I am really just stunned that Natacha Richardson just  died. Obviously, since I didn't know her, I had no idea her injury on the ski slope was so serious. One minute, the press reported her saying, "It was nothing; I hit my head" and then the next minute, she was dead. This morning, my girlfriend in Paris sent me a note on facebook just to say a little farewell because she was off to somewhere in Europe to go skiing. I had just read another little blurb about Natacha Richardson, and I thought, Oh Jesus, don't go skiing! Are you out of your mind?

You really just never know.

All last week, aside from this insane book deadline (yes, I missed my deadline, but I am hoping to have the novel done by next week), I had a horrible ordeal going on in my own life, but God blessed us with a happier outcome (so far). My bestfreind on the planet, my cosmic twin in Los Angeles, was very suddenly diagnosed with a really horrible heart malfunction and they didn't give him long to live. It was one of those things where had he not had some tests done last Monday, he wouldn't have ever known and within a few weeks, would have just suddenly been dead.

After he was diagnosed, of course he was in shock -- we were all in shock and in denial. And he said, 'You know, they're saying I should get surgery right away. But I have to go to New York this weekend, and then you're flying here, and then I have to go to Paris." And he couldn't think about it anymore, so he said he was  going to the gym to take a spinning class. I was, like -- you're going to do what??? But I told him, "Okay, then, um, if that's what you want to do..." But afterward, I was suppressing constant mild hysteria that every step he took was going to be his last. That went on for several days last week until on Thursday, they airlifted him to a hospital quite suddenly and gave him open heart surgery.

And so far, he has survived. I still feel like we are walking on eggs, though. If he dies, I'm not sure how I will survive not having him on the planet anymore; I barely survived losing Paul. And when I got online just now and saw the headline that Natacha Richardson had actually died, just like that, it was stunning; my heart broke. It drove home once again how inexplicable life is. What is life? It is so fleeting and temporary and yet seems so wildly permanent while it is going on.