Okay. It’s been three long months since my sister died. June 18. I couldn’t write about Shirley – younger than me by less than two years – until maybe her memorial, which was in late July. I figured I’d have to write something for that event – a private celebration of her amazing life, at one of her favorite restaurants, the Yank Sing in San Francisco. I’d just post whatever I came up with, and entitle it Remembering Shirley.
If only it were that simple. As her memorial began, we got word that our mother in Oakland, too frail, at 89, to attend, was in need of immediate medical care.
Since early August, she’s been in a nursing facility in Oakland, and, along with family members, I’ve been occupied with visits and all the stuff that goes with medical crises and elder care.
At home, meantime, we’re going through remodeling, and I’ve been uprooted from my office. My eeePad tablet is my BFFA (best friend for awhile).
So, through these last terrible months, I plod on, cranking out my Radio Waves column in the SF Chronicle, beginning research on a book about Little Feat, and fulfilling various other commitments, from officiating weddings (one in May; the other just last weekend), and starting work on Oakland High’s Class of ‘62’s 50th reunion. (I was somehow voted permanent class president, thus responsible for reunions, but, rather wisely, I’ve appointed a wonderful committee member as chair.)
So you understand why I’ve been absent—from my own home page, from AsianConnections.com, from facebook (except to post photos from the memorial, and a few short messages), and from Twitter).
But life not only goes on; parts of it call for trying to spread the word about certain projects. That’s how it is when your work involves publishing books. So: I’ve got two books out just about now. First, my memoirs, The Rice Room, originally issued in 1992, now updated, Including two dozen photos and published by the University of California Press. I wrote the new final chapters before Shirley’s quite sudden death (just six weeks after being diagnosed with leukemia). There is irony in my remarks about how our family has suffered relatively few losses.
In October, The Eagles: Taking It to the Limit, is out, so I’ll be visiting classic rock stations, to be sure.
And so I’m out there, again, just like I’ve been for the five or six previous books.
But it’ll never be the same.
