My older sister and I were both teenagers that read a lot of books and talked about them all the time. I went through a sci-fi/fantasy phase around that age and read almost everything our library had on the shelves. So I read a lot of the Piers Anthony books that were out at the time. But I was maybe 12 and didn’t get that the Xanth series was intended to be, well, satirical; I just thought it was silly but didn’t really pick up the deeper layers. So around that age I started learning more about sexism, and as one does, I started noticing it everywhere around me. And suddenly I realized that these books I had been reading were blatantly mysogynist – all the women were stock female stereotypes (as were, of course, all the other characters). I was so mad I stopped reading his books entirely and never bothered to pick them up again.

So my sister and I wrote a *scathing* letter to Anthony, calling him a sexist pig and citing specific examples from some of the Xanth books. I am not even joking, we totally called the guy names (and our vocabulary at the time was not very advanced for that sort of insult-flinging, but we did our best! It was, I am SURE, a hilariously teenaged letter). And he WROTE BACK. Somewhere I still have his letter saved, maybe in a box in my parents’ attic… Anyway, he was a very good sport about two young teenage girls calling him a sexist pig, and he explained that the books were intended to be satirical. I never went back and read more of his stuff to see if I bought that argument, but it’s not like my critical readings were very advanced at the time anyway… And then he gave us the mailing address of a Piers Anthony fan club president who was our age and had written to him on the same day, because he thought we’d have interesting conversations. ha!

Plus I saw Doug Wilson from Trading Spaces on the street not that long ago. And I think I saw Rami from Project Runway in DSW in Union Square but I’m not 100% sure it was him, he squeezed past me while I was waiting and I didn’t get a good enough look to be sure.

Other than that…I’ve seen Broardway shows with famous people in them…John Lithgow, Ben Vareen (sp?) and Clay Aiken. Plus I went to a Daily Show taping so I was like 10 ft from Jon Stewart. And Howard Dean, cuz he was the guest.

I was at the 100th Anniversary celebration for Milkbone (I’m cool) and they had a Charm City Cake (Ace of Cakes, anyone?) shaped like a dog biscuit. I walked past Geoff and said “I love your show” and he said “Thanks.” I squeed because I love that show. And the cake was really frickin good.

I haven’t been friends with any famous people, but I’ve run into a couple living in NYC and I’ve met and chatted with some at organized events, like cons.

(Although I do have some friends who semi-famous in ‘net and computer science circles.)

I’ve run into (almost literally) Harrison Ford, Moby and Tom Green.

I’ve chatted with Joss Whedon (he signed my Buffy yearbook “Have a nice summer”), J. Michael Strazinski, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (both awesome), went on a cruise with Christine Lavin (folk singer), and met Harvey Keitel at a cocktail party. (Just told him I like his work.) I’ve talked to Elizabeth Bear in email (she’s a sci-fi writer) and a super nice person.

Anyway, I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. So, there are certain folks you just get used to seeing (or did at the time, I haven’t even visited there since my Gramma dies 6 years ago. ). The first is former IU basketball coach Bob Knight. While I never have understood the need to be so agressively belligerent, he was always very friendly to me (I was a kid, though), and everyone talked about how nice he was (except my dad who still says he was an asshole on the golf course. lol), the other is John Mellencamp.

See, if you lived in Bloomington in the 80′s-early 90′s, you just got used to seein’ him and his family around town doing normal people stuff. So it stopped even being worthy of note, you know?

But the only time I ever spoke to the man was one summer day, I was sitting in the College Mall with my younger brother, I was 18ish, so my bro would have been 14ish. He was ranting, vigorously and at great length about how all the hot girls ended up dating gross dirty guys. And in the middle of his speech, he pointed at a couple walking towards us and said, “SEE?!” I looked up, and without thinking just said, “John, Elaine, how’s it going?” And Mr. Mellencamp was all, “Good, it’s going good. You kids have a good afternoon.”

My brother is *Still* mortified by that whole incident and it was almost 20 years ago. /laugh

But otherwise no famous folks for me. *shrug*

And you folks going to Dragoncon!! I’m jealous!! For the sole reason that my current fave band, Emerald Rose, is gonna be there, and has been there for several years, I guess. I <3 them a lot, in a completely weird fangirly sorta way.

Well, if horses count, I met Misty of Chincoteague and her famous offspring Stormy when I was five. I loved the Marguerite Henry books and my family spent our summer vacation that year at Pony Penning Day on Chincoteague Island, and not only did I meet Misty (who was very old at the time), but fed her some hay. My parents still have a picture of me feeding her.

Several of the folks I went to HS with went on to become celebrities of one form or another, but I don’t think that counts as meeting celebrities, because they sure weren’t famous when I knew them!

I meet boys in bands a lot, after gigs. I’m not usually star struck because they’re the type of bands who are generally thrilled people have turned up, so I usually just say how great they are. I did tell Carl from the Libertines that he had changed my life (which is true, I became a fan and really turned a corner), which made us both feel good, really.

Sarah, I made out with Craig. I wasn’t really sure I should tell the story at all and then the first draft of my comment – yeah, I write drafts, shut up – didn’t say what band it was, but the story got too convoluted. And so then I didn’t say which twin. But THEN I googled them (after reading some comment on here about how someone couldn’t tell their story because it would show up in google results, and I got all paranoid) and turns out Craig’s messing around with fans is, err, not unique to me. So anyway.

Charlie was there briefly and was very pleasant and shy and had a beer and then went back to the hotel (alone) and generally seemed like a normal guy.