Well, well, well.

My life is full of celebrity moments. No big deal.

When I say "full of celebrity moments," here is what I actually mean: four celebrity moments. But I'm only 20, so that averages out to one every 5 years. And actually, all of these celebrity moments have happened in the past year, now that I think about it. So, when I say that my life is full of celebrity moments, what I really mean is that this past year has been full of celebrity moments and that I expect that number to grow exponentially as I grow more and more famous (which I will achieve either through a. writing and directing b. being a stand-up comedian c. making really great salads or d. being an awesome rock star).

Let me cut to the chase. Here are my celebrity moments. (I'm not counting the time I met Kirk Cameron because, let's be honest, he probably doesn't count.)

Moment The First

The setting: last summer at Lollapalooza. Most of the bands that Melanie (one of my best friends) and I were most excited about drew HUGE crowds, so we didn't get overwhelmingly close. We were pretty far forward for Ben Folds (far enough forward that we didn't have to rely on the giant screens to perceive his talented performance) and even closer for The Decemberists (so close that they seemed like actual people and not little dolls) but she and I got to the stage EXTRA early to see the Kaiser Chiefs, who are a fantastically wonderful band. We weren't pressed right up against the stage, but we were pressed right up against the railing that housed the technicians and photographers. That is how I managed to touch Ricky Wilson, the lead singer. The band put on one of the best shows I've ever seen, with Mr. Wilson climbing up the scaffolding on the sides of the stage and twice running into the crowd.
The first time I just stood there, basically paralyzed with adoration. There he was, right in front of me! The crowd surged to support him as he climbed up on top of the railing and sang his face off. It was only after he retreated to the stage that I realized I had missed my opportunity to touch the rockingest rock star I'd ever seen.
(You're really worried right now, I can tell, but this story is going to end up with me touching Ricky Wilson, so don't worry.) (And when I say touching I don't mean it in a pervy way.)
I wasn't too heartbroken about the whole thing because I'm not exactly a touching kind of person in that I don't make touching people I admire a goal in life. In fact, I was a little bit glad that I didn't touch Mr. Wilson because I don't think I would like being touched by random people all that much, but then again I don't walk into crowds of adoring fans basically asking for them to touch me. Regardless of my feelings on the subject, Ricky Wilson sang a few songs, and then made his way into the crowd once again.
The only explanation I can give for my actions is that he was so absolutely magnetic that my hand flew up and attached itself to his sweaty back. It stayed there as long as he did. I rationalized this action by pointing out to myself that there wasn't anything supporting the rock star as he balanced on the fence, and without my help he might very well have fallen and been trampled by the screaming fans. I guess you could say, in fact, that I saved Ricky Wilson's life, which is a bit more than just a moment.
After the concert, I held out my hand to Melanie. "I touched him!" I said, feigning fangirlishness. "His sweat is on my hand!" Without missing a beat, Melanie rubbed my hand, which actually was dripping with the sweat of Ricky Wilson, all over her face. So that was cool.

Moment The Second

I'm pretty sure I already wrote about this, so here's the scoop: I met Neil Gaiman and gave him a get well soon card.

Moment The Third

Pretty much right after school was out, I was up really late one Thursday night because CollegeHumor was pulling a comedy all-nighter, and they were doing a live webcast of people just hanging out between shoots. I love CollegeHumor. I'm probably going to Hell for it, but I love CollegeHumor. Some of the funniest people with whom I am in love (because basically my only requirements for true love are being really funny and/or being British, I guess) work for CollegeHumor. All through the night, you could tweet them your phone number and they might call you. At first I was like, "There's no way I'm tweeting my phone number, that's crazy, I don't want to get stalked. Also I don't have a Twitter account." (This was before I had a Twitter account, in case you were reading and got all confused because I have a Twitter account. I have a Twitter account.) But then Pat Cassels was all, "Hey, here's some trivia, and we'll call the first person to answer it. Who was Beatle George Harrison's first wife?"
Of course I knew that his first wife was Pattie Boyd. I also know that he met her while filming Hard Day's Night. I also know that both the Beatles movies made quite an impact on his life, because not only did he meet his first wife through the first movie, he also was introduced to Indian music through the second movie, Help!, and Indian influences became an incredibly important part of his musical career, causing the song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) to be the first pop song featuring the sitar as a prominent instrument. This interest in India eventually sparked an interest in Indian religions for all the Beatles, who eventually flew to India to spend time under the tutelage of Maharaji Mahesh. A lot of the songs on the While Album stemmed from the time in India, including Dear Prudence, Bungalow Bill and Sexy Sadie, whose titular character was originally named Maharaji, because John Lennon felt betrayed by the revelation that the Maharaji was hitting on his female followers and wasn't all pure of heart and such.
All of these things I could have told Pat, and almost did! Unfortunately, just before I completed my account, someone else sent in the answer, and they received the phone call. And they probably just Wikipedia'd it.
That meant that I was forced to spend the entire night trying to connive the various staff members of CollegeHumor.com into calling me, getting more and more desperate as the morning approached. The tweet that finally got their attention, sent at 4:00 in the morning, read "My life is a joke."
But it got Gale Beggy to call me! And I spent the most ecstatic 30 seconds of my life talking to Gale Beggy as people threw glasses of water into her face. Great. Day.

Moment The Fourth

The most recent of these celebrity encounters isn't nearly as entertaining or dramatic, but whatever, it inspired this post, so I guess I'll write about it.
Once again, I was up late on facebook and Twitter, and saw a tweet from Amir Blumenfeld, who I am following. It said, "Late shoot with @Kal_penn, tweet us your questions in the next ten minutes."
I LOVE Kal Penn (whose name, incidentally, is not Kal Penn but Kalpen Modi. He took his stage name as a joke, claiming that a more traditional Americanized name would get him more job offers. BUT the joke was on him because it actually did. Never underestimate the power of racism. Did people just somehow suddenly not realize that he was Indian?). Wow, that parenthetical digression was elaborate enough that I don't even really remember what I was talking about. I love Kal Penn, okay? The day he committed suicide was the day I stopped watching House. My roommate Sarah can attest to this.
So, I tweeted him a pretty lame question, which was "What is the best song you can think of right now?" My reasoning was that firstly you can tell a lot about someone by the music they like and secondly, it's really hard to think of the BEST SONG EVER, so I took the pressure off a little by just making it off the top of his head. I'm sure he appreciated the courtesy.
I didn't expect him to get back to me, but he did! His two word response of "Mika's Rain" elicited the most happiness from the littlest amount of effort that has ever taken place in human history. I wanted to tweet back, complimenting him on his musical taste (because Mika is great) and also mentioning that, in case he was wondering, his most attractive features to me are his inquisitive eyebrows and his thoughtful voice. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to express my fandom in 140 characters or less, and when I thought about ways to shorten my thoughts, I realized my sentiment was a tad on the creepy side, so I just sat in silence.

So, there they are. Exhaustedly enumerated, my celebrity moment have been documented for generations and generations to glance at before thinking, "tl;dr" and going back to their twitterbooks and YouBlogs.

(Oh, also, when I was 12 I had lunch with Tamora Pierce, but that's a kind of long story and probably not that many people care, even though it was the best lunch of my life. Oh my gosh, that was a really great day.)