The List

When I was in college, longer back than I now care to admit, my friends and I played Asshole. Frequently. We'd go to our favorite bar (Chuck's, or Hungry Charley's to those who weren't cool enough to call it their favorite bar), line up the tables, and be occupied for the night. This was always a tricky business, because you would play for such a long time, sitting there, concentrating on the cards, that you often didn't realize how drunk you were getting. And so there would be about 20 of us, in various degrees of intoxication, yelling at each other, chugging beers, and generally ignoring anyone who wasn't in the game.

I still play Asshole. And since college, the game has evolved. Rules have been added and defined, and anyone who is unlucky/unwise enough to play with us has been forced to comply. We've exchanged shitty Utica Club beer for Ketel One. Rather than playing in a dive basement bar, we're gathered around someone's kitchen table. The game is still mind-numbingly simple, but we convince ourselves that there is strategy and skill involved. There's less compulsory drinking, which is good, because at age 32, my hangover recovery time is a lot longer than it used to be.

On Saturday night, LS, DS, DM and I played Asshole for about 4 hours. And we got a little bored (but not bored enough to stop playing) so we made a new rule; the person who led the round would need to make a Declaration. The nature of the Declaration was determined by the president at the start of each game. For a few rounds the theme was favorites: movie quotes, song lyrics, foods, childhood memories. There was a truly depressing game where we had to share our most embarrassing memory (mine: determining that I had unwittingly walked around for a good part of the day with a maxi pad stuck to my back after our first "Welcome to Womanhood" health class in grade school. Thank you, class bully).

On the next round, DM prevailed, and it was her turn to make the rule. She thought about it, smirked, and said "The leader needs to pick husbands for ridiculouschick and I."

[Ok, let me explain. I have always gone through life, regardless of my dating status, with a List of Future Husbands. Some men have been permanent fixtures on The List, others have made brief guest appearances, only to be removed when reason prevailed or when something was done to offend my picky sensibilities. The only common trait between the *ahem* lucky contenders for my hand is that I don't know any of them.]

We all laughed, and then got down to the seriousness of this task. And so, I present my revised List (at least for this week).

Bradley Cooper, Chris Cornell*, Donovan McNabb*, Rivers Cuomo*, Topher Grace, Tre Cool, 1962 Sean Connery, David Sedaris, Lawrence Moten, Josh Lucas, Adam Pascal*, Michael Imperioli, Paul Rudd, Mike Messina, Michael C. Hall, Nick Stahl, the bassist from the Dave Matthews Band, Andre 3000, Roy Jones Jr., Seth Green, Zach Braff, Jay Z, Jason Lewis, Kal Penn, John Mayer, Hal Sparks.

(Rick James was briefly considered, only so I could yell out 'I'm Rick James' wife, bitch!' at will. But, ultimately rejected, because I'm not sure I'm enchanted by the idea of being anyone's superfreak. And yes, I know that David Sedaris is not really playing on my team.)

There were more people named during the game, but some of them just made the Men I'd Fuck List - it's important to know the difference between the two. And rather than this being a sad little exercise, I think it's an important part of being able to define the characteristics that I will require in an eventual mate. Characteristics like being able to perform an awesome dunk or be cuttingly sarcastic. Or, you know, just devastatingly hot.

*Permanent list dwellers