiny curled tail wagging. sorry, twinkleboy, your attempt at cuteness was in vain. better luck next time. 041214 ... O_A dancing with my chair as i informed ashley that jenn was talking bad about me behind my back and listening to jenn as she joyfully replied, I'd be talking bad about you to your front if you'd turn around. watching donna sit straight up in bed and slam her alarm clock into silence. 041214 ... aM i DiStUrBeD? Coming home after a two hour maths exam to find a warm house and my cat sitting in my big chair in front of my desk. After eating I had to move him, which he didn’t seem too pleased about. Consequently he came and sat in the middle of my folded legs. Obviously he wasn’t going to give up the chair that easily. 041215 ... unhinged i went to the eastbrook gospel orchestra rehearsal last night and the oboe player had his little girl alezia there last night. they walked past me and she said to her dad 'what's her name?' i looked down at her and said 'my name is nicole. what's yours?' 'alezia.' they were walking in the opposite direction and she grabbed my hand to come along with them. a little hand in mine; that was the highlight of my day. 041215 ... crOwl definately spending most of the day with beth, hil, and greta photographing them by the available light from beth's apartment kitchen window for kathy's christmas present. i found an old tri-frame window that i'm going to put the enlargements in. i asked them to be all serious-faced which is so hard for them to do. later, we went to st. clair park for some outdoor shots and they ended up tackling each other. my fingers were so frozen i could barely push the button down on the old konica. could also be the way the snow covered hill was painted purple by the fading sun. 041215 ... crOwl easily when kathy and i were christmas shopping and met the owner of a mexican art gallery in squirrel hill. a very intelligent, multi-talented, cultured man who took on our multitude of questions with careful consideration and the kind of thorough answers that enables you to go away learning something new, like we need to go to oaxaca near the yucatan peninsula and visit the beautiful world of mexican folk art. he was heavily involved in the pittsburgh film scene and has a second job as a lighting designer for commercials and stage production. could also be the fender bender we were involved in later on our way to find a new easel for beth. when we got out to survey the damage and found nothing the african american girl who was a passenger in the culprit car grabbed my hand and kathy's, lifted them in the air and shouted, "praise the lord!" seems her father was driving, an old man wearing a sky blue bandana who never looked as he was trying to do a u-turn in the middle of a very busy road. i could have avoided him if there wasn't a huge median, but i was trapped. when we were going our separate ways, he yelled to us, "happy thanksgiving!" his daughter goes, "no, dad, it's christmas." guess we know why he hit us now. could also be at the end of the day when i just bought some new paint for the clown stage and i heard what sounded like a cow mooing. the shoppe sits in a mini mall right next to a farm so it wasn't a stretch of the imagination, could actually be a cow. turned out it was a man blowing his nose. 041217 ... crOwl cutting through the morning darkness to the airport, frosted windshield melting quickly with the heat of the defroster, kings of convenience setting the tone, cellfone ringing, brother is home for christmas from california. surely the highlight. he only returns once a year. we're so much alike and then completely different. somehow we meet, even as we pull apart. we spoke about our dad and he told me about the dreams he has, so real. he speaks to him in his sleep, says, "you've come back." we bought my mom a burnt almond torte at prantl's bakery. later, i shopped for kathy's christmas by myself, trying to find an album that would fit my 27 8x1o fotos of the girls next to me. at red lights i would look at them and weep for the beauty. i think it was the joanna newsom, a soundtrack of my lonely happiness. we don't play music. it plays us. kathy also loves colored glass. i found her 3 small blue globes from egypt for hanging in the streaming light. outside coming in. three little worlds. three little girls all grown up. and she loves the faint. she loves sons and daughters. paul's has any music and every music. going in there is the highlight of every, any day. plus, it's a skipped stone away from sunshine in the city and iron eden. 2 of my all time favorite shoppes, wet brick floors and renovated victorian... that's where i got the globes. the owner just had a baby boy not long ago and she was glowing like a mother who loves to be one. 041218 ... crOwl first day back at the children's ski school and i'm seeing everyone again for the first time and it reminds me of when i was a boy, waking when it was still dark and the hallway light is on, and i know something is going to change and whether for the good or bad, it is up to me. new workers i have never met before come up to me and say they've heard good things about me. that's an incredible honour and makes me want to keep living this frenetic, sleepy life that peels like an orange. all these pieces, bite-sized, glistening, sweet, and perfect for sharing. nearly every child is a highlight, could be kazzi, sitting at the lunch table. a boy across from him reads his name on the hello tag, stuck to his chest like a medal one wins for being someone, and kazzi knows what he's thinking before he asks and he just goes, "my mom is from japan." later, when i was painting faces, tamara, who wore black leather shoes with a brass buckle that were worn at the toes asked me if she could sit on my lap while i worked. 041219 ... crOwl returning for the second day of her family's weekend trip to seven springs, tamara came running open-armed to me and immediately wanted to play. grabbing a batteryless spell and say and a pair of plastic binoculars down from the toy shelf, her imagination clicked into place and she determined we were spies, whispering her furtive intentions. she punched the letters, b &d, into what she called her computer, and so i attempted to guess what it was she was writing. she stopped me with a hush. "spies don't guess," she said, seriously. contemplating the situation, she peeled the drama away from the ordinary. "it's big...danger..." she announced, handing me the binoculars. i looked through them as instructors prepared for the first lesson and more students arrived. "where's your love?" she asked me, her lips touching my ear. "at home," i said. later, when i was facepainting, a small group of asian children patiently allowed me to use fine point watercolor pencils for intricacy, delicate swirls, and definitive outlining. they stood as still as statues and kept chiding each other as i created butterflies, devils, and dinosurs saying they each looked, "strange and like a lemon." hmm, i thought...japanese anime influence? when their mothers came to pick them up, they smiled for the camera, arms around each other. 041220 ... crOwl opening new cans of enamel paint, vibrant blue the color of the sky when i hold my breath and long to be outside. scraping your windshield of ice with the jewel case of the snow patrol cd. everyone everywhere thrilled with the approaching day when they shall give presents to those they love, some who have worked all year on their gifts, others who purchase at the last minute. my mother's christmas tree, a norway, and her magic of decorating, unleashing its potential with her inherent wonder. how the day sits with me before she goes to sleep and like a friend who has enjoyed being with me tells its story of highlights and little, particular insights into why every moment is a star someone looks at, hushed and quiet. 041221 ... crOwl my brother is staying with my mother for the christmas holiday at the house we grew up in. this night we had dinner together at lidia's pittsburgh, a restaurant that my mother is extremely fond of. we often go there for the special events and appear often enough to be considered regulars i suppose. the last time we went was at the celebration of the chef's tour of italy and he presented several of his impressions with recipes garnered, fotos, stories, even passed around some $12oo.oo lb. truffles for us to smell and admire. we ended up sharing an intimate table with the food writer for the pgh. post-gazette and her globe-trotting daughter. and so, as i sipped my usual montepulciano, the chef actually came to our table when we sat down which highly impressed my wine snob brother. he remembered with us that amazing time and we gently schmoozed. the goat cheese ravioli was killer. i had it as the pasta tasting dish and when the server brought more for me in the skillet, my mom was like, "i'll take some of those." my mom is my perpetual highlight. she knows how to speak to people, always complimenting them, addressing a submerged part of them that she finds and lovingly draws to the surface. 041223 ... crOwl kathy, my brother, and i were doing some last minute christmas shopping on penn ave. under a deep purple sky that seemed to laugh at hd tv. the bare trees that bent their boughs in the heavy wind were outlined with the kind of black that kids use when they're making art to give to someone. and then it started to rain cats and dogs, so i dropped them off at the leaf and bean while i parked and ran through the poodles, i mean puddles. while kathy waited in the cheese line, kerby and i waited for a #7 ben roethlisberger(burger) at peppi's. four little girls came in with the dad of two of them and they ordered one also for their grandpa's christmas present. when it was done, the cook showed it to them so they could see how big it was and the oldest girl about 8 years-old said, "HOLY CRAP!" 041224 ... crOwl robin hill christmas is a veritable explosion of highlights like fireworks going off in every direction. look at that one! and now this one! we see them all. but when jessica's dog jumped in my mother's lap and she screamed, if i had to pick one, that would be it. could also be when i gave kathy the old farmhouse window frame with the three pictures of our girls and she cried. or could also be greta and me doing a christmas treasure hunt, walking on the frozen gound and snowdust of the horse field searching for clues. or playing the new stiga tabletop hockey, or greta's film she made for me, or hilary's homemade t-shirts and storybook, or beth's fotos... there goes another one! did you see it? definately. 041225 ... crOwl snow fell like tissue paper torn from the hands of cherubs in the throes of terrible twos, yet we were inside and didn't know it. beth wanted me to hear the velvet underground in her car and that's when we discovered it. we stomped our feet and the flakes were so light they blew away from our footprints, making them the steps of giants. later, when hilary and dave were leaving, we hopped on the white road like rabbits. 041227 ... crOwl or should i say crOwley fourteen degrees on the ski-chairliift and i'm freezing with numb hands but a warm heart because i'm riding up with olivia crowley, (!) , a 6 year-old girl from a small village in england. with a very cute british accent that tickled my ears and begged me to ask her question after question that i could whisk my eardrums in the lush wonder like a jazz musician hitting the skins with a brush, she told me her family was visiting for the christmas holiday and that they left their dog willow in a kennel with a radio to keep him company and a small heater with a red light to keep him warm. on the next ride, my student was a spanish speaking little girl. usually we count before we lift the bar and exit the chair, so i go, just like bono, "uno, dos, tres, cortace!" 123-14. unaware of u2, she thought it was funny. 041227 ... crOwl eddie meezer (one of three indoor siameezers at robin hill) is our most vociferous cats and today i picked him between request meows to go outside, a plaintive inquiry that is always denied based on the fact we lost several indoor cats to our fenced in aussie who is extremely jealous and exhibits his envy by murdering hapless felines. from eddie's lungs there came a squeak and a wheeze more than appropriate to express his sadness and frustration over our repeated refusal to comply. 041228 ... crOwl we're helping my mom get online, gave her our old aquamarine imac and a new printer. made the call to the cable company. while greta was hooking her new dvd/video player up to her new tv, she put in an old video from california to see if it worked. turns out it had my dad on it and the girls when they were 6, 3, and 1. my mum was shocked with a wave of sadness. a vocal hush of grief and wonder that was all just so fast and unbelievably sudden. boom...there he was smiling, healthy, alive. it was way too much for all of us. she wanted to turn it off. "turn it back on," she said then, immediately when the screen went blue. kathy was crying on the couch. it was 1989. it was my dad's spirit. it was a brand new way to define memory and its power. 041229 ... unhinged i played songs for her on my violin from the little mermaid, beauty and the beast, and aladdin. she stood next to me holding her toy violin dancing with grandma. when she hugged me goodnight (she gives really good hugs) she said 'thanks for playing music on your violin' what a sweetheart. i almost cried. 050107 ... unhinged i went to the boxing gym in warren today with tom so he could talk to the boxer he trains with to get started up again and glancing at the walls i saw this quote on the wall of fame where they list all their good fighters: 'for all those who dared to step in the squared circle' square_the_circle step right up the honor isn't in the winning it's in the fighting don't ever stop fighting 050110 ... unhinged i had a 'conversation' today with my mother. she asked me if i was gay, told me i need normal friends and that i should stay in medina when i move back to ohio. needless to say, that we both cried during the course of the conversation. well, it wasn't really a conversation, just more her talking at me. i really wish i could tell her, but i don't even want to try it now. she obviously already worries so how could i tell her the truth? yeah, i'm unhappy. but i've been unhappy for so long that i wouldn't even know where to start. and i don't want to make my mother cry. even though now i can't stop crying. 050111 ... crOwl i was planting grass seed near the road today when a school bus stopped and let out a small group of children, all of them 8 years-old and under. most of them looked at me, and one of the girls must have noticed my white headfones. "are you listening to an i-pod?" she asked. i gave her a thumbs up and nodded. she gave me one back and with great excitement went on to say, "that's cool. i love i-pods. i-pods are cool." nothing better than realizing your're grooving with the hip crowd. 051013 ... crOwl when i accidently hit myself in the head with a hammer while we were deconstructing the old chicken coop at robin_hill. blood was oozing down my face, but you hushed me, sat me down, and cleaned me up. add e-room doctor to your growing list of smoochabilities...(best friend, wife, sister, mother, business owner, mother, nanny, hipster) 080406 ... unhinged i wrote a roughdraft of a piano part for the lyrics and vocals of a song i wrote about my brother like 7 months ago. i created something today. spawned something pretty right out of my own brain. i danced a little jig at the door as i was telling him about it (i've been dancing a lot lately too; rocked out at the busstop today) 080406 ... ever dumbening at zeitgeist on valencia could have been the moment we were telling each other our favorite books, the instant before your phone rang and i realized you had a boyfriend. 080406 what's it to you? who go blather from