Is this really happening?

Shawn Smith is a well known Seattle musician who has been in a number of local bands. He recently put out a record on Aaron's label Sound Vs. Silence. The other night, Bells calls me up and asks if I want to go to a little party Shawn is having to celebrate the release of his new CD. Apparently it was just a small get together for some friends and Shawn was going to play some of his songs on piano.



We show up to the party with a bottle of Chianti in hand (not even really sure what that is, but boy did we look straight trying to find a bottle of wine together at a grocery store in Capitol Hill), and pull up a seat on the couch at some guy's loft (still not sure who the guy was). In typical Aaron fashion, we become the life of the party -- which is to say that we are so unegaged from the rest of the group that you would have thought we were quarantined.

As we're sitting there staring at the wall, this guy and his wife come up and introduce themselves. The guys shakes my hand and says, "hey, I'm Stone, nice to meet you." I'm thinking to myself, "Stone, huh? That's an interesting name." It then dawns on me that I'm shaking hands with Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam. Holy s***! They both sit down right next to us and for the next hour I'm sitting close enough to him that I was afraid I was going to kick him every time I moved my leg. I wanted to tell him that he was basically responsible for one of my favorite albums ever (Ten) and how much I loved his band, but instead, I did what came natural: I totally froze, looked at Aaron in disbelief, and started texting my dad and Connors.