Dear Nicola, I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of you. Keep confident. Josie is lovely but you've already beaten your share of "California girls," including Ashley Greene (who's quite similar in style to Josie,) Brooklyn Decker (the 2010 SI Cover Girl,) and Bar Rafaeli (the 2009 SI Cover Girl). On top of that you even handled one of the most beautiful, respected and beloved of Hollywood starlets in Penelopy Cruz. Clearly, there are no types you don't hold your own against!

Good luck, Nicola. Keep doing what you are doing, people are noticing.

BlueSeats wrote:We should have waited a couple of days before even starting this thing to build some drama. It feels like yesterday all over again.

We needed an Alba Tournament Super Bowl type hype. It would have been great to see the past champions first to build up for the Ultimate Alba Tournament championship.

With Josie, I imagine us on a sailboat off the coast of LA, eating grilled veggie wraps, drinking diet Sprite, talking about recent movies and enjoying hearing her vast (almost endless) celebrity gossip and how her best friend recently got Punked! At night we'd meet her friends in Westwood, have sushi, go to some premier or another followed by a couple of bars with $18 drinks. The next day we'd be in her BMW convertible, go to the LA zoo or Universal Studios, then hit a club at night. We'd plan her NY trip, where we'd stay in a trendy hotel and she'd network like crazy with Disney, MTV, and General Mills (possible endorsement deal for Special-K, but apparently they're leaning towards Miranda Cosgrove to get the kids thinking "healthy"). It'd be a blast, but I'd be exhausted and ready to head back home to after a couple of busy days.

With Nicola, I imagine going to her family's stone house in the country. We'd eat lamb, olives and figs and drink Cabernet. She'd show me her father's architectural renderings, her mother's watercolors and her grandmothers jewelry. We'd drive a Renault, smoke hashish and just miss hitting a goat. I'd want it to rain half the week so we could stay inside, play backgammon and cards, and I'd learn everything about her. I'd read her high school diaries, smell the cologne behind her ear, and massage her feet with eucalyptus oil. We'd pick grapes from the vineyard, scrape and paint the 200 year old door, collect eggs from the hens and make an omelette with goat cheese and thyme. At night we'd build a fire with Cypress logs, drink cognac and draw pictures of each other in charcoal. I'd wish we could just live there forever so the dream would never end.

BlueSeats wrote:No intention to go low here, I don't even find it objectionable (though it's clear she's learned to hide it,) but I'm curious, what is that major scar on Josies abdomen? Would that be from appendicitis?

Roger roger.