God knows I should be working. There’s an incomplete article, one memoir awaiting editing and one book to be written. And here I am. Full of the need to write and so writing diary entries instead. I don’t know why.

I mean, its raining outside and the world is insufferably gray and dull outside and I feel restless. Not in the twitching my foot kind of way but in the way that I can’t breathe. There seems to be something heavy on my chest and I feel all choked up – something is stuck in my craw. I love that expression. It’s so 10th century crude. I love phrases like that.

There’s Fareed Zakaria’s book waiting to be read. And the Prairie Home Companion. And there’re a couple of episodes of House left on the last CD I have of the show and if I need to go out then I can always take the train up to Queens and get me some Indian groceries. But I don’t want to do any of that. I want to write.

I was discussing this odd reluctance with one of my advisors in college once. On the one hand, there is nothing more pleasurable for me than writing. It’s the best feeling in the world bar none. And on the other hand, I need to force myself into doing it. If I can possibly prevaricate I will somehow find a way of accomplishing that. I will watch a movie, call someone, endlessly surf or even go out and walk about. Its pretty obvious that I’m procrastinating when I choose exercise over something else. But that’s the way it is.

And I don’t know why.

So today I want to get working on the book. It’ll take me a little while to get into the swing of it and I will be tired, bone tired, by the time I wrestle it into some sort of shape but here I am. Writing this instead.

Maybe this is my unconscious way of tricking myself into writing. Maybe if I write unnecessary stuff all the time then I will end up writing what I really want to. At one point I used to think that maybe you can learn how to get over this kind of stuff. You could learn tips from other writers on how to write. And I found out that that is not true. You have to find your own way in writing…

Just like in life.