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!

I was having problems synching my palm pilot to my desktop, when I decided to check for a new upgrade. Sure enough, Palm had a new desktop software upgrade.

Once I downloaded the new upgrade and installed it, my palm started synching with my desktop again.

It makes me wonder if all around the world the palm software program started having problems all at the same time, and if that's why Palm had to issue an upgrade? Of course this scenario would only make sense if I could tell when the upgrade was released, but the Palm website doesn't give a date for the release.

The last time I upgraded my Palm software was in the fall when I bought a new computer, so the it's only been about 8 months since I've had the latest software download.

I saw "Bruce Almighty" on Friday, only because "2 Fast 2 Furious" was sold out. I'm glad I saw it on the big screen, because Bruce did have some nice special effects.

Jim Carrey is so funny, and the screenplay was so sweet. People in the theatre clapped at the end, which doesn't happen all the time.

"Bruce Almighty" is the kind of story, screenplay I wish I could write. It's sweet, it has a great message, and it was so funny without being schmaltzy.

Jim Carrey is a genius, but I think I sort of agree with a reviewer in the San Francisco Bay Guardian when he wrote, "Carrey has a dark edge". Carrey really skated the edge of something, I don't know what, when he was complaining about his life in this move.

I don't know. I detected maybe a little more bitterness than perhaps what was necessary for the character, maybe a little more ego than what the character should have had. I saw the extra bitterness and ego as more Jim Carrey being himself than being a character.

Carrey took the angry middle aged white male thing very close to the edge of sarcasm, but perhaps his genius is he didn't go over the edge, but just skirted it maybe a little too dangerously.

As a movie viewer, I did buy the ending of the movie, but the edginess of Carrey's portrayal of Bruce still stands out in my mind.

I received my car insurance renewal in the mail, and I called them and told them I wasn't commuting to work anymore. When they recalculated my policy, they told me I saved about $200 on my car insurance bill. YEAH!!!