Straight No Chaser

Everybody Play

twenty people, not including yourself. any twenty.

1. mom
2. marcus
3. aaron
4. krystle
5. johnny depp
6. chad
7. sean
8. jodi
9. cathy dollanganger
10. imani
11. my cube neighbor
12. daddy
13. alan cassidy
14. boy aaron
15. aunt susan
16. strange
17. ernie
18. naima slaughter
19. od
20. meg

you're going to use each one twice; copy everything before the colon and replace my names with yours, and when you reach the end of the list, start repeating names. give it some thought, and tell me if you decide to play--i like to read these. (and so you know, the first-name-onlies are on- and offline friends; cathy is the narrator of flowers in the attic, alan is one of the protagonists of the oldest, most youthfully dramatic thing i've ever written, naima lives in my sim neighborhood.)

1. if mom were a month: she'd almost definitely be may--the busiest, most optimistic month of the year. graduation/retirement/wedding party month. also warm, and sunny, and just the tiniest bit superficial, because it's the sun keeping everything warm, not actual warm air.

2. if marcus were a day of the week: he'd last thirty-six instead of the regular twenty-four hours, and all important activities and events would be scheduled at some point throughout his duration. his sunrise would come three hours early, and the sun would only stay in the sky for a total of maybe six hours--the rest would be busy, busy, busy, sleepless night.

3. if aaron were a time of day: she'd be mid- to late evening, seven forty-fiveish. dark with this tiny, ironic bit of sun off in the corner of the sky...and not quite dark enough that three little kids, probably blond-headed boys, couldn't still play in the front yard.

4. if krystle were a planet: she'd be venus, and she'd forcefully restructure the solar system so she could orbit mars.

5. if johnny depp were a sea animal: i would definitely have to overcome my crippling fear of the ocean, and visit him occasionally. and he would probably be a particularly brilliant, quirky dolphin, one that, if captured, would generate huge, multimillion dollar audiences at seaworld.

6. if chad were a direction: he'd be upward. that kid is going places.

7. if sean were a piece of furniture: i'd unleash wild cats on him and let them take their jagged claws to his upholstery. then i'd extract every last fallen coin from between his cushions, call the salvation army and have him hauled away, hopefully to be relocated in a very tiny crackhouse somewhere. (he's claustrophobic.)

8. if jodi were a historical figure: she'd be a slightly more down-to-earth mother teresa, and everyone who relies on her (particularly the kids she works with) would have to acknowledge her saintliness for all time.

9. if cathy dollanganger were a liquid: she would obviously be vaginal mucus, because everything, including family members and attic dust and her own reflection, made her horny.

10. if imani were a stone: she'd be rosetta, the rosetta stone, the key to knowledge in the cradle of civilization. i think i'm going to love her forever, partly because she is beautiful and ingelligent and still one of the most unarrogant people i know, and also because when neither of my group members had read the book we were supposed to present to our race and masculininity class, imani totally saved my life with her discussion questions and participation. i'm completely convinced that if she'd never been born, i'd have lost my scholarship by now.

11. if my cube neighbor were a tree: she'd be the bitchiest, most unpleasant tree east of the redwood forest. god she's a bitch.

12. if daddy were a bird: he'd be an african grey, because he's unpretentious and well-informed and pseudo-afrocentric, and he can't match colors for shit so he might as well be in gray all the time. yesterday i caught him starting to tie a blue and white tie around the collar of a plum-colored shirt, underneath a black suit. i took and hid the tie, because that plum-colored shirt is really pretty, and i won't have him defiling it with his horrible taste.

13. if alan cassidy were a tool: he, well. he kind of is a tool. nothing really manly about him, but hey. what can i say. i was fifteen when i wrote him, and knew considerably less about men than i do now. he's a dr. phillish kind of man, pandering, tolerant, estrogen-heavy--an undersocialized teenager's perfect prototype. a good mars to krystle's venus.

14. if aaron were a flower/plant: he would be a coca plant, because he is damn addictive. i would pot him and put him on my desk, grind up his spores and snort him whenever i needed inspiration. i want to read his novel.

15. if aunt susan were a kind of weather: she would be september rain.

16. if strange were a musical instrument: she would be a clarinet. nothing fancy, no flutish trills, no violinish warbling. just deep, singular notes that, in sequence, produced melody, a comforting refrain to underlie all the other chaos and discord. aaron, did i tell you she's not a lesbian after all? and that i'm not sure how i feel about that?

17. if ernie were an animal: i seriously doubt anyone would notice the difference.

18. if naima slaughter were a color: she would be burgandy, like her lips, and her kiss would burn like the coals of a thousand arabian barbecue pits. michael was this incredible womanizer at one point, feared commitment and dreamed of sleeping with every man and woman he laid eyes on, and naima completely changed him, in her halter top and floor-length denim skirt. she got pregnant on sneak, twice, and then blocked the door as he was leaving for his first day of work so that he got fired, stayed home raising the boys, spent his days elbow-deep in toddler pee and pining for his wife. a real femme fatale, that girl. if she wrote a book, i'd buy it.

19. if od were an emotion: he would be bipolar manic-depressive, which i know isn't an emotion, but that's my personal diagnosis, anyway. i called to wish him a happy mother's day, which i guess seemed weird considering he will never be a mother, but i thought it was okay since he and i hadn't talked since leaving school...anyway, he freaked out, got really hostile about lord knows what, and then text messaged me frantically, a couple days later, to apologize. all sweetness and contrition.

20. if meg were a vegetable: she would be bok choy, because she's currently in china, and because i would love to have lunch with her right now.

21. if mom were a sound: she would be her own voice, which is constant and unrelenting and which, remarkably, drowns out any other noise with which it ever coincides, no competition. i got her an ipod nano for mother's day, which was a pretty dumb decision, considering she cannot help but sing at the top of her lungs anytime there's music playing. and then, the hilarious thing is, when she catches you singing along, she takes out her headphones and, with wide-eyed innocence, goes "is my ipod up too loud?" she is currently on a wyclef jean kick, go figure.

22. if marcus were a car: i would ride him. wildly original, yes.

23. if aaron were a song: she would not be emo, ew, but she would damn well air on the same stations. an older woman with a young-sounding voice would sing her, and there would be no profanity but the hook, a lot would be implied in the hook.

24. if krystle were a poem: it would be about love, and jealousy, and there would be several usages of the word "mine."

25. if johnny depp were a food: he would be wild turkey basted in wild turkey. i wouldn't want to eat him, but that would be okay; in nonhuman form i'd imagine he'd lose most of his sex appeal, so it wouldn't be any great loss.

26. if chad were a place: sorry to interrupt the sentence structure, but the sad thing is, because they no longer actually teach geography in most public schools' social studies classes, a lot of kids today probably don't even know chad is a place. speaking of kids today and how they suck, kyle, the two-year-old i sometimes babysit in atlanta, and who in every other way is just the cutest thing ever, has picked up his dad's affinity for delinquent rap. his new favorite song to sing is "kryptonite," to which he's got all kinds of little dances, including one that involves imaginary kryptonite. it's really sad.

27. if sean were a material: it would be something greasy and scaly in texture. they would use him to make briefcases for gangsters, the kind of people who just don't give a fuck who they hurt. fittingly.

28. if jodi were a taste: i'd guess it would resemble that of strawberry lemonade, but you'll have to ask ernie.

29. if cathy dollanganger were a scent: it would be chanel no. 5. i don't know why, i just associate it with sinful things. after i read caucasia, which i hated and which made several mentions of how it was the mother's favorite fragrance, i started noticing bottles of it in different relatives' bedrooms, and thinking, just, ew. which is approximately what i think of cathy.

30. if imani were a religion: it would be islam, because she is muslim.

31. if my cube neighbor were a word: it would have four letters, and probably not be allowed on television. she really, really, really is a bitch. when i walk in and say "good morning," as i have five times this week, you'd think it would be so easy for her to just return the regards, and keep walking. but, no.

32. if daddy were an object: it would be a portable humidifier, because he breathes loudly and completely alters the mood and atmosphere of every room he enters. and i'm not being mean or angry at him right now, even; that's literally the first object i thought of.

33. if alan cassidy were a body part: he would be sidnee's right leg, because she is pretty much immobile without him. i shouldn't be criticizing the two of them so much, because i love them and they represent a lot of big developments in my life, but honestly, every time someone sponsors that story and it starts getting comments like crazy, i always think i'm going to have a heart attack. and then, i'm sure it's really obnoxious, but i always feel compelled to respond to each review, and remark, as casually as possible, that i was fifteen when i wrote them. fifteen. too young to drive a car, much less write a deecnt story.

34. if aaron were a facial expression: he would be a reticent grimace. it's what i imagine him wearing a lot on the island, and when he stands (and stands and stands and stands) behind the counter at the hilton garden inn. (speaking of island, i hope you don't mind, but when emilio and violet had their twins, who looked hawaiian, i named them keanu and kailani--younger brother and sister were leiko and mele. i felt positively blasphemous, naming somebody kailani. i might kill her off if that idea didn't freak me out so much.)

35. if aunt susan were a subject in school: and if that school were my school, which is probably one of few american schools with this class as a requirement, she'd be "african diaspora and the world 112," the fun semester, which, unlike 111, the shit semester, entailed a lot of really fun personal experience essays. not that aunt susan is african, or that afrocentric, or particularly inclined to write essays, but she wears a natural hairstyle and she has a million pretty strings of beads, and she has always been sort of my cultural role model. perfectly placed between two extremes.

36. if strange were a cartoon character: the cartoonist would have a field day with her build, hair and teeth. olive oyl meets jar jar binks.

37. if ernie were a shape: he'd be a trapezoid with thirty- and one hundred fifty-degree angles. pointy at two angles because he is mean sometimes, and longer on one side than on the other because he cares so much more about certain things than about others. (i almost said dodecahedron, but i didn't feel like explaining my reasoning, and i knew someone would correct me that a dodecahedron is a figure, not a shape.)

38. if naima were a number: she would be one thousand, four hundred sixty-four, which is the number of simoleons in the slaughters' bank account at present, and because michael is too sex-crazed to think about anything but chasing tail, including finding a job, naima earned every bit of it.

39. if od asked me out: i would laugh and try to make it seem like i thought he was kidding. or, hopefully i wouldn't do that again, but it's what i did. said, "haha, you're so hilarious, why are you always trying to hurt my feelings by pretending you like me?" it might not have been the best way to deal with it, far from it, but i seriously thought he was going to have a psychotic episode if i flat-out rejected him. krystle's way was far, far worse, though, so i'm no longer the heartless wench in his life.

40. if meg were here now: we would squeal and hug for a while, because i haven't seen her since christmas break, and then we would crouch behind cubicles and spy on my coworkers.