I just found out my grandma is in the hospital. Maybe that's why I've been feeling homesick.

So here's my weird family story, although I understand this situation is becoming more common.

My grandparents practically raised me, because of issues with my mom, my dad and my step-dad. It's all very complicated, but it worked in a way that situations like this have to work.

My grandma is like my second-mom, probably more my mom than my real mom. I'm sure this is the way that divorced kids feel about their step-moms.

Anyway, grandma had heart failure and since she's old (she's 88) and has other health issues, heart surgery is a problem. What they can do is an angioplasty, which will clear the blockages in her veins thereby extending her life for a little while longer.

I have a feeling she's going to be okay, that she'll pull through. She is a strong woman, but I'm praying for her. Of course, I'm in a strange mood now because this all brings back long forgotten but never really quite really forgotten family issues so much of which happened before I was born and in my very early childhood.

I'm not sure how much I want to blog about this issue, because like any family issue it's so very, very complicated.

But if you read this, send healing thoughts to my grandma, my second-mom.

It was fun to be at this one particular gym, which is located about 10-11 blocks from Pac Bell park, watching the baseball game on TV and then hearing everyone cheer when a homerun was hit at the bottom of the 6th. It was almost like being there.

Except we're not. We're at the gym and not at a bar because some of us: 1) don't drink on school night; 2) need to work out constantly because of the gut we have from having spent too many years at the bar watching sport games and drinking beer; 3) are recovering alchies; 4) don't give a hoot about baseball and we're just there to work out or to cruise the gym scene; or 5) Tuesday is our regular gym night.

Of course 20 minutes later as I'm in my car at 10th and Folsom waiting for the light, I realize that I am now 8 blocks from Pac Bell park and need to get the hell home before the game lets out and I get stuck in traffic.

Things I shouldn't tell people because it's like kind of embarrassing, but I do it anyway:

Temptation Island was one of the best TV shows in the last 3 years.

I've seen The Matrix ten times.

I've seen A&E's "Pride and Prejudice" 15 times, and like in Bridget Jones' Diary, can endlessly discuss Mr. D'Arcy and the actor who plays him, Colin Firth. I've seen all his movies.

I can endlessly discuss Keanu Reeves and his movies as well.

I love musicals.

I love sappy hollywood endings.

Most indie flicks are ego driven self indulgent pieces of drivel that tries to pass itself off as "alternative art".

I think I've read all of Danielle Steele's books, and Stephen King's as well.

Political correctness is evil, and a mind control tool which tries to eradicate all that's great about being human and being alive, which is to express exactly how you feel about life. Life is sometimes not that great and people think and do evil things ... what's wrong with expressing that in art.

I went to library last night to write. It was like pulling teeth. I probably should have stayed home and typed the story I finished into my computer, but I wanted to get myself into the habit of writing at a certain time every week.

I was there for 2.5 hours and I did everything but write.

I ended up reading a book called "The Time is Now" by Rabbi Daniel Wouk. It was like a self help book to get off our duff and get on with your life. The last chapter was kind of depressing because it was letters that dying people sent to the Rabbi about how much time they wasted in their life and how they wish they had done certain things. It made the point though, didn't it? Nothing like hearing from the dying about how not to waste your life.

Then as another time waster, I wrote up the intro to a christian based writing class which I might someday want to teach. I'm calling the class "Riffing on the Bible: Adventures in Christian Storytelling".

Here's the class advert to be posted in some church bulletin:

"In jazz, musicians improvised on a melody and created riffs to make great music. Using well known biblical texts of disciple interactions with Jesus as jumping off point, explore the art of storytelling to your stories of your own faith journey in in a non-judgmental environment. While you are required to write, sharing is optional but come with an open mind to see how the Holy Spirit and the bible can inspire your creative writing.

If we are all disciples of Christ, how much can we ourselves in actions of the original twelve disciples in the New Testament.

The class will be riffing on the following new testament texts: (of course, to waste more time, I had to go through the bible to find some relevant texts to riff from)

1. Matthew 4: 18-22, Jesus telling the first discples "Follow me and I will make you a fisher of people".

2. Matthew 14: 25-34, Jesus walking on the sea and saying "Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid."

3. Peter's Denial of Christ three times (Matthew 26, etc)

4. Luke 9: 18-20, Jesus asks the disciples who he is and Peter says "you are the Messiah of God."

5. John 20-21, Doubting Thomas (my biblical favorite!)

6. Acts 9: Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

I wonder if I ever taught the class, if anyone would even be interested in showing up. Writing is such a private experience, and I wonder if writing about faith is just way too private to be talked about in a group.

It doesn't matter anyway because the exercise was just a way to distract myself from writing. I hate teaching classes from what little I've done of it. God did not give the "teaching is a good experience" gene.

I did manage to write up an outline for a new novel called "The Unsettler", but I'll discuss in another post.