If you're reading this, perhaps you, too, are procrastinating

With the pace of my interviews slowing, I really need to be committing my thoughts to writing. So my goal for the coming week is to lay the story of each of my four areas of study out in words. But, as always when I am faced with writing, it is excruciatingly difficult to start doing it. It just requires so much concentration. You have to think really carefully about the sentence you are turning out while holding back the paralyzing sense of overload that will set in if you let yourself consider about how many caveats and layers and asides are going to need to be written and tied into this section in order to finally make your argument. Of course, as I write this from the air-conditioned comfort of Barista coffee shop, I can see a group of men squatting in the sun, using small hammers to split bricks into smaller pieces of rubble, and then tossing these aside so they can be mixed with cement in order to resurface some of the road outside. So I’m aware of how small these complaints are. And, yet, threatening myself with a life of brick-splitting is totally ineffective as a means to ending procrastination and inducing a start to writing my case studies. I mean, seriously, how could I be a brick splitter? I can’t even do a pull-up.

So I thought I would share some of what I’ve been doing to put off writing. I don’t flatter myself that this is that interesting, but it is all I have been doing lately. You’ll notice, first, how much I owe to the internet and, second, how field work is allowing me to spend more quality time thinking about American pop culture. I still don’t know the Hindi past tense but, by God, I know what’s new this year on FOX. You wouldn’t think somebody could become more provincial by moving to India, but the thought of a tired sit-com trying to pass Kelsey Grammer off as a ladies' man... well, it just feels like home.

Checking on Intra-India Airfares.
Time successfully diverted from writing case studies: 15 minutes.
Tangible benefits: Some. I am planning to leave for Meghalaya—one of my little areas that wanted to be a state—next week, and I do need to take a plane there. But I was ultimately too confused by the website to buy a ticket, so the benefits cannot be called high. Does anyone know what a “check” fare is? It is an economy class seat, but I am wary of ordering it in case it means something like “once you get to the airport, we’ll check if we have a seat available.”

Re-doing my website, www.stanford.edu/~blacina.
Time diverted: 10 hours.
Tangible benefits: Highly questionable. I was foiled in my idea for using my pictures as more creative design elements, and proved too lazy to try to add a discussion of my dissertation to the site, and thus it was not much improved. Also, this was a complete non-priority, as I don’t use my professional website in any professional way, except for when I can’t find my CV on my hard drive and so I download it instead.

Figuring out commute times between Stanford and San Francisco on public transportation.
Time diverted: 45 minutes.
Tangible benefits: None. I have done this at least half-a-dozen times now. Yet it is like I keep compulsively looking for some wormhole that will allow me to both live in San Francisco and make it to Stanford without sacrificing two to three hours per day. When I get bored of looking for places where the Caltrain takes advantage of rips in the space-time continuum, I sometimes switch to looking for a smart phone or ultra-portable laptop that would allow me to use my commute time to great effect. These can be pricey, though, so perhaps I will look into whether the North Koreans are selling any warp cores.

Listening to the Books on CD that I copied from the Menlo Park public library before I left.
Time diverted: Many, many hours.
Tangible benefits: High enough to ward off guilt. My current book-on-CD is on listening to and understanding opera, which I think will be good for me because I enjoy operas but my mind often wanders during them. Example: last year, my sister Merideth and I took this special trip to go see the LA Opera and I fell asleep during Tannhauser. But, in my defence, that was by Wagner, so whole civilizations had risen and crumbled back into dust in the time it took for the opera to finish.

Searching internet to determine what kind of bird the Road Runner, nemesis of Wile E. Coyote, is supposed to represent.
Time diverted: 5 minutes.
Tangible benefits: Nil. The answer, to save you the trouble, is that there is actually a bird called a "roadrunner" (Geococcyx californianus and, also, it's smaller cousin the Geococcyx volex) and it really does live in deserts. And can run at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour or more!

Reading all available blog commentary on latest episode of Top Chef: Season 3, which determined the finalists who will travel to Aspen thanks to the Glad family of products.
Time diverted: 3 hours.
Tangible benefits: Low. I know no other Top Chef fans here to spend time debating the show with. And I suspect my heart will be crushed by the eventual loss of chef-testant Casey and a resultant third-straight male Top Chef. On the other hand, I learned what sous vide means. If I ever cook something sous vide, then I can upgrade these “Tangible Benefits” to medium.

Eating Doritos, which are miraculously every bit as delicious in their Indian guise as they are when made in the United States.
Time diverted: None, really. I surfed the internet while eating them, so there was no additional loss of time due to the Doritos, except maybe the moments it took to open the bag.
Tangible benefits: Negative. My arteries were making small, unheeded cries of distress with every chip, and my fingers turned to that characteristic orange.

Looking through the Neiman Marcus website for a suit that I can buy, bring back to Delhi, and have an Indian tailor copy in several other colors and weights of fabric, turning me into a well-dressed professional for decades to come.
Time diverted: 4 hours.
Tangible benefits: Possible, if I actually go through with the suit-making plan and I am happy with the results and I get a job outside of Californiawhere suit-wearing will be required. Also, the website allows you to browse by fashion designer in a pretty efficient way and that was kind of fun. And it increased my enthusiasm for the upcoming season of Project Runway.

Cleaning Albert.
Time diverted: 10 minutes.
Tangible benefits: High for me. I think his fur looks much whiter now. Very low for him—I don’t think he enjoyed the vigorous toweling off that is so important after you moisten a stuffed animal, so that you don’t want to ruin the nice, plush feel of the fur.

Signing up for Stanford Commute Club.
Time diverted: 10 minutes.
Tangible benefits: ~$250! However, I am wondering if it is unethical to claim the benefits this year. I checked most of the boxes without compulsion (Registered student? Yes. Will not have a parking permit? Yes.), but wasn’t sure about the “will commute to Stanford” box. How often do I have to commute to make it okay to take the university’s money? I mean, I’ll be on campus a couple of times this year. Then again, if people don’t sign up for the program, the University might cancel it, thinking that the incentive to not drive to campus isn’t working. And that would be bad. So I’m really just doing my part, right?

It is only with a serious investment in procrastination that one can come up with thin rationalizations like that.