Still in LA, still counting down the days until EUROPE!
Check out these beautiful photographs by Nan Lawson for sale on her Etsy shop:
I love the bleached, muted color palette that came out with the film. I even like the washed-out pastel colors in the La Tour Eiffel photo. This gives me some ideas for what kind of art I want to do abroad.
Check out Nan’s Etsy shops: Study (photography) and Nan Lawson (illustration).
This is the farthest Spain has come in the World Cup in Spain football history! I’m so proud of these guys.
The team celebrates with Puyol
Spain beat Germany 1 – 0. It wasn’t Villa, it wasn’t Torres, but Carlos Puyol i Saforcada of Catalonia who scored the one goal against Germany! And team captain and keeper, Iker Casillas, as usual, did a fantastic job defending the net.
Congrats!
Sergio giving a high ten to Puyol after scoring a goal
I went out of town yesterday but of course couldn’t leave without seeing Spain beat Paraguay yesterday. And they won!!!
Team celebrates win
Get in there, Xavi!
Thanks to David Villa’s goal and Iker Casillas’ save of Cardozo’s penalty kick and an overall good play by Spain, the team is off to the World Cup semifinals for the first time in Spain football history!
Villa and Fabregas, after Villa's score
All smiles
Casillas saves Cardozo's penalty kick
Check out all the highlights from the game at FIFA.com.
Razor Blonde is in MY LOOKBOOK magazine!!! Betsy’s self photo blogs in her denim styles were fitting for the Australian’s issue about denim trends.
Click on the photo to check out the online magazine and look for Betsy Berger 
.
Congrats, Betsy! Check out her Razor Blonde blog here.
There are some nights I can’t sleep. I’ll be staying up on my laptop just browsing the internet, learning random stuff. One night I learned that Hans Christian Anderson was a bisexual who annoyed Charles Dickens.
I’ve never taken medication for Tourette’s. I don’t know how I’ve been able to deal and hide it from people as much as I do, but I guess there really is power in self will. But I still have bad phases that give me spasms, muscle aches, and insomnia. Last night, I was looking up articles and studies about various diets for people with Tourette’s syndrome. I’ve heard of others with Tourette’s having vegan or vegetarian diets to help lessen their symptoms. Of course, everywhere I read that I shouldn’t be drinking coffee. Sadness. I know it was that one small iced black coffee I had a couple days ago that had me twitching my shoulder like crazy for days. But it was good cold coffee on a beautiful warm day in LA.
As for all the diets I came across, I agreed with what I read on TourettesWithoutDrugs.com. It sounds like the healthy diet that I’ve heard over and over again. After skimming through the site, I think I will make a few changes to my vegetarian diet. I’ve always allowed fish and fish flavors in food, but for a while now I haven’t been buying fish myself or going out for sushi. I think I’ll start adding fish again to my diet, cut out soy, and eat more greens and brown rice. Always up for experimenting if it will help my symptoms!
Speaking of Tourette’s, I never knew until last night that Tim Howard, goalkeeper for the US team that recently played in this year’s 2010 World Cup, has Tourette’s syndrome! Check out this interview with Tim Howard on 60 Minutes:
I love that Howard corrects people by telling them that he doesn’t “suffer” from the syndrome and isn’t “disabled”, really common misconceptions.
Around 2 or 3 in the morning in my search for articles on the diets, I came across a HUGE, mindblowing (to me) self revelation. It’s not easy to explain this, but had I known about CAPD years ago, it would’ve changed many things, including the way I study and work.
I’ll try to be brief. As far as I could remember, I always had some kind of strange hearing problem. But I just thought that I wasn’t a good listener, that my ears were lazy or something because I could hear sounds totally fine. It was just that sometimes I would hear someone talk and I still wouldn’t be able to understand what they said. It really isn’t that bad, but I started noticing it more in the past year, especially when I’m given directions. I noticed it when I worked on Little Fockers (the first big production I worked on) and had to get used to wearing and communicating on a walkie. Sometimes I’d close my other ear with a finger, turn up the volume very high, and I would still not be able to understand what someone wanted me to do.
It baffled me when I’m somewhere where it’s really loud, like a bar with loud music, and people have conversations. When I’m in a loud place, I cannot… understand… one… word… anyone… says. I can hear them, but I would either make them repeat themselves until they give up or I’d just smile, nod, and assume I understood. So I never really enjoy going out to places like clubs.
I also noticed this problem again in the last couple shows I worked on. It’s pretty regular that the director will call an impromptu camera meeting on the floor, where he would give instructions to the operators for the next setup. I’ve tried standing close to him, even putting my hands behind my ears to point them toward his voice, and reading lips. I would never be able to process what he was saying even though I could hear him clearly, so eventually when those camera meetings were called, I’d work on something else or stand to the side and then ask my camera operator what would be going on. Maybe it’s different when it’s one on one. Sometimes I wished that when I was given directions to do something that I could write down what they were saying, as if that would make me understand better. A lot of the times I would just repeat what they said until I got it, and I guess making my brain hear something again makes it clearer for me.
Anyways, so last night I came across information about CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder). It’s not a hearing disorder, but for me, it’s a component of having a speech impediment. I can’t believe, even knowing about stuttering and having stuttered for years, that I never knew about CAPD.
But it makes sense. Even before learning about CAPD, I assumed that my inability to understand people sometimes was somehow related to stuttering. I knew that stuttering was a result of how my brain hears my own voice. Of course, I hear my voice just fine, but there’s a certain disconnect in the brain that causes this impediment. After being left confused a lot of times as to why everyone had good “focused” ears, I figured that because the brain misunderstands my own voice, it must probably do the same for others’ voices.
I guess it’s a really good thing that I didn’t know about CAPD before because then I wouldn’t be making excuses. And always trying harder to “focus” my ears have helped, I think. But it’s a huge relief and comfort to know that there is a name for it and I’m not crazy or dumb. It explains why I don’t like loud noises (not even music loud when I’m by myself), going out to clubs, talking on the telephone (I hated those jobs), and so on and so on. Now I just wonder what it would be like to understand people “normally”, and learning languages better. Just more questions to add to my list.
I’ll stop there. Thought I’d share that in case others in the same situation as me come across this and learn something about themselves they never knew before. Also had to share it somewhere because this is huge for me.
Lenny Kravitz was having a drink on a terrace in New Orleans when he heard his song, Fly Away, being performed. He headed out and saw the Voice of Praise gospel choir and band performing the song in the public! Lenny joined in with some drumming and sings the finale in the end. I love it! So glad that Mathieu Bitton was able to record this video.
Check out his video he posted on Twitter!
David Villa, after scoring the first and winning goal of the Spain vs. Portugal World Cup game
Villa does it again!!! Check out the video highlight of the game on FIFA’s site.
Gerad Pique leaps on top of the group hug surrounding Villa, celebrating just after Villa scored the only goal of the game.
I didn't see Ronaldo bawl in this game, at least not on TV, but I saw that he came very close. Instead, Eduardo (Portugal's keeper) was left devastated in tears on the field.
Spain's keeper, Iker Casillas, consoles Portugal's Eduardo with a hug. Awww.
This doesn’t help the fact that I have always wanted, and still want, to see Spain and don’t quite yet have the means to.
I’m watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, the Spain episode, which for some reason I thought I’ve seen already. There is a lot of exciting stuff in this one! I loved watching all the experiments in Albert Adrià’s lab.
Check out Enric Rovira, an amazing Spanish chocolatier, show Anthony how he makes these amazing well-crafted chocolate eggs.
Spain beat Chile today, 2 – 1, and both countries move on to the next stage.
Check out the first goal made by David Villa! Bet that keeper wishes now that he didn’t stray too far from his post.
Second goal made by Andrew Iniesta. Entire video highlight up on FIFA’s website – check it out!
Congrats, España!
The game sprawled across 3 days and took a total of 11 hours and five minutes!!! Talk about a “match”, having two players so well-paired that it seems never-ending for one to advance the other. Reminds me of the teams in the World Cup….
What a time for sports! Lakers, USA, and now Isner. But it’s not over, yet. Isner faces another match tomorrow against Dutchman Thiemo de Bakker. Good luck, Isner!
