Thanksgiving 2012 in California

I got to spend 6 wonderful days with Jules and honestly the trip couldn't have gone better if we tried.

TUESDAY
I flew from JFK to LAX and arrived in Los Angeles at 3:50PM and Jules was a little late to the airport because my flight was supposed to come in at 4:00PM but it came in early so he drove up to the pick-up zone in front of SouthWest Airlines and he jumped out of the car and gave me the biggest hug ever, he even lifted me off the ground! Haha, it was fun. Once I got my bags in the car we headed back to the house he was staying in and the rest of The Strokes had vacated the area to go be with their families. So it was just Jules and me for the whole trip in this huge house with a pool and everything! Tuesday was a very cozy and comfy day because we haven't seen each other in over 6 weeks so it was cuddle-central at Jules' house. We went in the Jacuzzi for a bit and then ate a feast of a meal for dinner. I was on east coast time so I was very very tired at around 10PM which was around when we went to bed after watching a little bit of Cake Boss on the computer.
WEDNESDAY
Wednesday started out with a haircut at 11:30AM and then Jules and I went to go see Cloud Atlas right afterwards (really interesting movie, Tom Hanks woo!) and then we started preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner the next day which would be Jules, John (Jules' Dad) Casablancas, his model wife Aline, and their kids Fernando, John Jr., Victoria, and Catherine. From the start Julian and I assumed it would be an absolute nightmare, and John had just vowed to sobriety so it was a non-alcoholic Thanksgiving. This dinner was destined for horrible things. So on Wednesday I set the dinning room table, peeled potatoes and put the 20lb turkey in brine while Jules went out and bought all little things that I could make for tomorrow. Then together we made lots of desserts like magic bars and German chocolate cake and frosted cupcakes and chocolate chips cookies....etc. Then we went to Diddy Reise (this famous cookie store in Westwood [by UCLA]) and ate lots of cookies and then watched The Emperor's New Groove and went to sleep in each others arms on the couch.
THURSDAY
Thanksgiving day! I woke up at around 9AM and started opening cans of yams for the candied yams and cranberry sauce for the...well...cranberry sauce, then I put the turkey together and did some decorations on this huge mansion and the guests arrived at 3:30PM and the football games were on and surprisingly...things went well. No stupid comments were made and everyone enjoyed themselves and at 9PM everyone was heading out with plenty of leftovers and good thoughts (or so I hoped they had). I was very pleasantly surprised and I think Julian was as well. I mean the relationship between Jules and John isn't very good considering Julian is relatively close to his mother and was raised by her almost entirely. I can see why Thanksgiving could have been a nightmare but thankfully (haha thankfully) it was wonderful.
FRIDAY
Friday Jules and I woke up at 6AM and went to downtown Los Angeles and got some IHOP and just sat in front of a Walmart and watched chaos ensue. It was pretty funny just watching people just jump all over each other for such material things. There was a big old black lady who was ramming her shopping cart into people as she barged into Walmart yelling "MOMMA'S GOT A BIG LIST THIS YEAR MOVE THE HELL OVA!". It was the most stereotypical thing I had seen in a long time. Then on the way home we got some In-n-Out and spent the entire just being lazy. Definitely watched 2 hours of Nickelodeon while eating Pringles and Nutella. Then we walked his neighborhood for a bit and stopped in at the local market to get some water and cookie dough, which we then ate the whole thing uncooked while watching Cake Boss. It's safe to say it was an eventful day.
SATURDAY
Saturday was probably one of my favorite days of all of my vacation. It started at 11AM when Jules and I went to Palos Verdes to get some nice breakfast with a beautiful view and got some Starbucks as well. Then afterwards we went back to the house to get some sunscreen and water shoes because we decided to go to San Pedro and go hang out around the tide pools! Oh it was so much fun, we saw lots of crabs and snails and sea urchins and what not. And we had it all to ourselves, no one was there! We put a towel down and watched the ocean for a bit and we took lots of pictures and...ah, it was wonderfully blissful. I think I got a little bit of a tan! Afterwards we got some food at Jules' house and then hung out for a bit and then went to the Santa Monica pier to go to the arcade and to get some dinner. Walking on that promenade was such a blast we saw all those street performers and twinkling lights. Wonderful. Got a nice picture in front of the big Christmas tree where the main focus of the mall is located. Then Jules had his first PF Changs dinner, ever! He loved it. Then we went home and fell asleep on his couch cuddling one another.
SUNDAY
Sadly this was my last day in California and it had to end so early because the only flight I could get back was one that left at 8:30AM which meant I had to be at the airport at 6:30AM. So Jules dropped me off at the airport and we had another teary goodbye but I'll be seeing him in 16 days so I'm not too distraught. I love me my Julian and I can't wait to have those butterflies rush into my system again when I get to see him next. And in NYC! Maybe The Strokes will play for an SNL Christmas episode! Maybe maybe.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT

by Christina Essenelle

Oh how I've come to love Joe. It's so funny when people don't understand who I'm talking about when I say Joe since most people call him by his professional name, but I just call him Joe Gordon. I honestly do not remember when I met Joe. I know he was at my birthday party and I feel like he might have been at the SNL Christmas Party of 2010 but I'm not 100% sure. All I know is that ever since he's started living with me   (August 2012) that I've been a less where-the-fuck-is-my-boyfriend kind of girl. Joe is such a kind hearted person, all he does he does for others and he has such a sense of humor. He's one of those people that you meet every once in a while and it's just clockwork when you do meet. I felt like I've known him my whole life when I met him, I talk to him about everything. The one thing I love about Joe that I don't find in most guys is that he IS NOT IN LOVE WITH ME. That's the great thing about Joe, he doesn't want to date me and not to toot my own horn but that is not something that is easily found. Maybe it's because I met Joe when he was getting over Zooey but Joe and I are the best of friends, we have a brother-sister kind of relationship where whenever we're at parties I send girls his way and he pushes guys far away from me. It's a perfect relationship. I have to attribute Joe to my first real movie gig. Chris Nolan said that when he was auditioning people he knew had to be the lead so it was mainly up to whoever had the best chemistry, and Joe and I had it. I feel like we have a similar relationship to Emma Watson and Rupert Grint because they have to kiss on screen but it's weird for them because they're such good friends. You know I've tried to have good guy friends and it's just ended up not working out. Fab is a good example of that. 

One thing that I must point out is that Joe is so weird. Joe is by far the weirdest person I've ever met in my entire life, weirder than me! And that's a feat! You can catch Joe and I making weird noises to each other as if it were a form of communication, I remember my hair and make-up lady telling me that she thought that Joe and I were related because we have a similar weird style of humor. He's hilarious and always goes for the long drawn out joke as opposed to the regular one-liner. He needs to be on SNL more often, I'm always telling him that if his movie career doesn't work out I could ask Lorne to make him a featured player. And he always says that if he went to that then that meant that his career was over. CLEVER JOE CLEVER.

I'm so happy that Joe and I are the best of friends because he's been there for me 100% of the time, he's my drinking buddy, my body guard, my confidante, and the guy who will call me out on my bullshit. He's also totally okay with lazy days in our pajamas watching reality TV eating soup and laying upside on my couch. You know what's one thing Joe doesn't do enough? DO HIS MAGIC MIKE DANCE. I try to make him do it in public but he won't because he doesn't want the attention (but secretly he does). Anyways, Joe, you are such a big part of my life and you'll always be the godfather to my unborn children. 

Ladies he's single!  

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving is here and you know what the means...JULIAN AND I WILL BE REUNITED AT LAAAASSSTTT! I'm going to California to go see him and we will have dinner at the house he and the rest of The Strokes have been staying in. It's in Los Angeles but I'm not sure where region of LA. I'm so excited to see Jules again, sure I'm gonna miss Joe and Nasim and the rest of my SNL buddies but I've been craving to see Jules. I mean, 6 weeks apart! That's crazy! Ah! However Julian promised that this break was the longest that we'll ever have to be apart and no more long periods of us not being together anymore (:

I go back to NYC on Sunday morning and then Julian will be living back in NYC for 3 weeks starting in the middle of December and then we switch off every month from there and then in May when SNL ends Julian will be back in NYC for the rest of the summer. Hopefully the album will also be done by then! I'd like to really thank my fans and the fans of SNL and the Strokes for keeping this blog alive since I barely am. My assistant appreciates the emails, they're hilarious. He showed me a few of the ones with video links...you guys send us the craziest shit.

Jules Jules Jules. I'm having so much fun filming this movie and making memories but I wish Jules were here along for the ride. Parties have definitely been a lot crazier without Jules here. I mean...parties have been crazy. Don't get me wrong I love going to a party with Jules but I'm usually on his arm and having a conversation but now...I feel like I'm in Animal House. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing, you know? I'm young and I should be in a college atmosphere right now but I grew up a little too fast. Maybe I can be in a movie where I'm a college student. That would be cool, alright movie directors make it happen!

But seriously the parties have been crazy. I went to one on Wednesday last week (don't judge me I party hard on Wednesday) and man...that was a good party. Joe hangs out with a lot of people my age that he's known for a while and we went over to one of their homes a little outside the city and just went nuts. We played this game called Wizard Staff where you drink beer and after you finish one can you tape it to your next beer and you end up with this big staff! And after 4 beers you have to take a shot of some hard liquor and that's your "boss" level. So, I had a lovely 7 beer can wizard staff but Joe took the cake with 11. (Truth be told I'm listening to a live performance by The Strokes of Razorblade...why can't it be tomorrow yet??) Then we got lots of food and Joe and I crashed at around 5:30am after talking about everything in the universe and having a glow-stick fight. Shit gets REAL in New York City.

I was watching Cake Boss the other day and Buddy had to deliver a cake to some socialite who lived in Manhattan and was having a party at Alice's Tea Cup (love that place, went there for the 1st time this summer) and Buddy was saying how there's some people who live in Manhattan and that there's nothing else besides Manhattan and how New Jersey was cool too. WELL BUDDY, I agree that some bitches in Manhattan are snooty but let's be real: New Jersey is a pretty horrible place to live. Doesn't mean that you're cake shop isn't the coolest thing in the world (because it is and I love your show) but let's be real here...New York is 100X better than New Jersey.

Peace and Love,
Tyra

P.S. If Tyra Banks is reading this I want a signed photograph of you when you were 23 for my 23rd birthday.

Yikes!

Had a bit of a scare at that fundraiser! Honestly I don't really want to talk about it, I already had a press conference over the uninvited visitor so I wouldn't press on much further on this discussion. I'm fine, and Joe is not in trouble, do not worry public! If I were actually worried I wouldn't be doing SNL this Saturday...BUT I AM! Louis C.K. has been so much fun to work with, he's a weird guy but really funny. And just in case Jimmy Carr is reading this you can add another celebrity to the list cause I'm making on some Louis in this episode. I'm not in too many scenes this week, just 2 actually but they're really good and the show should be great, minus that one scene which Louis apparently demanded we do it, for the sake of knowing it would be awful but he wanted to do it anyways. Ha, okay, sure, why not. I'm not in it so I don't really care.

Filming has been going well, Joe hasn't been filmed for the past 2 weeks but I have. I have a lot of little things to do for the movie like photo shoots and training and action sequences. It's crazy. I got to work with Gary Oldman today! It was very exciting, I got to show off my recently-acquired gymnastics skills and got to be sassy to Gary as well. Great day, good filming. He's such a good actor it's unreal. He only slipped up once and that's cause he called me Christina instead of my character's name. Hilarious.

Fundraiser

NBC is throwing a Red Cross Fundraiser tonight in 30 Rock's Ballroom. I'm very excited since it's been all doom and gloom in NYC since Hurricane Sandy. Finally have power back! Woo woo! And Louis C.K. is hosting SNL on Friday. Should be a very funny show however some of the skits (one is particular) I just do not like what so ever. Ah well, I'm not a writer. However I do have a one-on-one scene with Louis that I'm very excited for. That'll be filmed tomorrow. But tonight is the fundraiser and Joe and I will be looking quite spiffy in our fancy-people wear.

Even if you're not invited you should still donate to those affected by the hurricane, much love!

Schedule

Remember when I used to have time to do things?

Monday
9:00-10:00-Skype Julian
10:00-11:30-Hair & Make-Up
11:30-12:20-Training
12:20-1:30-SNL Filming
1:30-2:20-Movie Filming
2:20-3:30-Lunch
3:30-4:20-Movie Filming
4:20-5:30-SNL Filming
5:30-6:20-Dinner
6:20-7:00-Free Time (WHAT!)
7:00-9:00-Workshops
9:00-10:00-Free Time
10:00-12:00+-Movie Meeting

...ugh