I've been a bad, bad blogger....

by Brittany Geragotelis

First off, I know I have some serious apologizing to do. My life has gotten crazy insane lately: I've been hot in the middle of writing Life's a Witch, which is coming along nicely, but since I'm publishing it as I go, there's a lot of pressure for me to get things right the first time. I've been having to edit it as I go along, which is new for me, because I usually wait until the end to do this. So, it's taking a lot more of my attention away than usual.

I've also been away the past few weeks on business trips. First, to beautiful Hell-A to do a photo shoot with the beautiful and sassy Francia Raisa from "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." I'd never seen the show before, but when I found out we'd be shooting her for the cover, I gave myself a crash-course in the very popular ABC Family show. At first, I thought it was silly....basically "7th Heaven" only preggers. But the more I watched, the more obsessed I got. So now, I am officially a fan, and meeting Francia (who plays Adrian on the show) was a real treat. She was very sweet, a little sassy (in a good way), and totally up to play dress up. And whereas I've run into some trouble in the past when asking actresses about their personal/love lives (some have basically shut down the interview!), Francia wasn't afraid to dish on this side of herself. You'll have to wait for the feature to read exactly what she said, but it was a great time.

Next, we headed over to Universal Studios for a shoot for our back-to-school fashion with the cast of Blue Crush 2. I'll let you in on a little secret....usually when you go to celebrity shoots, the stars are perfectly nice and professional. We have a great time, but in the end we all know that they're doing a job and we never really connect in a real, meaningful way. Don't get me wrong, with some of the people we've shot, I really would have loved to become friends with them outside the realm of the entertainment world...but it doesn't happen often. This shoot was totally different.

So, the star of the movie is Sasha Jackson, a beautiful blond from the UK. I met her for the first time when she came into the office with my contact at NBC/Universal for the Bring It On movies. Right away, I knew she was different than most actresses. Sasha was HILARIOUS (in an amazingly inappropriate way), she has THE best accent, but can switch to an American accent seamlessly. She's gorgeous, has this teeny-tiny little figure, while not looking like skelatore. In short: the girl is freaking awesome!

But again, I didn't know if this was just her doing her job promoting the film or really just her coming through in the meeting. When we eventually got to the shoot at Universal, I realized that this is just Sasha. She's friendly. She's outgoing. She's real. Sasha will be a total professional when the situation calls for it, but when she gets to know you, she's got a dirty kind of humor and won't censor herself around you. This kind of honesty had us in stitches and to be honest—we all sort of had girl crushes on her. While on set, we goofed around, hung out, talked about dating, our personal lives, dancing around our rooms to loud music and bonded over our mutual love of McDonald's. This time, when we left the shoot (and our new fave starlet) behind, I think we actually had a friend. We're now friends on FB and I have the luxury of getting bits and pieces of her wit and talent on a daily basis. How lucky am I!?!?!

But the awesomeness didn't stop there. Because after we wrapped that shoot, we headed over to Kendall Jenner's house—yes, her ACTUAL house. The one she lives and tapes in! We followed her cheer coach over to their gorgeous house (if only I had the money to get a place like theirs....sigh.), and waited (nervously) in the dining room for Kris, Kylie and Kendall to join us. Our staff were all nervous (I mean, how often do you get to hang out at the Jenner house?) and I was just hoping Kendall and her momager, Kris, would like the cover and her feature. As we waited, we checked out a wall full of black and white family portraits over the years. This was truly amazing; to see how the whole fam changed year after year was really cool. We even saw the infamous half-naked pic of Kourtney when she was preggers! Getting a glimpse into their personal lives off-camera was unbelievable.

We'd set things up so E! would come by to cover the unveiling and waited for everyone to arrive. When all the introductions had been made, we got straight to the interview with E! and then dropped the cloth that was hiding Kendall's first magazine cover EVER! Her reaction was perfect; you could tell that she genuinely loved it and was so excited to be honored for something she loves to do. And Kris was gushing over it (this was a far cry from the nightmares I'd been having for weeks that included Kris finding something she hated about it and threatening to sue me. In actuality, Kris was SO nice and complimentary of the magazine and cheerleading.). You could tell that Kris LOVES her kids and is their number one fan. On another note, you have to respect her for being such a great business-woman. She really took charge during the shoot (but not in a control freak sort of way) and knew what she was doing the whole time. It was very impressive just being around her. Oh, and Kylie was there too....a little bundle of energy and was so excited to talk about how she wanted to join the cheer squad next year. Of course, I offered to shoot her for the magazine when she finally does become a cheerleader. Now if we can only get them to let us shoot at their house.....

To round up this little celebrity update, one of my co-workers went to comic-con last weekend and, knowing that I'm a big Buffy fan, got me autographs of the actresses who play Harmony and Glory. He also got pics of them holding up signs for me! How sweet is that?!?! (And expensive...apparently it costs $35 apiece for the signatures and pics!).

So, again, sorry for being MIA....I'm going to try and be better about this from here on out. I hope all these pics made up for it!

5x5,
B.