So odd. I'm rushing around the city preparing the house to rent while I move to New York. It's going to be so much nicer than it was when I was living here. I drove around yesterday and finally found the stone yard in the shadow of LAX. The Mexican guys there fell in love with my Mustang. Nery, the guy that helped me out was super helpful. He gave me the number to his friend Jose the mason. I was going to have regular gardeners lay the flagstone but when I saw the big slabs it came in I knew I needed a trained pro. Jose promised he'd be here at 9. By eleven I thought he was a flake. Around two I finally reached him on the phone. He told me that the stone yard was closed down because Nery had been killed in a car accident that morning. When I told my handyman he told me that the 405 had been a worse mess than usual this morning on account of an accident.

It's so weird. A friend just died of cancer and that so reminded me of my own problems with my kidneys. Then I saw the new Ozon movie about a dying fashion photographer and I thought how fake it was, how I didn't behave at all like that when I thought that I was going to die. And now Nery. He and his buddy kept asking me how fast my car went. They were street racers and pointed to a yellow Lancer in the parking lot. I don't know if it was Nery's or the other guy's.