Lucia Frangione

I chuckle over the Italian breadsticks I place on the laden table. Do I tell the host: when she bends over to baste the turkey in the oven, her short skirt rides up and her entire bum in tights can be seen? She pops back up, buoyant and smiling and asks if anyone wants more Riesling. Nope. Not gonna bring it up. it’s part of the whole experience and quite frankly, she might not even care. When I look around, I figure nobody else would either. They’re busy hooting over a pair of knitted gloves in the shape of sharks…

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  After our stumble through of the play today…I got in my car, exhausted, and set out on a mission for comfort. For me this meant a plate of hand rolled gnocchi that I didn’t have to make myself. Felicia’s, just one block east of Nanaimo, on Hastings, was the answer. Felicia speaks to me in half Italian and half English, much like my Zia Cinzella did: just enough for me to follow what she’s saying and the rest, well I should know anyway with a name like Frangione. The restaurant itself is crazy awesome eccentric. There is a tiki…

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I chose money over family this week, maybe for the first time in my life. Consciously, anyway. It was a bit of an experiment. I don’t feel smart or responsible or pleased that I took a job instead of going on vacation to see my family this Thanksgiving. I feel depraved. It happened very quickly. I did six auditions this week and i wasn’t getting callbacks, which I know is just a roll of the dice, but my pride will also tell you I usually get called back for SOMETHING. By the end of that string of opportunities the dates…

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Two boys trot down the sidewalk towards me. They are ahead of other kids who are still spilling out of the red brick school house and racing to the playground to play soccer. Little and big are heading home. Blue back pack, red back pack, solemn round cheeks still chubby. Identical jet black hair cuts, no nonsense. Their close cropped fringes completely disregard any Justin Bieber side sweep and all Anime heroes. These brothers have serious hair and serious faces. Little is maybe seven and big is maybe nine. The eldest boy takes a very quick peek once they pass…

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I am up at 2am tonight thinking once again about that friend who has decided to stop talking to me entirely. It’s been about two years now. I’ve known her since she was a chubby cheeked toddler. I can still see her in her pink snowsuit. We could always pick up right where we left off. I don’t think it’s personal. She just – can’t. I miss her terribly. No one is like her. She is magnificent. I anguish over not knowing how to do anything about her pain. I pray. I send out a little hello once in a…

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I hear a man say to another on the ferry over coffee, “Yeah, she got knocked up and then became a normal woman. Had three kids.” Normal woman? Hm. What is that? I wonder if that woman is glad to now be thought of as normal or disappointed in herself, or lying, or finally feeling at home? His statement seems particularly bewildering because I just came from “ze” queer as F@#$K at the Fringe. It’s a one person show written by my dear and brave Lunicke: a deeply personal, complicated, painful, fascinating and very hilarious journey through the wild world…

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“Ooh this one’s hot!” says one turnip bum to her husband while entering the tranquility of the outdoor spa steam pool in her black frilly bathing suit that a saleswoman said was slimming. She continues, unabashedly breaking the silence with her nasal drivel, “When Carol said that to me, I just didn’t know what to do. You know I’ve tried to be nice but this really – (blah blah blah blah)” She continues jabbering for another five minutes straight. The people around her don’t say anything, they just sort of glide away, like good long suffering Canadian mermaids. I seethe,…

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I wake at 8:15am because it takes me exactly 45 minutes to present home made waffles with whip, local blueberries, Quebec maple syrup and bacon. I let out ol’ desperate eyed Tartuffe (he doesn’t bark or whine, he implores, silently, which believe me, is very loud) I pick some nasturtiums, mint and lavender for garnish and smell the crisp fragrant Bowen air. How I love being here. Today I have my first vegetarians at our BnB (which, by the way, is more than halfway sold out for the entire summer). The closest thing I could find to “bacon” in the…

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I have always held to the idea that I hate daisies. They smell like asparagus piss. I’ve even put this in a play. I am not sure when I concluded I despised them. Probably as a child I bent over a bunch and took a big whiff.  Maybe as an adult I was given a cheap Safeway bundle wrapped with a side of resentment from a suitor who begrudgingly gave them to me for opening night, jealous that I was working and he wasn’t. Yeah, that’s probably it. I remember now. They were died blue and they turned the water…

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I walk down 7th Avenue in a stumbling state. It takes effort to remember to put one foot in front of the other. Negotiating stairs is a whole other thing. “She said use the railings…” so I do, and try not to worry about all the germs. I think of a friend’s perfectly healthy mother who tripped on a rug and fell headlong into the corner of her hallway, broke her neck, and died. We are delicately waterous: held together with a trinket bag of bones and a handful of fleshy mounds and expandable Os. So easily punctured. So easily…

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