I'm still having a hard time writing in front of my computer. I haven't done it in so long, that it feels strange.

I watched the 60 Minutes interview with JK Rowling, and it looked like she still writes her first draft by hand. I'm getting desperate so I think I'll go back to writing by hand. Maybe if I get used to sitting at my computer and typing things up, I'll be able to one day sit down and just start typing, which I how I used to prefer to write.

Most writing books have at least one chapter devoted to ways to trick yourself into writing, so it must be a common writer's problem. One book said that every writer has "inner writing child" and that you have to pamper it, cajole it, so it wants to write.

I'm like, I wish I could slap it and get it to work.

I mean, I know what kind of child I was. I was spoiled, moody, willful, stubborn and completely resistant to authority. I'm still that way, sort of, although I've learnt over the years to control myself so I can get things done and get along with people. This is what happens when you grow up basically as an only child of older parents, who are too old and tired to discipline you.

I think I was raised like any hippie child, except my parents weren't hippies, they were just too old and tired.

My friend Mellie Mel says I have an "inner hippie", which is just so gross, disgusting and embarrassing but probably totally true. Mel says it's because she and I grew up on the west coast (Hawaii and California and I think Oregon as well), and you can't help but be a hippie chick because it's all around you and it's in the culture.

You develop and "inner hippie, even though she and I totally detest the smell of patchouli. I know I could out hippie anyone at Rainbow Grocery in a serious second, even though I don't look like someone who would ever shop there, and I've been shopping there since I first moved to San Francisco

For example, I used to really be into eating clover sprouts and used them on everything from pizza, spaghetti and enchiladas. Worst yet, I actually thought clover sprouts added texture and taste to all my dishes.

I spent years eating basmati brown rice cooked in a pressure cooker, with steamed organic veggies and sprinkled with soy cheese. I've been an off and on vegetarian since I was 19 years old, and I've been cleansing my body of toxins since I was 22 years old.

I learned to meditate when I was 13 years old, and started doing yoga when I was 15, way before it was trendy to do and hardly anyone was teaching it. Now yoga studios are sprouting up all over like bad mushrooms after a rainstorm.

I participated in my first anti-government protest rally when I was 16 years old, and then spent my whole internship in Washington DC going to a different anti-government rally every weekend. Singing "We Shall Overcome" still brings tears to my eyes.

Plus the most hippie chick thing of all, whenever I start dating someone new or even just meet a guy who I potentially want to date, I immediately check to see if our horoscopes are compatible. I don't even think about it, it's so automatic, like of course you have to check if your stars are compatible and you have to read all about their sign so you know what you're dealing with.

And yes, I do keep a running tab in my head on what signs I've dated and which ones I haven't, which ones I'd love to date, and which signs are most compatible and the worst for me.

My "inner hippie", how gross is that. I'm an "inner hippie-ess". That's like telling me I drive a polluting gas guzzling SUV! It's so bad and evil!