One Love / One World

Oh yeah, let's sing it all together now. One love! One heart! Let's get together and feel alright! I've always been in a musical black hole. This is embarrassing, but by the time I became aware of Bob Marley, he was already dead. I had a television then and Publix had that great commercial of The Good Uncle blowing up all the water toys for the kids at the family reunion until all the food was gone. One Love played throughout. It blew me away. I asked around and found out who it was and bought a CD and became a fan.

Well, tonight at 11:35 on The Tonight Show, the Playing for Change (dot com) band will be playing, and maybe they'll play One Love. I almost wish I had a television ... Check it out if you don't have to be up at five to go to work. The man on the far right in the photo is Vusi Mahlasela, part of the band. Just saying his last name -- no matter how you pronounce it -- is music.

I've met Lillo Nicolazzo on Facebook. He may or may not be related. Since his English is as non-existent as my Italian, we basically just smile at each other across the ocean. Still, I had enough French and Latin in high school, and enough Spanish in romance, and enough English in my life to understand his response to my comment. I told him to say hi to my beloved President Barack Obama if he sees him. Yes. Somehow I -- with no tv or newspapers -- found out that Obama's in Italy!

Oh. I know. My CD-player in my car is starting to deteriorate, and I couldn't stand listening to Sounds of Blackness (Africa to America: the journey of the drum) hop and skip, so I resorted to the radio. I listen to WUSF because I like the classical music. I don't like their politics, though. I support WMNF (I don't want their music but I like their politics) by, uh, wearing the tee shirts that Mike gets when he sends them money. Either way, they both subscribe to NPR news, so that's the news I catch a couple times a month.

I told Lillo to say hi to Obama and Lillo wrote back: Io apprezzo molto il tuo Presidente Obama ...

We must be related, as I, too, often dribble off with ellipses ...

Mike and I went down to the animal hospital to get Mo from his first chemo treatment. As we walked in, the receptionist said she was just about to call Mike to tell him Sunny's ashes had arrived. Yep. Festivities all 'round. Mo's reacting well to the treatment, but I don't know if that says anything about the actual cancer.

Remember when people wouldn't even say cancer? They used to say the Big C, dipping their heads a bit as if it were a secret. They'd whisper about cancer. Now, heck, I know an older couple who goes to the dermatologist together to have their melanoma (melanomi?) removed. It's an outing.

Twice now, I've had to interrupt myself (and I hate when that happens) to see if I've talked about something before. It turns out that I've talked about things on Facebook. Well, that's going to stop. I can't be flitting around, searching for keywords (lillo, hubcaps), and god knows I can't just remember, either.



So check out Eunice Fisher's contribution to Ken Marquis' project, http://www.landfillart.org/, shown here. See it bigger on the site, where the pieces are shown alphabetically by artist. I'll be getting my own hubcap in the mail soon. I can hardly wait!

I just commissioned Derrick Johnson to paint my chest of drawers. I'm really excited about that. He's here in Gulfport. I just love his stuff. http://www.stankinstudio.com/. And how about Vincent Pompei? Can you even imagine having such a name? http://www.pompeistudio.com/. I'll be needing one of his pieces soon, so perhaps you'd like to start saving now. My birthday's sooner than you think!

Speaking of birthdays, I celebrated twenty-five clean and sober years on Tuesday. That's not nearly as exciting as you might think it should be, but I suppose it's like a plain old birthday. Turning thirty was a lot more interesting than I suspect turning sixty will be, but I still like gifts and restaurant meals, you know? Well, do things just get more ordinary as we age, do you think? Here comes Christmas! Yah, yah. I've had a buncha of those. Nice, but so what? Is that it?

I remember when Mom said she probably wouldn't even put up a tree one year. That seems so sad, but now it just seems ... convenient. I know I used to collect rocking horse ornaments, but I haven't displayed them in a long, long time. Ten years? At least.

Okay. Maybe celebrations of annually occurring things aren't as exciting, but, truly, my Stankin' dresser? THAT'S exciting. The upcoming hubcap? Oh yeah.

Good. I didn't think life was that bland ...