642 Things to Write About

"You are a midlevel Greek deity, hoping to move up the ranks of Olympus. What are your powers, and how will you use them to impress Zeus and the others?" -- My name is Rhea, and I'm a water nymph. Technically, I guess I'm a princess, since my father was a king when he was human, but after my mother, a sea goddess, fell in love with him, drowned him, and turned him into a half-sea creature, half-god, he didn't really get to keep the crown. I know, I know, dysfunctional half-divine families, right? My mother's more than a little self-involved if you ask me. Anyway, the whole royal blood thing plus the expectations that come with being one of Olphea and Crysthon's fifty daughters means that as my twentieth year approaches, it's time for them to send me off to marry one of our cousins. They're a nicely matching fifty princes who live in the deeper under-ocean kingdom, Aleusinia. Don't ask me how my mother managed to have exactly the same number

 "That time you peed your pants." --- We all have *that* time we did it, right? If you're really, really lucky, it was while you were still young enough to be excused, or old enough to just laugh it off instead. Or, you might be like me, whose claim to the experience is firmly in my late 20s (too old AND too young!) The details are a little hazy a few years down the road, but I remember some things with crystal clarity. I was with a bunch of family members, having wandered down to a park near my aunt and uncle's house in St. Paul , Minnesota , during a summer family reunion. My husband Sam, stepdaughter Shaylyn, sister Jen, mom Carla, and some assorted cousins, aunts, uncles and children belonging to the clan were there, and some subset of us were attempting to play baseball with sticks and a terrible old softball chewed up by someone's dog. I don't remember precisely what I was supposed to be doing at the exact moment it happened--the

"Retell the most recent joke you've heard as a short piece of fiction." (This one, clearly, owes its existence to St. Patrick's Day.) -- Brian set up a new tray of glasses at the end of the bar, keeping one eye on the clock (just after midnight, it read) and the other on the two men sitting down at the other end, a stool separating them like strangers, although they both were as regular as Brooklyn bar patrons get. Jim Murphy had moved down a seat after some kind of argument Brian had only heard pieces of, but had seemed to involve some trick or another played thirty years ago back home in Ireland, one brother to the other. Now he and his twin Mike were sulking apart, each putting down the drinks as fast as he'd ever seen them do, not saying a word to each other. Mike thumped an empty glass down with meaning, eyeballing Brian. "Barman!" he called. Brian used the walk down to the other end of the bar to swipe the bar clean with his towel, in

"Write a bathroom wall limerick." There once was a girl from Marquette Who had a hard time getting wet So she'd say to the boys, "No, I've got my own toys, "With them and some lube, I'm all set!" -- Author's Note: This was really hard for me! Of course my talented-at-rhyming-and-ribaldry husband came up with about five right away, but I really wanted to write my own, otherwise it's cheating, right? So, mine isn't as clever as some, but it's here anyway, and it's certainly crude enough. And, here's two of his just for fun. There was a dude from Little Lake Who would give his dick a randy shake He would whack it around At every joint in town So give him a hand, for God's sake. There once was a man from Sidnaw Who liked every girl that he saw He humped Grace and Mary Who were from Trenary And now they are both baby mas.

"A bad smell and where it came from." She quickly lit some incense to cover up that horrible smell. Rotten cabbage or eggs, maybe; it was hard to describe, but familiar and distinct to anyone with a propane tank. It meant the tank was down to its last gasps, the furnace pushing heroically to keep the heat in the small house against the winter chill just outside. It meant turning down the thermostat to 55, the bare minimum to keep things from freezing. It meant no using the gas stove to cook tonight; she'd have to rely on the microwave for the kids' dinner. It meant praying for spring weather to arrive tomorrow, because there was no money to get the tank refilled. It was almost time for them to get off the bus. She fanned the smoke from the sweet-scented incense around the room, trying to keep the bad smell away. By now, the kids would know that smell the same as she did, and she didn't want them to worry about whether they'd get to sleep in their own bed

"Come up with every possible way to describe something as 'red,' without using the word itself." -- The color of guts, not golden glory The shade of a sailor's warning sky An icy cold cola can Arizona's shimmering heat The flush of blood to your face Bitten lips The color that hazes your vision in rage Summer tomatoes Wild apples on the roadside Ripe tart cherries - Powdered cinnabar Drugstore lipsticks Crimson Scarlet Vermilion Don't eat that color of berries Don't touch the stove when it's that color Dying embers of a fire Sunset glow in the north Wildfire on the horizon - Stop! The safety's off Blood dripping from fresh meat The color of ground paprika A good pasta sauce Strawberry stain on your fingers The balance for blue and yellow The middle of black and white Skin laid back Muscle exposed - Warning sign Stains of iron in the water Mark of iron in the soil Clay along the riverbank Color of a th

"Write a poem about a tomato." Tomatoes out of season taste like ghosts of summer roused Echoes of red-skinned bursts in your mouth Pale sunshine straining through the clouds. They tell us spring is coming, when Demeter rises from her grief Fruits and flowers begin their climb to the sun Green creeps up the poles and fences to outleaf. Or do they, vine-things, fall into reborn Dionysius' realm? New seeds, new ground each year transforming Tiny sparks to rich red overwhelm? Author's Note: I guess the nature of this poem owes thanks to my current reading, Edith Hamilton's " Mythology ".