turned upside down world

so last night was definitely one of the weirdest nights i can remember. ill try to set the scene....

all of us are at a bar kinda place watching the world series on a really huge screen (providence).
its lots of fun and as the night progresses more and more people from the tour are joining our little soiree. anthony goes out for a smoke and comes back and shows me his phone. .... on it is a text message from a girl we know in albany telling us that shes sorry to hear about one of our biggest fans who has apparently passed away in a car accident. once i read this i go outside and try to see what could possibly be going on. i start crying as i text ben and ask him for haleys number.

i call haley and she is pretty much in the same state im in, not so great at all. we are all devastated. i tell her to look into the surrounding hospitals and see if there is any information we can cling to. in the meantime, i check my myspace and see a message from this person that ive apprently never written back to. i click on her profile and read some of her information for the first time. it is basically mind blowing and so ironic and prolific in this situation.

fast forward about 1.5 hours

ben and i have been huddled around his bunk trying to pool our resources and make sense of whats going on.

at 1:30am i get a call from my mom (she never calls me this late). i see her number on my phone and automatically feel very weary. she tells me that she has just had a nightmare about me, i ask her what happened, she wont tell me what has happened in the dream. so this is also quite unsettling. as im on the phone with her i tell her that we think someone close to us has died and that i have to go.

within the next 5 minutes this person actually posts on bens myspace saying she is fine and this has basically been all from some idiot that was using someone elses myspace to start a hoax.

we are all sooo relieved yet so drained. its such a horrible feeling that someone has wasted your emotions on nothingness.

on a MUCH different and happier note, we are going to be on TRL tomorrow! sweet. bye

-pj

lets go on a living spree

yes... im somewhat addicted to the new kanye west album. even though when i first heard, i didnt really like it at all. that always happens with me and records that end up being my favorites. i think i have a lot to write because i didnt write anything since before we went on the break from tour.

the last day before we all went home was in kansas city. apparently the clubs sound and lighting was going in and out which made for an interesting rocket summer show (they had no crowd PA). the show was good, blah blah blah. we have a friend who came to see us and told us that Saves The Day was playing in lawrence, Kansas which is about 40 mins away. Ben and i didnt care and opted to go see the show rather than say some goodbyes to our tourmates that we wouldnt see for another 9 days. the show was so worth it, it made me realize why i love music so much. its prettty shitty, but its especially easy to lose sight of that when youre in a touring band.
their set was pretty magical and ben and i were right beside them on the side of the stage (see picture for full perspective) and they kept talking to us inbetween songs like we were in someones living room back in NJ. its real weird for us because they were the band we looked up to as we were coming up the ranks. and here they are.......conversing with us as if we're equals.

so the next morning it was on a plane and back to NJ. so nice to be home, but when you know youre leaving in like a week to do everything all over again, its puts you in an odd headspace. lauren and i had an amazing time at the wedding of our good good friends shawn and mary. i was nervous because i was in the wedding and didnt want to do anything wrong. it was funny though because i had to walk up to the alter and stand beside them as they got married. when i was sitting down i figured i had a minute so i should check if my shoes were tied, i realized my right shoe was not and began to starting tying it. as i started, we were called up so i was on the alter with them with my laces flopping all over the place. whatevs no one noticed.
lauren and i did something we really wanted to do too which is go to this amazing ice cream place near where i live called cliff that have like seasonal handmade ice creams...... pumpkin, apple crumb pie, cinnamon and something else. you get the idea, very autumn-esque. it did not let us down.
something else i gotta say... we recently just kind of got sponsored or someting by taco bell.. i dont really know why but they sent us like $500 worth of coupons. the best part about it is that you actually get MONEY BACK from them. so lets say you go in there order some tacos/burritos whatever.... your bill comes out to $5.25, you give them two five dollar coupons and they give you back $4.75. yea its INSANE. they pay you basically.
so now i sit here in orlando back on the bus and wonder... where did my time at home go. the good things about it are.....

1- i play in NY/NJ on oct 25/26. so ill be seeing lauren in like 8 days, which is our anniversary actually!!!!!!
2- my parents came to florida to visit my uncle so theyre going to beat the show today.
3- its nice seeing everyone from the tour again after having a break, its like coming back to school after summer vacation, except i dont write papers or study or listen to boring teachers. i play guitar. ok

Us onTour

i wish i could say "y'all" more

something kinda crazy happened in memphis. our guitar tech and all around good dude, franny "lost" his phone. he said he put it down for a second when he was putting our gear on stage and it was gone. anyway, i hear about this after the show is over and me , tone and our drum tech mikey go looking for it. i figure if we call it and walk around enough, we'll hear it vibrating. anyway, i keep calling it and mikey hears it in the GARBAGE. yea thats what you do when you steal something and wanna get it at a later time. it was pretty shitty, but i was really psyched that we eventually found it cuz franny was pretty bummed.

besides that... last night was new orleans and my first experience on bourbon street. i bought a voodoo doll (picture included in blog) and a indonesian bone necklace at some crazy voodoo shop earlier in the day. the voodoo doll hangs in my bunk and protects me/ scares the shit out of me at the same time. at night we all hung out pretty hard and it was a pretty fun time overall. beale street doesnt compare...sorry memphians....?

sometimes i just think about what my life is and how bizarre it would be to 99.9% of people in the world. i try to never take it for granted and im usually one of the first people out of the bus and ready to explore a new city. i just like knowing that even if all of this ended tomorrow, i would have all of these memories, mementos and really good stories.

texas 07

i get to go home in like 5 days!!! for over a week lola and i have lotsa plans. sweet. texas has been fun even though i wish the day off in austin wouldve been a little more fun. maybe cuz it was monday??!!

last night was ok though. a lot of ppl from the tour got together and i schooled them in shuffleboard. damn.

yankees are in the playoffs and we are all really psyched.

anyone else really looking forward to halloween? the band is trying to think of something really good to be. anyone have any ideas?

ps.i hate halo 3, actually halo in general.