A bench that’s been yarn-bombed by staff and friends of Baltimore Threadquarters keeps watch over main street; Ha! is the official name of the Highlandtown’s arts district.

It’s 7 a.m. in Highlandtown. You’ve just woken up, stumbled down the narrow staircase of your rowhome, and managed to get your jumpy dog on a leash. Abby, a shepherd/collie mix, yanks you through the door and within seconds someone is hollering at you from across the street.

"Hey! Watch it over there! Someone with a big-ass dog took a dump and didn't clean it up!"

It’s J.R.

As soon as they catch sight of you, J.R.’s fleet of Jack Russell Terriers attempt to tear away from him, snarling at you until your ankles fear for their safety.

An old-style clock that sits on Eastern Avenue tells locals and visitors it’s time for lunch in Highlandtown.

“Yoko! Yoko!” he yells, struggling to keep the three leashes from getting crossed. “She’s the trouble-maker, that’s why I named her Yoko!”

He waits, you laugh. The morning continues as so many others do, only today, you have the good fortune of not stepping in dog shit, no easy feat in the church courtyard.

It’s 11:30 a.m. in Highlandtown. If you haven’t already stuffed your face with pastries or peach cake from Hoehn’s Bakery (unlikely!), you’re starting to get hungry for lunch.

As if by magic, an aroma unrivaled in the waking world fills the air and puts you in a perfect trance. You follow it, unquestioningly, down the main drag into a tiny, Peruvian restaurant, where dozens of rotisserie chickens are spinning and gleaming behind glass windows. 1/4 chicken, rice, beans, fried plantains, and a coke put you back into a state similar to the one that led you here, so you stagger home for a short siesta.

A mural in Highlandtown depicts the immigrants’ journey, in both the old world and the present day.

It’s 2 p.m. in Highlandtown and you’re woken up, this time not by Abby’s bladder, but by a situation that’s begun to escalate just outside your bedroom window.

The woman is yelling, crying; the man’s eyelids are heavy. You recognize him- he’s an addict who lives a few blocks south. You can’t recall ever seeing him sober. He showed up once to the Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the church on the corner, no doubt to appease this same woman, who now, in a tearful rage, informs him that she’s through; he doesn’t say anything, but leans forward ever so slightly, staring vacantly toward his mother as she walks away.

A ad from Liberty Tax sits haphazardly in the rail of a church on Bank Street.

It’s 6 p.m. in Highlandtown. The lights of the Creative Alliance are just starting to come out of a deep, daytime sleep to play. Tonight, you get gussied up and head to the theater. What’s on the marquee tonight? An improv show or maybe some obscure musical act from D.C.? Whatever it is, you know the company will be both undeniably comfortable and just a bit odd, a lovable audience of strangers and friends who have a penchant for anything uncensored, Zappa-esque.

Afterwards, you all laugh yourselves to the happiest little bar in Baltimore for a few rounds of songs on the jukebox and some Bohs for accompaniment.

A Highlandtown dog owner shows true love for his dog at the Farmers Market.

Highlandtown is not one, but all of this- it’s J.R.’s old jokes and cranky Jack Russells; it’s Peruvian rotisserie that melts in your mouth; it’s a mother’s heart breaking for her son; it’s midnight beers at the Laughing Pint; it’s real and it won’t change for anyone, and it only asks that the same be true of you.