Donnie said he forwarded my email to Fripp and would let me know if he heard back. I sent that to Loren, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever get an email like that again, that said “I forwarded your message to Fripp.”

I don’t worship Fripp, but there are reasons I should. Loren worships him though, and it’s possible if we hear back from Fripp we might get to meet him when he comes to Seattle later this spring, and they start their US tour of King Crimson, and play an invite-only show the night before.

In my note to Donnie I told him that John (my stepdad) had a line of guitar strings I think they made just for Robert Fripp, and wondered, did Robert remember John? I included a photo and link to his Wiki page. And then I went onto Fripp’s, I looked him up, because I only knew about his time in King Crimson, and the fact he played guitar on Bowie’s song “Heroes,” and made records with Eno and Peter Gabriel.

And then I learned he has 700 official releases, was left-handed but forced himself to play right, is tone-deaf, and sits on a stool on stage while playing.

Donnie and I high-fived each other after he cut my hair, and then Brad and I went downstairs in my old office there at Starbucks, so he could show me pictures of his time in New Zealand, and use one of the flat screens to project from his laptop. It was a Saturday, which is the only day I can go there to get my hair cut, because there’s no one around.

It was my first time back in the main part of the office since I left in 2014, where I’d spent almost 20 years working. And I remembered an infamous meeting in that same conference room, 4 o’clock on a Friday, a bitter hour to host a project meeting, when I dropped my first F-bomb, and did so to a VP, but he was a VP of Design and really cool, I liked him, he was left-handed too, and when I blurted out “what am I, the FUCKING PROJECT MANAGER,” he laughed nervously, touched my arm and thanked me: he said thanks for saying that, I feel better now, and I wondered later if I should apologize, and probably did the following week.

In that room the others were coming unglued too. We sat there waiting for the VP, and they shared more about their personal lives, how much their kids were driving them nuts, how badly they needed a drink, and Dawn was picking me up at the office afterwards because it was my birthday, and we had overnight reservations downtown: we ate dinner and went bar-hopping and ate dinner again, when we got back…and the next day we had a garden crew come out to the house for the first time to do a fall clean up, and they picked it as clean as a chicken carcass, and I hung up the Christmas lights, and probably made dinner.

Brad brought his good camera to meet me at his work, and hung out in the salon while Donnie cut me, and afterwards we went to a different conference room that had good light and an interesting background for my headshot, except the background said Starbucks on it, so we moved to the side where it was more generic.

And I was surprised I looked okay in the photo when he showed it to me, and we packed things up and got on the elevator and headed out, and I was surprised too it didn’t feel weird to be back at my old office, and then wondered in a way if that’s why I still go there to see Donnie, because I feel some attachment to it I can’t get over, or I’m morbidly fascinated by it, the way we’re sometimes drawn back to old places we used to live, and sometimes the owners will let you in to walk around, and for a moment you just stand there looking, soaking it up, and after a few minutes of that you have to let it go, and just leave.

Categories: Memoir, music

Tags: Brian Eno, creative nonfiction, identity, John Pearse, King Crimson, Memoir, nostalgia, One More Red Nightmare, postaday, Robert Fripp, Starbucks, William Pearse writer