ETF, ISMFOF, and SIL on Warped Tour this year!!!

     "How the fuck are you?"  This was Gerard's typical way of greeting the crowd at sold out shows.  Of course there were about 1,000 shouts of phrases that really had nothing to do with the question they were just asked, such as  "I love you Ray!" and "Be my baby's father Gerard!".  I found it rather amusing, as did Jenna, Sarah, Jade, and Meredith.  Meg, on the other hand, was too busy blowing kisses to Frankie.  I saw this and laughed, knowing that she was kidding.  It was an old concert tradition to badly imitate fangirls in the crowd and she was doing a good impression of a girl three people away on her left.  "No, I will not be anyones baby's father anytime soon.  I've got a girlfriend.  Hi, Jessica," he said (bringing out a moan of disappointment from the audience) while waving at me.  "Hi, Gerard!" I screamed back.  "Ok.  This next song is called 'You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison'.  1, 2, 3, 4!"  Again, we all had to hold on to something/someone to avoid being stepped on, but this time it wasn't so bad.

************************

     After the concert and an hour and a half of meet-and-greet, we got back in the bus.  Frankie and Meg had been motioning to each other throughout the whole concert, as were Mikey and Meredith, but now the two pairs were seated confortably on either side of the bus.  Do I really have to tell you what they were doing, because it's kind of normal by now.  "So how'd you like the concert?"  Gerard was next to me, holding my hand.  "Spectacular, as usual.  Did you see Frankie and Mikey?"  "Yea, unfortunately.  The way they act around Meg and Meredith, you'd think they never had girlfriends before."  I laughed (this might be true for Mikey.  Just kidding!  Ok, ok.  All you Mikey fans out there, don't kill me too painfully...) and laid my head on his shoulder.  "Tired already?" Gerard asked.  "No.  I just like the comforting feeling I get when I do this, that's all."  He kissed me on the forehead, then said,  "You're really sweet sometimes, ya know that?"  "Like you're not!  You're the sweetest person I've met, Gerard.  I love you."  I looked up into his eyes and he gazed back at me.  "I love you, Jessica," he said and started to kiss me.

************************

     We srrived at the hotel and everyone scrambled out.  "I'm so damn tired!" Mikey said as we made our way up the stairs.  Almost everyone agreed to this statement and a small conversation got started, but by then we were standing in front of Gerard', Mikey', and Frankie's room.  "Pleasant dreams, but make sure I'm in them," Gerard said as he kissed me goodnight, then slipped behind the door.  I knew Meg would be taking an exteremely long time saying goodnight, so I went ahead of her to our room.  I opened the door and walked over to my bed to find a ginormous bouquet of red roses.  "I love you, forever and always." is what the card read.  Is it possible for someone to be so loving?  I sat down and turned on some music, planning.  I had to figure out something to do for him.  But what?  I stayed there for about 5 minutes before I finally thought of something.  I could write him as song and record it the next day!  That meant that I had to have a guitar though, so I decided to borrow Frankie's.  Walking down the hall, I noticed how late it was.  My eyelids were drooping and my feet dragging, but I had to do this for Gerard.  "Those two" were still making out in the hall and I wondered if I should interrupt.  'To hell with it!' I thought and tapped Frankie on the shoulder.  "Sorry to break up you guys's little love-fest here, but I need to borrow your guitar.  It's important."  "Ok.  What do you need it for?" he asked.  "I'm writing a song.  At 3 am."  He led me into the room where Gerard was laying in bed, drawing.  "Hi," he said as he waved.  "What are you doing here?  Did you get the flowers?"  "I'm borrowing Frankie's guitar and yes, I got the flowers.  Thank you, they're beautiful."  "Here you go."  Frankie was holding his guitar out in front of me, which was a black Gibson SG.  "Thanks.  Goodnight guys!"  I could feel Gerard staring at me quizzically as I left, but he didn't ask any questions.  Meg had already went back to the room and I wondered if Jade was there yet.  "Hi.  Cool guitar.  Who's is it?" Jade asked me when I walked in.  "It's Frankie's, but I'm borrowing it to write a song for Gerard.  Did you see the flowers he sent me?"  "Yea, they're really pretty."  "How're you and Jade?"  "We're really good, actually," she said.  "He's really smart.  And talented.  And sweet.  And a lot of other stuff that eludes me at the moment."  I laughed and went to the mini-kitchen to get some coffee.  It was going to be a long night.

     "I will never let you fall.  I'll stand up with you forever..."-Your Guardian Angel- The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

     Right then, Frankie walked out onto the balcony.  "And you get on Meg and me for making out.  Hypocrites!"  Gerard and I both gave him critisizing looks.  "Do you have a built in buzzer or do you just randomly pick out times to interrupt people?" I asked Frankie sarcasticly.  He looked hurt and started to make crying noises, whatever those sound like.  Gerard walked over and hugged him like he was his brother instead of Mikey.  "It's okay, Frankie.  Just let it all out," Gerard said, now ruffling Frankie's hair.  I walked over to the two guys and joined in the hug fest.  "I'm sorry, Frankie.  It's not your fault you're good at walking in on people at the wrong time.  I shouldn't have yelled at you."  "I was just trying to tell you that we have 10 minutes left!" he yelled, then ran inside to Meg.  Gerard and I followed and I found Frankie pointiing at me, standing by Meg.  "She yelled at me!" he told her and she walked over to me.  "Did you yell at my boyfriend?"  "There's only one way to settle this."  We were acting like a cheesy western movie.  "Then let's get TBS."  Meg and I told the guys we were going down to get the "professionals" and that we would be back soon.  Knowing Adam, he would have brought a whole cooler of cheese just for this particular circumstance.  WE knocked on the door and Fred answered.  "It's time," I told him.  We had already established a phrase for cheese tag.  He gathered the reast of the band and lugged the cooler down to MCR's room.  Adam kicked open the door and the people in the room crowded around him and the big plastic thing.  "Ok.  Here are the rules of cheese tag.  Each person gets one block of cheese to break into pieces and throw at an opponent.  If you get hit, you have to hit another person to get back in the game.  There will be no teams, so every man, or woman, for themselves.  Now, come collect your cheese."  Once we had all selected a hunk of cheese, we stood poised behind or under some kind of shelter.  "GO!" Mark yelled and the battle was on.  Ray immediatly got hit by Meredtih and soon hit her back, while Gerard was aiming at me.  "Hey!" he screamed when he got hit.  "Ha ha!" I said and ran away, dodging cheese on the way to hide behind the closet door.  I ram past Frankie who had just gotten hit by Matt, and meg who had been hit by Adam.  Of course, Gerard was after me the second I left the cover of the cabinet under the sink.  I made a quick direction change, now heading for the couch.  He had predicted this and jumped, pinning me to the couch pillows.  I had a certain feeling he wasn't about to throw cheese at me, and I was right.  "Who's caught now?" he said softly, then kissed me.  I had realized on the balcony, to my surprise, that my lips didn't actually hurt at all, really, mostly because they were numb now.  Despite being pelted with random bits of cheese from almost every angle, this was a romantic moment.

********************

     We arrived at the venue, still covered in food particles and I started to wonder how that would be explained to the audience.  We hadn't had time to clean anything because about three minutes after Gerard tackled me, Jade (Puget) came in to tell us that we were supposed to be leaving, then started to whine about being left out of cheese tag.  We made our way backstage because we still had to wait for the rest of the bands to play before My Chem was due up.  For some reason, they were always the last band to play.  "So, what do you want to do for and hour and a half?" Gerard asked me.  "I wanna learn some of your songs on guitar," I replied.  "Grab a guitar then.  I'll teach you."  At that he walked toward the guitar cases sitting against the wall.  "You know how to play guitar?  Why didn't you tell me?"  "What kind of a lead singer doesn't know how to play guitar?"  That was a good question, I had to admit.  We found a quiet place close to the exit and sat down with the guitars on our laps.  "So what song do you want to know first?"  He was already plucking out the chorus to "Helena".  "How about 'The Sharpest Lives'?"  "Fair enough," he said and slowly started strumming the notes.  I got it right away and in 5 minutes time I could play up to the second verse.  "I'm a fast learner.  Can you tell?"  I sniled at him and he smiled back.  "Really?  I hadn't noticed.  Time for the instrumental break.  This makes the other stuff look like Kindergarten material."  "Bring it on," I said, repeating a line from a movie that was about 10 years old.  He played it at full speed and I repeated it almost perfect the first time.  "Holy shit," Gerard said, gazing at me.  "How long have you been playing?"  "Since the 4th grade," I replied matter-of-factly.  "Do you want to hear one of my bands' songs?"  I asked him.  He shook his head yes and I started to play "Modern Day Savior", a song I had wrote.  I could feel his eyes on me the whole time and they only lifted when I had finished.  "That was beautiful.  How old is that song?"  "About 2 years old.  I have newer ones, but that one was on our demo."  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "You mean you haven't put out a record yet?"  "No.  We don't play many shows," I said while going over the first verse of "The Prayer Position" by AFI.  "I have to get you guys to a studio.  We can do it tomorrow cuz it's an off day.  Our producers will definately let you after they hear you."  "That would be so great!" I yelled and wrapped my arms around him.  "Fuck!  You have to be on in 2 minutes!"  We grabbed the guitars and ran back to the closed curtain.  "Break a leg.  I love you," I said.  "Love you too, Jessica.  Thanks."  I gave Gerard a kiss for good luck and ran down to the girls, who were already out on the floor.  "We're recording a CD tomorrow," I told them over the roar of the crowd.  "How'd that happen?" Jade shouted to me.  "I played Gerard one of our songs and he really liked it.  I guess..."  That was as far as I got because right then the curtain opened.

     "A long night spent with your most obvious weakness..." -Taking Back Sunday -MakeDamnSure

     When I woke up, we were about to cross the Canadian border.  Gerard was still laying beside me and he was staring at me.  "Were you watching me sleep?" I asked him when I was sure I was awake.  "For a little bit.  There was nothing else to do, laying here."  I looked at him, astonished.  "Why didn't you just get up and do something else?  I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, as you can probably tell."  "You were being really peaceful, laying in my arms like that.  It was cute and I didn't want you to wake up."  I sat up and turned to Mikey, figuring that he was the one that knew the most about Gerard.  "Is he always this sweet?"  I gestured to Gerard, still on the floor.  "Pretty much, yea," he answered, then resumed his conversation with Meredith.  The other guys all nodded and I fell back into Gerard's arms.  "So I guess it's official.  You're the sweetest guy I've ever met.  You've almost acheived sainthood.  How do you feel?"  He hugged me a little tighter.  "The best I've ever felt."  I started to kiss him and no matter what you guys think, it was innocent.  Please, we're surrounded by people.  No.  I'm not like that.  We got back up in our seats as we pulled up to the booth.  The driver was interrogated by the Canadian officer and our ID's were checked.  The bus was quickly searched for any weapons, not very well I might add, and within 10 minutes we were in Canada.  "Woot!  Canada!" Meg yelled after we were back on the street.  "Time to start getting arrested!"  My yell brought out laughter from the people in the bus.  I got out my Sidekick and sent the reast of the girls a text asking them if they were across the border yet.  They all replied that they were.  "Where should we meet the other bands?" I asked anyone who would listen.  Ray answered, "The nearest tattoo shop!"  I think it was meant to be a joke but we all agreed and I texted back to Sarah, Jenna, and Jade to meet at the nearest tattoo shop, which happened to be right in front of us.  Since the buses were following us it would be fairly obvious to them what building we were going to.  "Is anyone actually gonna get a tattoo?" Frankie asked.  "I am!" I screamed.  "What the hell, it's Canada.  Me too!" Meredith joined me.  "So am I!" Mikey chimed in.  At the end of the yelling fit, everyone but Gerard agreed.  "What are you getting?" I asked Meg as we alked twoard the other buses.  " i think I'm gonna get a sniper heart on my ankle.  What about you?"  I thought about it for a minute.  "I'm gonna get a heart-o-gram on my shoulder.  And I think I'm gonna get snakebites, too.  But I have to make sure it's okay with Gerard first."  I walked over by Gerard, who was explaining his fear of needles to Johnny.  "Hey, Gerard.  Would it bother you if I got snakebites?"  He didn't look as surprised as I thought he would.  "Why are you asking me?"  "Because you're gonna be the one kissing me when I have them in and I wouldn't want it to gross you out to the point of not kissing me anymore!"  That was a mouthful.  "No, it wouldn't bother me.  Do it if you want."  He turned and started talking to Johnny again.  I walked back over to Meg, who had been joined by Jade and Sarah.  "Yea, I'm getting the snakebites.  Are you two getting anything done?"  I gestured to Sarah and Jade.  "I'm getting 30 Seconds To Mars glyphics on my ankle," Jade said.  "And I'm getting my nose pierced," Sarah added.  The whole group walked into the shop, which was pretty big, and we decided who was going first.  The order went something like this:

     1.  Zacky

     2.  Matt

     3.  Jessica

     4.  Jade (Puget)

     5.  Syn

     6.  Fred

     7.  Adam (Carson)

     8.  Jade

     9.  Mikey

     10.  Bob

     11.  Meg

     12.  Davey

     13.  Jenna

     14.  Sarah

     15.  Adam

     16.  Meredith

     17.  Matt (Shadows)

     18.  The Rev. (Jimmy)

     19.  Ray

     20.  Frankie

     Zacky prepped himself for the needle and the rest of us sat down.  Somehow they had managed to find enough chairs for all of us.  Meg and I were no strangers to tattoos (we both had 30 STM glyphics on the inside of our right arms) and I had 6 piercings.  "Why exactly are you afraid of needles?" I asked Gerard whil watching Zacky seeminly enjoy getting his tattoo.  "I had a bad experience as a kid.  I had to be poked with a needle 30 times."  "What did you have?" I asked, feeling sorry that I made him recall this memory.  "I had pnuemonia.  It sucked ass, but I made it through, but not without a new phobia."  Poor Gerard!  "I'm really sorry," I said and kissed him, trying to make the memory go away.  Zacky was done and next up was Matt.  He was getting a tattoo also, so he sat down in the chair and started talking to his voluntary torturer.  I started getting a little jittery, but not too bad.  It doesn't hurt as much as much as you think it does.  Matt's face was revealing a little pain and I'm not sure if he was aware of it.  Of course Adam lazzara was laughing at the faces he made, soon joined by Fred, Ed, and Mark.  Gerard looked like he was about to be sick and I told him not to look at it because I didn't want to be puked on.  Finally Matt was done and it was now my turn.  I kissed Gerard one last time, consideringmy lips would probably be in pain for the next couple days.  I went up to the tattoo artist and told him that I wanted the snakebites first.  He cleaned the peircing site, then marked it off with a Sharpie.  I picked the studs I wanted, sterling silver with a black bead on the ends.  He loaded the gun and asked me if I was ready.  "Just do it," I said, determined to go through with it.  I could feel the stares of my friends as he lined up the gun and shot the stud through.  "Fuck!  That hurt like hell!"  I went over to the mirror to make sure I hadn't flinched when he was piercing it, and I hadn't but that didn't take away the pain.  I walked over to the counter to get a tissue for my bleeding lip and Gerard came and asked me if I was alright.  Of course he hand't watched it but he had heard me scream.  "You sure you want the other one?"  "Hell yea!  I went throughthat and it looks awesome!  I'm so doing the other!"  I walked back to the man, who was busy cleaninh my blood off the earring gun.  He finished and reloaded the gun.  This time I knew how it would feel and I was a little more scared than before.  "Don't tell me, just shoot it when I'm not paying attention," I told him.  I tryed to imagine something better, like the concert tonight.  Will Gerard call us on stage again?  Will he announce I'm his girlfriend?  Will he let...Ow!  The guy had done exactly what I asked, pulling the plastic trigger while I was spacing out.  But, as I had hoped, the pain wasn't as bad when it caught you by surprise.  Next up was the tattoo, which I knew wouldn't hurt.  I calmly sat on the chair and waited for him to start the needle.

**********************************

     We walked out of the shop 4 hours later, after everyone had finished getting what they wanted done.  It was 7:00 and the guys had to be at the venue at 8:30.  We decided to order Chinese from the hotel, which each bands' manager had already checked into.  Luckily, we were all staying in the same hotel, occupying 8 rooms total.  Half of each band in their own room and we were also split up.  Meg, Jade, and I were in one room, and Sarah, Jenna, and Meredith were in the room next to us.  We couldn't take the chance of any of the girls staying in the same room as their boyfriends because I think you know why.  The hotel manager would probably get a few complaints about the noise.  Everyone managed to fit comfortably in two rooms to eat and we all tried to scarf our food as quickly as possible without being comletely disgusting and we managed to get finished within 10 minutes.  We went back to our rooms to get dressed because, obviously, we were going to all the concerts on the tour, including this one.  Meg dressed a little more normal this time, leaving behind the corset.  I followed her example with a long-sleeve shirt and a black skirt and knee-high black converse, which were my favorite shoes.  meg and I soon found out that the rest of the girls had went all out, wearing so much shiny stuff that it was a little hard to look at.  "Wow!  You all look great!" i exclaimed, sheilding my eyes.  "Ha ha, very funny," Sarah said. "I'm only trying to be nice.  Let's go find the guys."  We went our seperate ways and Meg, Meredith, and I walked into Frankie, Gerard, and Mikey's room.  "You look beautiful!"  Gerard stopped to look at my shoes for a second, then came over and embraced me.  "Well, you don't look too bad yourself," I told him.  Everyone had gotten dressed amazingly fast and it was now only 8:10.  "Well, we have 20 minutes to kill.  What do you want to do?"  My lips were still a little swollen from earlier so my speech was affected a little bit, but not so much as he couldn't understand me.  "How about going out on the balcony?" he suggested.  I nodded and we made our way through the already building clutter on the floor and out the sliding doors.  I went up to the rail and admired the skyline for a couple of minutes before Gerard spoke.  "What are you planning on doing tomorrow?" he asked, walking up beside me and putting his arm around me.  "I don't know.  I was thinking maybe I would go get another guitar book and ask Frankie or Ray if I could borrow their electrics for a little while.  I'm starting to miss playing."  "Sounds like a good idea.  You might be able to teach them something," he added, looking completely serious.  He stared back out at the city and I did the same, my head on his shoulder.  We stood there for about 5 minutes, when he turned to me and said, "You're one of the best things that's ever happened to me, Jessica.  I love you."  I was totally shocked and sort of stood there, frozen for about 3 seconds, but it felt like 3 years.  "I feel the exact same way about you.  I love you too."  I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, no matter how much pain it costed me.  Gerard was worth it.

     "So whisper softly, and don't forget.  To tell me how you feel in five words or less..." -Hawthorne Heights- Language Lessons (Five Words Or Less)