Lucia Frangione

  Good morning idiot Lucia. You just wrote your daughter a nice part in the Christmas pageant, getting her all excited to act on stage with her Daddy, and you neglected to note that you and Nora won’t be in town. Nice. Now she’s going to cry and the church is freaking out, suddenly needing a director and an eight year old actor.   Also, despite the fact you feel really good, you got on a scale that told you only seven pounds were lost, not ten, and what did you do? You went home and ate cheese and crackers….

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Nora has her pal, Nodin, here to play after school. Nora and Nodin are gregarious charming eight year olds who seem to be quite popular. (This is a bit of a mystery to all of us parents. We were all geeks in school as far as I know, ol’ skinny legs Ravensbergen and Fat Frangione and little Kopsa who got beat up for being swarthy…maybe James was cool…but I doubt it. He’s a brainiac…)   Nora decides to include the new boy in the game of tag they’re playing. The new boy’s chest immediately expands, his face breaks open with…

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For the first time in three years I am not in chronic pain. I can’t believe it! 42 days of eating eight things (with one cheesecake slip) and I am now over all my allergic reactions. No eczema, hives, no itchy eyeballs, no sore heels, no gummy eyes, no nightmares, no sore tummies, no head aches, no strange moods. I’ve begun my testing now. The baddies are cheese, wine, white rice, wheat, coffee and bottled/mineral water. Vodka and carrots, however, are just fine.  Apparently, I went drinking with Bugs Bunny and couldn’t say no.   Today, I went on my…

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On my drive back into Vancouver from teaching in Richmond I stop at a red on Cambie. The driver next to me is gesticulating some kind of wondrous movement with his smooth dark hands to his companion. I am mesmerized. Is he pulling toffee? Is he drawing apart wool? Is he stretching dough? Is he running his hands luxuriously through a woman’s long hair? Right below his window is the name “Escape”. Surely the escape isn’t the gray monstrosity passing for a vehicle…but him. His hands. The color of earth so rich, it releases endorphins just digging into it.  …

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I’ve noticed a direct correlation with people who talk incessantly and people with short necks. Maybe the neck shortens because the muscles that constantly work the jaw pull tight from over use? This also seems to have an effect on the audio and visual ability to notice that nobody else in the room has had a chance to get a word in edgewise. The expression I see on most incessant talkers is closely akin to that of a trout. The most recent incessant talker I came across was the butcher standing behind my regular halal butcher yesterday. My butcher is…

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Great press, nothing but excellent reviews and our house tonight is about…what…nine people? Those of you who aren’t from Vancouver will say “What?!” And those of you who are from Vancouver will nod and say, “oh yes, the first Wednesday.” Wednesday is also laundry day for costumes so I throw in my blouse and – tuck my show lingerie into my own bag, newly realizing it is the artistic director, Richard, who is doing the wash. Tomorrow I have a meeting with my composer and dramaturge for the opera, then I clean apartments, and then I make dinner for the…

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I think it’s taken me this long to realize when I say “God” others don’t automatically know this means: newborn gasp “these are my hands?” When I say “Jesus” I mean: Muse out of dreams. Fog rolling over a mountain studded with snow like a lover’s graying beard. The feel of hot tea sliding down my throat. The satisfaction of reading a great novel and understanding enough to change my life while knowing I didn’t get even a tenth of it. When I say “The Spirit” I mean: that deep rumble feeling of earth quake that did not choose to…

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Apparently Mexican food is not a big hit in Algeria. My lovely girls eat everything and anything I put on the table as long as it’s halal: God bless them. But for some reason, for tech week, I made a huge pot of delicious chill: halal beef, home soaked beautiful organic beans, lots of veggies, a hint of molasses and cumin and cinnamon, hot sauce…I make a good chili. They didn’t touch it. Tonight I served it up for Nora and Michael and when the girls got home, I scooped them up a bowl and they left it on the…

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We just finished 6 days in a row of twelve hour days. For me, however, it’s been thirty five days in a row with no break: my “days off” reserved for writing and prepping a class to teach, mothering, cleaning, doing laundry and feeding the Algerians. I slap make up over the bags under my eyes, tease my hair up into a fabulous beehive and off we go for a matinee. And in my head I remember pace: no time between the ends of their sentences and the beginning of mine. No time to breathe. That’s excitement, that’s comedy. Suck…

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It’s opening night tonight for Sean Devine’s new play that I have the pleasure of being in. We had a preview audience last night. It went very well. (I knew it would because I figured out my hair do. It’s all about the hair for me. This was my first beehive). We are rather tired after a series of ten out of twelves – so I am grateful for this “sleeping in” time this morning before opening. Last night my fatigue showed only once when I had to list twelve psychologists, sociologists and physicists in a row and I got to…

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