One evening, around eight o'clock or so, the son ran past me at full tilt. I didn't think much of it. By and by, I guess two minutes later, a white SUV the size of an aircraft carrier somehow squeezed into the loading zone. Once again, I didn't think anything of it—people park humongous SUV's all the time.

I heard the door shut, and g-damn my eyes if it wasn't Tom Waits striding up the stairs. He stood for a minute, hands on hips, looking around.

I stuck out my thumb and jerked it over my shoulder. "He went that way," I murmured, star-struck as all hell. He growled something that might have been "Thanks" or something, and went upstairs.

I went home after and listened to Rain Dogs and then Swordfishtrombones. It was kind of cool.

Well, my stepmother and the young man were soon up in arms, standing next to each other and screaming at the maître d' a number of expletives not really fit for print. I'm actually surprised we weren't all given the bum's rush, if you get my meaning.

Anyway, I had my young son with me, and the young lady was soon sitting with us at our table as my stepmother and the young man continued to call the maître d' various names. She and I chatted for about an hour, ate our meals, and played with the baby. She was so sweet, and I genuinely liked her—she was funny and smart and so very kind.

When our meal was over, I stood and she surrendered my son, who was sitting in her lap eating part of her salad. She said, "It was so nice to meet you," and it was so genuine. I smiled and replied, "It was nice to meet you, too, Miss Locklear."

She had never introduced herself, so she was shocked that I knew her. "You know who I am?" she asked, surprised. "You're Heather Locklear, and you're on one of the most popular shows on television—I doubt you'd find someone who doesn't know you," I replied, and she laughed then and thanked me for letting her play with the baby.

As we left the restaurant, my stepmother turned to me and howled, "I'll have that man's job!"

"Let it go," I told her. "Do you know who we were sitting with? That's Tommy Lee and Heather Locklear. His band is in town for a concert, and I bet that they have rented three floors of this hotel. That guy won't be working here by the time we reach the car."

Unitas had come to my workplace, an auto dealership, to help publicize a sale. It was a typical deal for a retired sports hero: Come out, meet the people, sign some autographs. God knows how many times he had been through the whole routine, but he did it once again that day with an admirable good nature.

I was introduced to him, and we spoke briefly. I wasn't exactly sure what to say to a man whose playing career ended two years before I was born, so I told him about how I'd been watching him in NFL films shows my whole life, and that I thought he was the best quarterback in history. In retrospect, I realize that someone in his position has probably heard such things thousands of times, but he simply thanked me. I didn't even request an autograph. After looking at his hand, irreparably damaged after countless collisions on the gridiron, I couldn't bring myself to ask.

The year was 1959. There I was, 19 years old, not quite star-struck and cursed with the inability to recognize anyone famous. Great skills for the receptionist at a theatrical business manager's office.

One of the clients was Nat King Cole. He frequently came in with little Natalie in tow. One day, while he was waiting to see my boss, we had a great conversation. I was really impressed, because he was so nice and friendly. Not only that, but he was also actually someone I recognized, and I loved his music.

Anyway, the bitch of an office manager could hear us yakking and buzzed me. She literally hissed into the phone, "Don't bother the clients! You greet them and announce that they're here. That's all. Now go back to work."

I was caught off-guard, and clammed up until Cole was called into his meeting with my boss. When he came out, he popped his head into the office manager's office and said, "By the way, thanks for looking out for me, but I'm perfectly capable of choosing who I want to talk to. We were having a great conversation, and there was no reason for you to interrupt it."

No one ever told her off, and he did it with such class. As he was leaving, he winked at me and said, "Now, have a nice day. See you next time." That was the day Nat King Cole became my hero! He took the time to stand up for me and relieve my embarrassment.

I've met many celebrities since then, but this was one experience that was "Unforgettable."

Of course, curiosity gets the best of us, and I looked, too—just in time to see a tiny little leathery-tanned man with a huge head and messy black hair climbing the steps under us. That's Dustin Hoffman? He looked like a freaky doll. I guess a big head must be a prerequisite for becoming a movie actor. The camera loves the big face.

I was always more fascinated by the F-listers and the notorious. When you're able to talk to the original Hamburglar in the McDonald's ads or the midget from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, it feels a little more like a novelty. It's not everyone who could mention experiences with either.

My father was more into the idea of celebrity. His sense of importance was measured by how many A-listers he could talk to on a daily basis at his tuxedo shop. He'd bring home autographed headshots of Michael Jackson or Jane Fonda and expect me to go as gaga as a three-year-old.

When I got older, I dated an F-lister comedian who was much the same way. He felt that the more famous people he could take pictures with, the more credible he was as a performer. I thought knowing him was much more incredible than knowing Tom Cruise. When I got involved in comedy myself, it was his spirit that made me fearless.

He was an F-lister to the world, but an A-lister to 20. He may not have had a billboard to his name, but his earnest attitude inspired. His knowledge of the business taught me.

Since I'm from Los Angeles, it was guaranteed that I would be involved in celebrity culture no matter what choice I made. I was a child model and a terrible child actor. My face was on baby Vogue; I had been in Rolling Stone magazine; I had met Debbie Gibson. The problem was that I wasn't into it. I never became a Hannah Montana because I wanted to be in school instead. It made me somewhat of a Q-lister.

Kato Kaelin lit fireworks for my friends and me on the Fourth of July. At age ten, I knew—we all knew—that he had made softcore porn, and we also knew he wasn't anyone worth knowing. But as soon as the O.J. trial hit, we were proud that we knew Kato Kaelin. It was the simple fact that he was notorious that made us feel like we were somewhat more special than anyone else in middle school. His daughter hated it.

Everyone in L.A. has a similar story about knowing this guy who knows this guy. I'm jaded from it all, but completely interested in joining the fame racket myself. I'd like to eat at a fancy restaurant one day and make people wonder.

While I was living and working many years ago in Bloomington, Indiana, my coworkers had various brushes. One, for instance, was having ice cream at a local shop, where he was able to meet and talk with John Cougar (now using his original name, John Mellencamp) and even get Cougar to sign an album for him. Lucky.

I, on the other hand, had a close brush with the same singer. Driving home from the post office, I stopped at one of the many three-way stop signs—there are a lot of one-way streets in B-town. Dude on a motorcycle stopped across from me, and as I started forward he gunned his engine, and whipped out left in front of me.

It took a moment, after hard braking, to realize that that was probably as close as I'd ever get to meeting John Cougar.

Murphy strikes again.

The night of the play, I went out for a beer and a meal, and cut down to the theater. It's a small place where everyone is seated close together, and I was so excited to see Mr. Shawn in the audience. My first encounter with the famous!

The Fever is a one-man play—the protagonist is visiting another country and gets a fever. He spends most of his time ranting in front of a toilet. I had a really good seat in the middle of the theater. The play was engrossing. But as the actor began reaching his emotional peak, I started feeling rumblings in my belly. Growing nausea. No big deal. Possibly the exotic Belgian beer or maybe some sympathetic symptoms? Who cares. The play was almost over.

But no, the actor kept going on and on, and I could no longer focus on the play. I was nervously scoping the exits. (Nothing close.) Trying to calculate how much of a distraction it would be if I loped to the back of the theater (_way_ distracting). So I made the decision to stick it out.

Eventually, through the sweating and nervousness, my head started to swim. And then I puked into my program. Loudly.

Seconds later, the lights came up. If it had been three minutes earlier, I would have horked properly in the bathroom. Three minutes later, and most people would have forgotten exactly which seat produced the sound of vomitus. As it was, I could tell from all of the stares that I was a minor celebrity. And seconds later, I was out on the street. Sorry, Wally Shawn.

I was able to push up close to the stage, and when she threw a pick into the audience, it landed on and then bounced off my head. I was too slow to grab it before another rabid fan beat me to the punch. So I left with my sweat-soaked memories. But Joan Jett and I will still have rock and roll.

Apocalyptica is a Finnish cello metal band, as in they play heavy metal on cellos—very awesome. I'm obsessed with every Finnish band I listen to, because to me they make some radical music!

Back to the story: My grandmother and I decide to arrive at the concert two hours early, because the doors open at 8 and the show starts at 9pm. As it happens, we have to get our tickets at the booth, and end up waiting for about 30 minutes for the ticket guy to come. I'm standing there in front of the venue anxiously, and other people already have their tickets. I mean, I was reading the Spanish newspaper yesterday looking for concerts, and it was a day before the concert—this is Sunday and that was Saturday, the day that I'm reading it.

I actually asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else instead, because we planned on going to see a Finnish violinist. While waiting—my grandmother, being curious about where the hell this dude is—looks all around the venue for someone who know where he was. She goes behind the building. Three minutes later, she gestures at me to come...quietly. I stand there wondering, "What is she doing?" I just follow her to where she is going. I ask, "What is it?"

"You'll see soon enough," she answers.

When we turn the corner, there you see two men standing about ready to jog around my hometown: It's Eicca and Mikko. My grandmother whispers, "These are the guys of the band." We walk up to them. And guess what I'm doing just standing there in front of them: I'm quietly shaking. It wasn't very visible to see that I was shaking.

We shake hands—they have some strong grips—and I just stand there while my grandmother explains how I am nervous. I burst out babbling, but it's too apparent. "It's OK. It happens often," Eicca says with a smile on his face, shaking me slightly by the shoulder. I grin like an idiot.

So, Grams is there continuing to talk to Eicca and Mikko, until she says, "She's been studying Finland for two years now. I'm guessing she really loves Finland."

Mikko and Eicca have amused faces, and Eicca asks, "Why do you want to go to Finland?" I explain saying, "Just to get away from everything that I can't stand in the U.S." Honestly, I'm not that in love with my state.

I'm happy that I met Eicca and Mikko, and I leave happy. After the show, Grams tells me, "We're coming to see them next year. By the way, they are fantastic!"

I'm still leaving happy like a madwoman.

We chatted and joked—whether about kids or defending the lone seat from predators, I don’t remember. I felt jovial, and it was great to laugh with someone friendly in stiff-lipped Seattle. But all that was lost by what happened next.

I stood up to let her date pass me, laughing as he brushed against me to squish into his seat. And it was Sherman Alexie: poet, writer, filmmaker, generally groovy cultural icon. OK, maybe you have to be a writer to be as gaga as I was about this, but in fact I’ve written unsent letters to this guy, been touched by his poems coming through my car radio while I drove to soccer practice. I’m not a poet, and for a few years I even had a beef about his angry period, where he seemed to make fun of Indian "wanna-bes" at every turn. (I’ve known a few, and there are worse ways to behave.) But there are things I’ve always wanted to talk to him about—and sometimes have in the quiet of my writing studio. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t know me, we had the beginnings of a great friendship.

But as he sat down I had that moment, the moment where everything you’ve ever wanted to say to someone comes crushing in at you from a hundred different angles: how you loved his poem about Indian boys, why it made you remember a certain boy you crushed on 25 years ago, what you felt when you saw Smoke Signals, and about a dozen other things about music and films, poetry, culture.

It was a huge swirl, all happening in that instant, while somewhere in the middle I stood trying to pick one pithy, perfect thing to say, what meant the most, the thing that would prove the catalyst for conversation, that would lead us to sipping coffee or sharing a beer while he reads my latest pages and gives me encouragement. (Hey, it could happen. All I had to do was not be lame.)

But I had only those three seconds. He just wanted to see a movie. If all I could manage to gush out was, “Gosh, I really love your work!” then he could say, “Gee. Thanks.” And, worst part, he gets to spend the whole night squished next to a drooling fan, wishing he could hide, with me wondering each minute what I can say to look cool and, of course, worthy.

Not the best way to to spend date night.

So I stepped out of the hurricane and just flashed him a quick (although hopefully hip and literary) smile. “Enjoy the movie!"

Best I could do at the time.

The day after I read the book, I was sitting in a little cafe in Santa Monica, talking to a tourist who had long curly brown hair and was wearing a short skirt and cowboy boots. She was from New York and looked like Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

A tall dark-haired man walked in and glanced our way, so I made sure not to look away (as I normally would) but locked my eyes on him. I couldn't smile, though, because he looked sort of familiar.

I looked and wondered: Was he someone I had dated? How could I forget such a thing?

And then I realized it was Michael Richards! I was sitting next to Elaine's look-alike, and there was Kramer.

I felt like hiding under the table—I hate gawking at celebrities.

I race up to my room, grab a pen and a napkin, and come back down. I sneak under the security ropes (much to the chagrin of the security men) and ask for an autograph for "Katherine." He said I was very particular, and I answered by saying that it was for a friend whose birthday was around the corner. I stayed and chatted with him for about five minutes, and then was shooed away by security.

Walking up the stairs to my room, I reflected on that encounter. He was so nice about it. That was a one-in-a-million experience.

"Oh, pardon," ai-je dit.

"C'est rien—je vais ramasser."

Je me suis baissée pour faire un petit tas de mon butin. En relevant les yeux, j'ai vu une main saisir un paquet de pâtes. Le glisser dans un sac en cuir. La boucle en argent est restée ouverte.

Je suis passée à la caisse, un peu groggy, puis je suis rentrée chez moi.

"Tu sais quoi? Cate Blanchett aime les ravioli."

__________________________________

Second Counter on the Left

I collided with another shopper and, with a crash that sounded like an avalanche, all of our items tumbled to the floor: little casseroles, chocolate, canned tuna—everything on the tile.

"Oh, excuse me," I said.

"No problem—I'll pick it up," came the reply.

I bent down to sweep my booty into a small pile. When I raised my eyes, I saw a hand grab a package of pasta. Slip it into a leather sack. The silver buckle was left open.

I went through the checkout, somewhat dazed, and then returned home.

"Know what?" I announced. "Cate Blanchett loves ravioli."

We were chatting and taking in all the sights our eyes could handle. My focus was ahead of me. The sounds and smells filled the air. As I looked around, I saw a man getting his shoes shined.

“Dave,” I said, “do you see who that is?” We both blurted out, “Richard Grieco.”

I felt flushed and excited. He was only my favorite actor from 21 Jump Street. Not to mention the fact that he was so hot. “What should I do?" I asked. Dave said, "Go up to him and say hi.” So that is what I did.

I went up and said hi, shook his hand, and ran back to my friends. My friends all laughed and asked, "Well, what did he say?” I felt rather silly. “Well, he just smiled and didn’t say anything, and then I ran.” We all had a good laugh and headed back to our apartment on Oak Street.

More than 10 years later, Dave and I still laugh about it to this day.

Reeve smiled and thanked us, then went on to congratulate us on our environmental work. He struck me as being very tall and possessing a sort of grace that is indescribable.

A few weeks later, he suffered a tragic spinal-cord injury, but his perseverance allowed him to be a hero to many in a whole new way. When he passed away, our world lost someone very special.

I worked as a congressional page for then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA). Based on Capitol Hill, I manned the phones in his Steering and Policy office.

On this day, I'd heard that First Lady Hillary Clinton would be appearing in Statuary Hall—a round room, filled with statues, into which my office door opened. So, being a must-get-there-first kind of person, I took up sentry position outside my office door, and I waited.

Wasn't I surprised when this powerful woman entered. She was so short! My 5'10" frame towered over her 5'0"-ish body.

No newcomer to politics, Clinton posed for the cameras that followed her in, then stood to speak.

To this day, I have no idea what she spoke about. The one thing that lives with me is that this little person has a "short person" mentality—that is, be big in words to overcompensate. But in reality, she's not worth an inch more.

When I was younger, I used to make endless fun of my parents for forgetting names and dates, and with the arrogance of youth, I never believed that would ever happen to me. Then, when I hit 40, it did indeed start happening to me. “What’s that movie with that guy who does the thing?” I now asked friends. Always just out of reach, and right on the tip of my tongue—it would take me hours or even days sometimes to retrieve the lost information somewhere in the pop-culture section of my brain. Oh, dear.

So I was ready to march over to this woman that I knew I knew, determined to jog my memory, when my friend stopped me. “That’s Mary-Louise Parker, from Weeds.”

Ah, yes, the familiar face from my television family. It’s alarming how comfortable we are with perfect strangers, just because we see them in a weekly series or a film. We completely relate to the character and, as the filmmaker intends, we are drawn into their world, temporarily forgetting our own. So with advancing age, reality and fiction sometimes collide. Luckily, this time around, I collected myself before making that embarrassing social faux pas.

I vowed never to venture out unescorted by protective friends again whenever I might encounter the odd celebrity—which in this town could be anywhere. Good thing I have lots of friends.

Each evening about 5:00, Montgomery strutted from the Chief of Staff’s entrance to his waiting limousine. His driver opened the rear door and saluted. The big car then cruised past a group of drivers standing near their staff cars, waiting to pick up VIP passengers. Everyone snapped to attention and saluted when the famous warrior—who’d chased General Rommel across North Africa—passed by.

About a year later, Montgomery made a trip to England, and a driver friend of mine was ordered to pick up the field marshal’s flight crew at a Paris hotel and take them to Orly Field. The hotel was almost impossible to locate in a maze of one-way streets. He searched frantically for an hour before finding it. Despite his best efforts, the flight crew arrived at Orly a half-hour late.

The airplane wasn’t ready to depart when Montgomery boarded, and he became furious and berated the crew. The pilot explained that their driver had been late in picking them up. That didn’t mollify the big man. He placed an in-flight call to the colonel in charge of American troops supporting the headquarters.

“Your driver failed to pick up my flight crew on time and delayed my departure," Montgomery barked. "I want the man court-martialed and reduced in rank.”

The colonel gave the only acceptable answer: “Yes, sir.”

The driver, a career soldier, was convicted of failure to perform his duty by a U.S. Army court, despite lack of any evidence of intent on his part. He was reduced in rank from specialist to PFC.

As a specialist, he had the right for his wife to accompany him on a foreign assignment, and she was in the process of joining him in France. A PFC was not eligible to bring his family. My friend was devastated when her authorization was canceled, and he served another year in Paris, separated from her.

Our group of drivers got the word and reacted to the injustice, starting the next day. We watched Montgomery climb into his limousine and pull away from the entrance. When he approached the drivers, we scrambled into vehicles to avoid saluting the tyrant. We repeated this performance every evening for the six months I remained at SHAPE.

Field Marshal Montgomery always stared straight ahead when he passed our display of disrespect. He never gave me the satisfaction of seeing him acknowledge our protest of his abuse of power.

His only request was "to see everything in Home Alone." So there we were in the middle of NYC, at a traffic light between two large trucks. Dave in the back, Terry in the front, and me behind the wheel of my powerful new Mustang GT.

I played the brakes and gas, and as soon as the light turned green I let go of the brake. The tires squealed, and I heard Dave yell, "Hey, there's Jennifer Aniston!" The spinning tires gave me just enough time to let go of the gas, since my brain had already told my foot, "Floor it!"

Jen and her huge bodyguard casually strolled past me to the sidewalk while I tried to get my heartbeat back below 200. I'm an aspiring screenwriter, and it would've sucked to go down in history as the guy who killed Jennifer Aniston. She has no idea how close she came.