Thank your lucky stars for the scars and stories.

[rosiedoes]

2007, then.

I keep saying to myself that this year sucked. And I guess in a way it did. I stopped loving my job, I almost walked out. But then, this has also been a fucking amazing year in so many ways.

I sat here, exactly a year ago, listening to From Under the Cork Tree and watching Kerrang! TV intermittently. I had no idea at the time how fucking huge this year would be.



By the end of January I'd been to my first Fall Out Boy show, at Hammersmith Palais:


(it's hard to tell, but we started this dressed up as Pete and Patrick, for a laugh).

I threw a pair of frilly knickers that kind of started a cult thnksfrthknkrs) after they landed at Patrick's feet.


We had cupcakes made for the band and Charlie, but the Pink Spiders stole them:


And met fadefromblack, who'd feature a whole lot in the rest of the year:


After that, was my last Stargate convention, for which billietallent and her partner, Gerard flew from Canada and joined Julie and I in London:




In late March Julie and I went on our first holiday of the year, to Vancouver (via Chicago), meeting up with CJ Wallis...












...and driving down to Seattle with fredtheguava...




(we have a lot of pictures of interstate. Seriously.)


While we were there, I first started getting to know a guy named Jay, who used to be in a band called Arma Angelus. He was selling old merch and we got talking via email. He told me about his new band Holy Roman Empire and they turned out to be really fucking good.

The day Julie and I got back in the UK on 2nd April - after what amounted to four days awake (no, seriously) - we went home, got changed and headed straight back out to Hammersmith Apollo for our second Fall Out Boy show of the year, and the official launch of thnksfrthknkrs:



Later the same month, this picture would win fadefromblack and I a trip to Chicago at the start of June, where we would meet and interview Holy Roman Empire, and see Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship and the gang on the Honda Civic Tour. I found out while on an investigation with London Paranormal Society, for whom I was asked to be a psychic artist.

Chicago is one of the coolest, loveliest cities I have ever been to, and we got to see it from a beachfront hotel:





We even went to places featured in TWNW:

(the date)

(the Borders - although not the real one)

I got two new tattoos in Chicago - seen here with Lib's sunset tattoo in the bookstore:

...and my jumpwings, seen here sunburned on the beach:


All was quiet for a while, aside from the arrival of the Baby Joe Trohttoo in July:



He ended up featured in the Friends or Enemies newsletter:



...before August brought the Great Decayfamily Tour. satsuma77, shiny_starlight and fredtheguava joined me back at Hammersmith Apollo for the Decaydance Fest.



Gabanti was introduced to my Cobra Starship tattoo, which he kind of freaked out about:


Then fadefromblack and I headed up to Leeds and Edinburgh. At Leeds we went through the signing and finally met the rest of Fall Out Boy. I'd already met Patrick twice, and been introduced to Charlie's goddaughter (not that we knew at the time, but it'd be the last time we'd see him because he quit at the end of HCT), but somehow Joe Trohman's FUCKING ASTONISHING EYES confounded me from twenty paces and I have no idea what he said to me. I do remember that Patrick recognised me, Andy was very, very weird and Pete got the joke with my Xo ramen:




satsuma77 and her new hubby, Dave, joined us in Edinburgh, and we said goodbye to Dirty, who had decided to quit. I was almost as heartbroken as when Charlie left.

By the time we hit November, and my 25th birthday, Jay and I had become good friends, and he had asked me to set up and run the band's street team, so we met him, Neeraj and Andy from their record label for lunch when Julie and I flew out to Chicago for a week's holiday and the Sleeping With Giants Tour. We drove 300 miles in the wrong lane (at least, as far as we were concerned) and changed a tyre by ourselves, on I55 - but it was worth it because we got to hang out in the bar and watch the bands sound check. I ran over at one point and handed Nate a massive bag of cakes and biscuits, which they were pretty pleased with. We couldn't just let them starve! We also got to meet up with babygotbass and _lolapolooza, who are fantastic, and watch two teenage gay boys snuggling adorably and making out in public. I love that this scene allows for that.

Alex insisted on signing my arm:


This map was out saviour, this entire trip:


This is the REAL Borders:

- it's in the middle of a very villagey suburb and we loved the whole area. We have video footage of it, but I haven't uploaded that, yet.

And this is evidence that Pete had stopped by over Thanksgiving, a couple of days before:


We stopped by the Clan Store twice, making sure we dropped off a whole bunch of donuts for the guys there, because they're really sweet:

(while we were there we also saw musictoyourlips, who Lib and I had had lunch with the first time we were there, dracopet(?) and Amira, who had been lovely to us on the HCT - at the SWG show in Chicago. We also ended up being asked to do a clip for the TAI DVD)

I also managed to get another tattoo by Jay Redden while we were in Chicago, running against the original lyric one:


And that, I guess is a good way to end the year.

I kind of can't believe all the things that happened. From doing a radio clip to promote the Fall Out Boy single, to ending up friends with people they grew up with. It's surreal, but all of the people we met in connection with this band, this year, have become really important in their own right - far removed from the scene itself.

I'm not going to mention everyone who was awesome this year, because hopefully you know who you are. Have a great one, kids. I hope 2008 is even better.