Weekly Stories

salad days

My salad days are now. They aren’t just reserved for youth, as Shakespeare and the Brits would say. No. My salad days are later on than expected. Like an Italian feast. Just when I thought the main course was over (having found it tough and heavy) – what’s this? Fresh, optimistic, cherry tomatoes from the garden that burst into your mouth – salad. I’m forty five – holding hands down the street, and he stops to kiss me passionately. A girl walks past us and giggles and says, “Aw, too adorable.” How many times have I been that girl, walking…

five date surprise

My whole plan was to get beyond my shyness and out of the house and go on thirty dates with people completely outside of my circle. I was going to learn so much about the world, bounce up against other personalities, and see how the other half lives. I was even going to write a play and pitched it to a collaborator. What I didn’t count on was actually meeting someone. What I didn’t count on was being well met. Date five, In walks one of the coolest cats on the planet and we’re crazy about each other. WHAT?! By the…

dating and Equivocation

I’m into my second week of this experiment with on-line dating. A very nice Catholic man wrote to me and wanted to meet me. He’s educated, works with children, reasonably good-looking. When he asked me what I was doing today I said (provoking what I suspected would be a deal breaker) that I was out enjoying the Pride celebrations and then off for a swim. He said something very ambiguous about “well…we pray…” Which left me wondering which way he leaned…suspicious of equivocation…so I pressed him further by saying something about liberal Christianity and the support for gay marriage. Then…

Equivocation

I just got back from seeing Equivocation at Bard on the Beach. Boy, did tonight make me yearn to join that artistic family. It was a masterful feat. Not an easy play. Some tricky transitions, late introduction of devices in the writing, dense language, complicated plot…and entirely fascinating! Well executed. Beautifully and precisely performed, intelligently directed, courageously written. If nothing else, for having the audacity to say as much as the play did. Really made me think. Michael Shamata always makes everything sing. (the director) I love everything he does. So much so that I’m a complete IDIOT when I…

JP and his Love (& Demons)

JP places the drunken cherry with purpose into the Manhattan he meticulously makes for me. Everything with him is a clear well executed thing of beauty. One can detect Texas on his tongue ever so slightly. He’s got my favourite kind of face: one marked with joy, intelligence, sorrow, sensuality and something a little bit scary. The scary thing is the honesty. Being a true blue gentleman, he also knows the art of silence for the sake of mercy. In his life. In his films. He tells me one of my favourite JP stories. He was down visiting his Dad…

conveyor

It is the moment that I grab Factory Worker 2’s hair net and stuff it seductively into my mouth that I realize I am running on pure adrenalin. I can’t divulge much, but suffice it to say I am on set today with sixty eyes on me, an assembly line, a conveyer belt three feet in the air that I am encouraged to hop up onto, and a command to “bust loose”. There is no stunt man, there is no spotter, there is no choreography, there is no rehearsal to my surprise. There is “ROLLING!” Holy shit. So I go….

earning the jersey

I am curious who my next date will be. There is a fireman who will be on call and a fellow writer, who probably won’t have the courage to come away from his computer at all. He posts a picture of himself frowning. He felt a smile was disingenuous. He looks terrifying, but he loves Keats. How scary can he be? Mind you, Charles Manson wrote poetry. Three dates down, twenty seven to go. My experiment. Today is dedicated to my students and to softball. I joined a little recreational league with some theatre buddies, called The Horn Dawgs. We…

date three is too

“I like you so much, I’m going to be sick!” My Sunday afternoon date stops in the middle of the sea wall just to look at me. “Is that too much? It’s too much, isn’t it? I’m freaking you out. But GOD, I’m completely fascinated by you!” He says, after asking me a hundred and one questions. This is polar opposite to my last two dates. I don’t know what to do except remain in a full state of flabbergast. I have second day hair and I am wearing the wrong shoes. This fellow is handsome chatty and adorable in…

two piece and a pop

I drive home from my date tonight (no one you know). One that started out nicely and then went horribly wrong. And all I can utter is “good GOD, good GOD, good GOD”, in a way that sounds like I am hacking up a hair ball. I drive up to Megabite pizza on Commercial Drive. I know I look lovely. My hair is shiny and bouncy, I am wearing a brand new flattering houndstooth frock. The elegant diminutive gentleman behind the counter opens the door for me, delighted and surprised to see me. He inquires, gallantly, with a ballroom sweep…

a good time for berry picking

There is no perfect time to go berry picking. When I was a child I was the perfect height for getting those hard to reach lower limbs, heavy laden with beauties. And of course, the boundless energy. But I would eat more than I would gather. I would toddle home with a tummy ache, scratched up legs and an empty basket full of raspberry juice and tiny spiders. they would work their way up my arms and legs, leaving me with little red love bites and a night bathed in Calamine lotion. When I was a teenager I was fast…

Lucia Frangione