Here's a thing you know:

Saddam Hussein was executed today.

Here's a thing you might not know:

Saddam's half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim, was executed as well.

I have no pity for Saddam. But the brother?

As if being named Barzan isn't bad enough ("I Barzan, you Jane" jokes get really old, really fast,) the poor guy had to live in the shadow of his dictator half-brother. I imagine that family dinner in the Hussein household (I picture Spaghetti-O's) included a lot of, "Well, your brother invaded a country and killed hundreds of innocent civilians today. What did you do?"

There's nothing worse than being an also-hanged.

My favorite newspaper headline today:

IS STOMACH STAPLING THE ANSWER?

Well that, my friends, all depends on the question.

If, for example, the question is:

"What does the high-school intern at the doctor's office do right after kidney faxing and pancreas photocopying?"

Well then, yes. Stomach stapling is probably the answer.

Otherwise, I'd have to go with no.

I was thinking today about people who drive SUVs.

"Why," I thought, "In the age of oil shortages and sky-high gas prices, would anyone want to drive a vehicle that uses SO much gas? Don't they realize that we are running out of oil?"

It's been a real dilemma for me, but you'll be glad to know that I've had a breakthrough.

Here's how I worked it out in my head:

What if someone told me that, because of a cookie-ingredient-shortage, there were only twenty cookies left in the world and after that, there would be no more cookies forever?

Sure, part of me would want to conserve cookies. Make them last longer.

But, I think, an even bigger part of me would probably just want to eat all twenty cookies as quickly as possible before anyone else got to them.

You see?

Last night I ran into a comedian friend of mine who I hadn't run into in about three years.

"Ah," you think, "A splendid, if possibly tearful, reunion."

Here's how it went:

ME: Hey!! Wow, I haven't seen you in so long.

HIM: You're wearing tight jeans. Could you turn around so I can look at your ass?

It was a little emotional for both of us, I think.

Friends, yesterday I solicited your advice. What should I write about, said I, to break this writing-stuckness?

As I knew you would, you guys came through like champions. Scads of brilliant ideas. Splendidly brilliant ideas, really. Brilliantly brilliant ideas.

And, as you knew *I* would, I've opted to ignore all of your ideas and write about something entirely different.

Sorry.

But you never really expected better of me, did you?

Here 'tis:

MY AUDITION TO PLAY A DONUT-HEAD
subtitle: That's right. A donut-head.

The ad said, "Experienced stand-up comedians needed for paid work."

Me, in a nutshell: Experienced? Yes. Standing up? Double yes. Paid? Please.

So I went.

Upon arrival at said audition, I was offered free donuts. This should have been an excellent hint. A precursor, shall we say, of things to come. I, however, missed the clear signals being sent in glazed and Bavarian-cream form.

"An amenity," I thought.

"How splendid. Who doesn't love donuts? No one doesn't love donuts. Or, if you're anti-double-negative: everyone loves donuts. Like Raymond. Everybody loves Raymond and donuts. Free donuts should be part of every audition process. Especially if one is auditioning to be a fashion model, because at least then one will have something to vomit up in the bathroom post-audition. Is it possible that I'm losing the subject here?"

Those were my thoughts in carefully crystallized form.

My thoughts were not: "I bet they are giving me donuts because I am auditioning to PLAY a donut." I did not think that even once. You can already tell this is going to be another rats-foiled-again kind of story, can't you?

You see, after the free-donuts-of-joy, the casting director brought me into a room and said this: "You are auditioning to play a donut-head. Your job as a donut-head would require you to tour around the country wearing a donut on your head and telling jokes."

At first I was a bit horrified. Really? They've called me in here today to audition to be some sort of misguided donut mascot? I found the concept somewhat humiliating and I nearly left.

But then I had this thought:

"Wait. You mean my entire responsbility every day would be the following:

1) Put a donut on my head.
2) Tell jokes.

That's it? Donuts. Jokes. Giggles. More donuts.

Whee!

This could be the best job EVER."

This is what separates us from the apes, my friends. Our ability to play donuts.

It gets better, though. Once I got through this first bombshell, the NEXT thing to come out of the casting director's mouth was this: "Ok. So Jill, I want you to get up in front of the camera and do five minutes of stand-up comedy about donuts. Ready? Go."

Errrr....what?

Apparently this was the part of the audition where I was supposed to filter through the file in my head where I clearly had five minutes of jokes about EVERY SINGLE SUBJECT IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

"Donuts? You want five minutes of donuts' material? No problem. I mean, I'll have to cut it from my 20 minutes on fried breakfast foods. Luckily I've got tons of stuff from that Scone-Heads audition I've been preparing for."

I emerged victorious, though. I shall never again be able to recollect what I said, but I *did* do five minutes of stand-up comedy material on donuts. Fairly good material, really. And there was laughter. I was my own personal hero that day. I was going to BE a donut-head.

I got a call about a week later.

The project had been scrapped. Apparently some marketing guy decided that Donut-Heads were a terrible idea and thusly the company gave up its campaign.

Whatever. They passed over the best potential-donut-head ever. But I won't let it get to me.

I'll just save all my material for that audition for Scone-Heads.

I need to write THINGS.

I feel sure that if I could just write one THING, then another three-hundred THINGS would write themselves.

Yet I can't write that one THING.

You see?

I'm stuck.

Errrr.....can I ask a favor? Could you guys give me an assignment? A topic? A *THING* about which I must write? That should get me started, I think. And then I shall be stuck-free. Un-stuck. Stuckless.

Questions, assignments, etc. shall go in the comments box, I think. And I promise to write a THING about at least one of them tomorrow. Thusly.

Deal?

The bad news is that, after reading a magazine article, I've discovered that I'm likely having a quarter-life crisis.

The good news is that means I'm going to live to be well over one-hundred.

Yay.