I was on my way to upstate New York, specifically Hyde Park to visit some of my friends at the Culinary Institue of America (CIA) a few weeks ago. I picked up an issue of The Advocate so that I can catch up on some gay news during the two-hour ride. I came across this article. Wow, my eyes were glued to the magazine as I read up on this amazing person.
Daniel Paul Tammet, a 28 year old autistic savant from the UK, gifted with a facility for mathematic problems, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy.
An autistic savant is a person with both autism and Savant Syndrome. Savant Syndrome describes a person having both a severe developmental or mental handicap and extraordinary mental abilities not found in most people. The Savant Syndrome skills involve striking feats of memory and often include arithmetic calculation and sometimes unusual abilities in art or music.
He can speak languages including English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Icelandic, Welsh and Esperanto. Tammet is capable of learning new languages very quickly. To prove this for a Channel Five documentary, Tammet was challenged to learn Icelandic in one week, a language with a popular reputation as one of the world's most difficult languages to learn. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic television conversing in Icelandic, with his Icelandic language instructor saying it was "not human."
And yes, he is gay. Daniel and his domestic partner, software engineer Neil Mitchell, have been together for six years. He has been teaching researchers worldwide about the complexities of the brain, but he also has a thing or two to teach us about love.
Here are some excerpts from his interview from the June 2007 issue of The Advocate:
You sound like an old fashioned romantic.
"When you love someone anything is possible, including a relationship that stands the test of time. LOVE IS GIVING YOURSELF AWAY. And you can only do that once. Otherwise you're giving away fragments of yourself."
Love is considered hard work?
"People find it very easy to fall in love, but they find it much more difficult to actually live it out. They think, It's difficult, so it mustn't be right. They'll go on to another relationship, and they'll have the easy bit again, the unconscious bit, and then they'll move on."
Relationships require heroism?
"you're opening yourself up completely to another person, and you can't know who this human being is, other than what they choose to reveal to you. Entering a relationship is very much an act of faith."
*sigh*
I've always known Alex has a good look! He was actually the very first model that I did a photoshoot with. Since it was my first shoot, we shot hundreds of photos so that I can at least get a decent number of good ones I can use on my portfolio. Here are some of the samples of our shoot.
"After all...I am just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."
"...it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were suppose to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home... only to no home I'd ever known... I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like... magic..."
"There are some people who meet that somebody that they can never stop loving, no matter how hard they try. I wouldn't expect you to understand that, or even believe it, but trust me, there are some loves that don't go away. And maybe that makes them crazy, but we should all be lucky enough to end up with somebody who has a little of that insanity. Someone who never lets go. Someone who cherishes you forever." 
I was on my way to upstate New York, specifically Hyde Park to visit some of my friends at the Culinary Institue of America (CIA) a few weeks ago. I picked up an issue of The Advocate so that I can catch up on some gay news during the two-hour ride. I came across this article. Wow, my eyes were glued to the magazine as I read up on this amazing person.
New York Fashion designer Liz Claiborne, whose styles became a cornerstone of career women's wardrobes in the 1970s and 1980s, has died Wednesday, June 27. She was 78.
I think we reached 100 degrees here in New York yesterday. And one of the more embarrassing results of a hot and humid summer day is underarm wetness. It's a yucky feeling and moreso its such an eyesore for your shirt to be wet in the armpits. 
Kiehl's Foaming Non-Detergent Washable Cleanser
Clinique Skin Supplies for Men - Scruffing Lotion
Clinique Skin Supplies for Men - M Protect SPF 21
Indeed! 
I would be back in the closet if it was Victoria Beckham's closet! She designed a $500,000 closet for her new L.A. home, reports In Touch Weekly.
