the unlikely orange

well, hello friends. sorry its been a few days. it will be a few more, too, because i am leaving in about 20 minutes for a week-long trip to brooklyn, ny to do some work there. i'm going with our youth group, and we'll be helping in some soup kitchens and running a few vbs progams for the children in brooklyn. it should be a really great trip, and i look forward to telling you about it when i get back. and so, until then, peace, greg.

"jack's hand - all white" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich "flowers of the region" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich "buy stuff" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich "come to think of it" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich sorry i've been so absent lately. we are having vbs (vacation bible school) at church this week, and so my free time is extremely limited. anyway, i thought i would post a few of the collages that i've been working on recently. hope you enjoy them. i do. peace, greg.

so, last week i came home from work when jack was at his grandparents' house. shannon and cade had just left for delaware for a cousin's birthday party, and this is the note that greeted me. in case you can't read it, it says the following: i clogged the toilet downstairs and the diaper genie needs emptied. miss you! love, your two poopers ok people, do you see what i'm working with here? on the other hand, she made me raspberry pie last night (not pictured - mostly eaten). marriage is all about these ups and downs. you may have to deal with some sh#&, but you will also get to enjoy some pie. in the end, its all worth it. greg.

so i know i wrote about baseball at the beginning of the season (and maybe even once or twice since then), but we have just passed the halfway point of the season, and some random events in my life have converged around baseball, and so i just want to say again how much i love this sport. a recent conversation in the comments section of one of my posts, the fact that i am reading a wonderful biography of roberto clemente, the sudden urge i had to go through my old boxes of baseball cards, and barry bonds' impending record-breaking homerun have all led me to this chair today to type these words: i love baseball. i simply love it. when i was in maine, i was so happy to be disconnected from the world - from the news and the stock market and the weather report - all of it except baseball. i so wanted to find out what was happening in the big leagues. who was winning, who was losing, and how were they doing it? did anyone hit for the cycle? any no-hitters or perfect games? i couldn'...

happy friday the 13th everybody. found this funny cartoon over at savagechickens.com. funny stuff. greg.

"footsteps" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich i am a bachelor for a few days here as shannon is in warriors mark, pa, visiting her family. its just me and max (the dog). the house is so quiet without a 9-week old and a toddler filling every moment with various types of yells, screams, cries and squeals. in some ways the house seems to be detoxing - enjoying the silence and stillness. on the other hand, it seems terribly vacant. i tried turning up my music (playdough's don't drink the water - nothing like some good white-boy rap) really loud to compensate, but it totally didn't work. the boys' rooms are dark and uncluttered. i am reminded that, although i cherish my alone time, i really REALLY like being a family, however loud and, at times, irritating. i like footsteps in the hallway. anyway, in the absence of children needing me to wipe their butts and kiss their booboos, i made a couple of collages yesterday. here's one of them. ac...

i was looking through some of my old journals this morning, and i came across something i wrote almost exactly 13 years ago, the summer after i graduated high school. it isn't in the middle of another section or anything. it just says this: when writing, one need not necessarily think about what to write, but rather, one should write what they think, so as to make a window for all readers to look though, to see the writer. no barriers. no boundaries. heartfelt strokes from the tip of a pen. passionate - not necessarily beautiful or insightful - just real. 7-10-94. and so, taking my own advice, i write this blog 13 years later. sometimes i find myself trying to sound clever or interesting. but, for the most part, my desire is just to write. to explore. to be known and loved. to dialogue. i am broken. anyone who knows me knows that. i'm pronce to every kind of selfishness. my storyline isn't always bright and straight. there are bends and shadows and sharp...

so i had to get a physical for the united methodist church. i haven't been to a doctor since i've lived in annandale, so i randomly chose a practice that was reasonably close to my house and had doctors' names that seemed pleasant to say. my appointment was yesterday at 8am, and i approached the 70's style architecture with great trepidation. after great length and filling out numerous forms all asking for the same information, i sat down in the wood-paneled waiting room and flipped through a 6-month old copy of vogue, if only to discover what shade of lip gloss would compliment my skin tone. as soon as i had determined that i best fit the 'olive' category, but before i discovered the appropriate shade for my lips, my name was called by a stern looking nurse and i entered the hallowed catacombs of the doctor's office. having entered the mysterious back hallways, i proceeded to sit in a sterile room and read a variety of material on breast cancer detection w...

wow. this nearly sums up my life at this stage. everything i am is invested in these two human beings. i am reckless with joy over them and love for them. sometimes, for me, words are inadequate. it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. but, when the picture somehow captures your adoration, when your spirit is somehow seized by the pixels, a picture is priceless, worth more than any words. this picture probably doesn't do that for you. but you need to understand that for me, as their father, this picture owns me and won't let me go. i am gripped by it. i can't help but feel the emotion bubbling up, threatening to escape. i can't help but feel compelled to take their little bodies against mine and hold them tight, even as they (especially the older one, that little stinker) wriggle to get away. i am convinced that if i could just hold them for a spell, and press my nose against their scalps and inhale what seems to be the smell of their very sou...

"state of maine" paper collage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich "ocean blue" found objects and paper assemblage on cardboard panel gregory a. milinovich okay. so this is probably the last post that will deal with my vacation to maine. sorry if i've been boring you. i just had some stuff i wanted to share, that's all. today i share with you the two collages i made in maine. actually one is a collage and another is an assemblage. the difference is that a collage uses paper and an assemblage uses any items. the bottom one (which you can't see very well because it is 3-d and therefore doesn't scan well - i should have taken a picture instead) is made of items i found at the rachel carson salt pond while in maine - items that the tide washed ashore. there is a net from a lobster trap, a peice of rope, part of a rubber glove, a milk lid, a peice of driftwood, some wire and a rubber band (a gum band it is called in pittsburgh). i am just s...

"i don't suppose there's a better metaphor for God than the ocean," said the maine-man, from his perch in the sea. he could be right, of course. they seem to know that sort of thing here on the margins. its true what they say - that we can be roughest at our edges. the maine shoreline here is sharp and scattered with stones; its riddled with rocks, rough, and constantly reshaped by the tide. nothing seems to suit this great northeast geography quite like grey. sky and stone, and ocean, sometimes as far as you can see, stand sentinel in colorless edgy grey. but here where i sit, faced with fog and the approaching tide, i keep noticing the smallest bits of color, hints of hope in this stern stone world. seaglass - the world's broken refuse - has resurfaced here at the margins in colorful mosaic. what was once unwanted is here hunted. with deafening divinity, the ocean has worn these peices, tumbled and tried them until what was once rough along the edges is now ski...