Years ago I was walking my dog, a bull mastiff, in one of the parks the Santa Monica mountains and Steve Martin was walking his dog, also. We stopped and had a brief but nice talk about our dogs. He petted my dog a bit and I petted his. It was lovely.

I went to a party when I was in seventh grade at my parents' friends house. Very boring adult party. I was in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the time, and my host said, "Oh, you should talk to Richard, he's an actor." I nodded, and did not go off to talk to Richard, a strange adult I did not know. Richard later came up to me, introduced himself, asked me about my play. He was very nice. We ran lines for a bit, and he'd done a lot of Shakespeare, so he actually had all kinds of useful, interesting advice that helped me immensely, to this day, with reading and thinking about Shakespeare. Later we found out that Richard was Richard Moll, then on Night Court as Bull. He had a beard and hair, and I had not recognized him at all. YEARS later, party at same friends of parents' house, he walks up to me and asks me how my play went.

I grew up in the LA area, so through proximity alone, I've had a number of dumb brushes with famous people, but that is by far the nicest any sort-of famous person ever was to me.

In person, I was a crying sobbing mess when I met Jonathan Frakes at NYCC this year, so that's not all that cute. My meet-cutiest is probably when I tweeted at Richard Karn that he was my favorite Family Feud host (after being dragged into an at-reply conversation with him by a friend of mine) and he replied to me with "#1 answer!"

Or the fact that Scott Conant favorited a tweet in which I swooned pretty openly about him. It's like he touched my heart.

This is so LA, but I've many times been helped out driving/parking by celebrities. I think of them as the Celebrity Driving Brigade. For example, John Lithgow very kindly stopped and waved me in after I'd spent about 5 mins waiting to turn onto Sunset.

I once had a pleasant 20 minute conversation with Mark Ruffalo at a bar on the UWS without realizing it was him cause he had the world's worst dye job.

I met Lynda Carter! A friend of mine at the time worked for Bethesda Softworks, and they were having a release party for Fallout 2 that she dragged me to. Lynda Carter is married to their CEO, and she was there, and I met her, and somehow she got going about Sarah Palin (this was in 2008, and she had recently compared herself to Wonder Woman, which Lynda Carter DID NOT approve of), and it was awesome!

1.) I was at a music festival and 3/5ths of the Olivia Tremor Control started a conversation with me. Very friendly guys. They were one of my favorite bands!

Earlier that day their tuba/guitar player Scott Spillane (also from Neutral Milk Hotel) gave me the stink eye when my friend and I waved at him and gave him a thumbs up. What a grump!

2.) After the Gallagher episode of WTF, I emailed Marc Maron a story about Gallagher getting forcefully ejected from a bar. Here's the email he sent me back, in full:

Ha!
Hilarious
Thanks
Marc

I saw Harrison Ford once while he was filming in DC. Alas, teen me could not get past my knee-wobbling crush on him and ask him for an autograph. I also went to the Avengers premiere in New York with some friends a few years ago- you don't get to have anything approaching a normal human interaction there, but Tom Hiddleston and Mark Ruffalo stick out in my mind as being pleasant and gracious to the hordes of us out there. And Cobie Smulders and Taran Killam were there and were just RIDICULOUSLY nice to absolutely everyone. I still think longingly on occasion of an alternate universe somewhere where we're all friends who get together intermittently to eat takeout and watch bad movies on Netflix.

ETA: I grew up in DC and had multiple boring political run-ins during my childhood, the pinnacle of which was when Ted Kennedy's car ran through our church picnic. (It was parked on a hill above the picnic, and his daughter accidentally hit the parking brake while she was climbing through it….anyhow nobody got hurt and the verger saved the day by sprinting after it and pulling the brake.)

I was working at a small art gallery many years ago, and we were showing sculptures by an artist who worked with thin sheets of metal bent into figures and so forth. One slow night, an older fellow with a British accent, casually dressed, wearing a gray wool cap, is in the gallery looking around. He comes up and asks me about the artist's construction technique, and we get into a longish discussion about metalworking and gardening tools and how his garden is working out and so on. He finally says, "oh, my wife wants to leave — nice talking to you," and heads out. After he'd left, my coworkers did the whole "DID YOU KNOW WHO THAT WAS" thing. Apparently I'd spent the better part of fifteen minutes talking to George Harrison about pop rivets. Nice guy.

A couple years ago my friend was clipped by a Sprouse twin riding his bike (naturally this was at NYU).

I have also seen Julian Casablancas a bunch of times around the city; once I was in a deli and he came in with his little dog despite the "no pets" sign.

So I was seven years old at the mall with my mom, and while we're in the candy store we see this tall couple wearing long coats and sunglasses with a ton of shopping bags. My mom is gawking at them trying to figure out what's going on when, of course, she trips over Every. Single. Bag like exploding fashion dominos. She makes eye contact with an angry Bobby Brown and yoinks me across the corridor to the GameStop.

Then she rummaged around her purse and sent me on an important mission: to get the tall lady to sign my spelling test. Whitney Houston signed my spelling test with a smiley face. My primary memory of this is her sunglasses, which had a fork and a spoon on the sides and which I'll covet forever.

One time i met the Amazing Randi at a skeptic's conference, and I accidentally stole his seat, and then when I tried to give it back his boyfriend seemed to think I was trying to get Randi all to myself. SO EMBARRASSING.

I've seen quite a few celebrities at Disneyland – Nathan Fillion, Chris Hardwick, and Adam Sandler – but just saw, not spoke to or anything.

However, I did have a great NYC story. We had gotten tickets to see Boeing Boeing a couple of years ago and ended up eating lunch at a restaurant nearby. About halfway through, they seat a guy at the next table. Turns out it's Bradley Whitford, who was in the show. We finished our meal, and as we were getting up, he made eye contact and smiled. We said, politely, that we were looking forward to the show that evening. He was excited and said he'd give us a shoutout at the end of the show. We said we were sitting right down front.

That night, during the curtain call, he did point to us and wave, which was super cool. We waited after the show to get our programs signed (Mary McCormack and Christine Baranski were also super cool), and Bradley came out and came right over, asking if we'd seen his shoutout. It was a pretty awesome experience, and then we talked for ten minutes about his folding bike.

So, in conclusion, Bradley Whitford is pretty cool and I'm mad they cancelled Trophy Wife!

A few years ago, when I was working at the Pirate Store in San Francisco, Ellen Paige came in with a couple of her friends. At the time, we had a bunch of jaw harps in stock, and I made it my mission to sell it to everyone I possibly could, as I could actually play it passably well. I kind of became a fanatic about it, even though no one else cared about jaw harp sales. To me, every customer was a potential jaw harp owner.

Ellen Paige was no exception.

The moment that will stay with me until my final breath was when I was demonstrating how to play it and she leaned over the counter and said, "wait, let me see your mouth." SWOON. I kind of went into a fugue state afterwards, but I'm pretty sure she ended up buying a jaw harp of her very own.

My mom's a flight attendant who worked the LA to NYC route for years. She used to get celebrities to sign napkins for me. She loves to tell the story about Michael Jordan running through the Chicago airport at the height of his career with the Bulls. Also, Fergie is very short and Demi Moore once tried to force open the cockpit (which she mistook for the bathroom?) almost got tased by and air marshal.

1) There is a lovely Vermont-based singer, Anais Mitchell, who opened for Paula Cole in my tiny (TINY) hometown a few of years ago. She was incredible, even better than Paula. I got both their signatures, and since I was first in line, I exchanged a couple words with both of them. Flash forward two years, where I have dragged my friend to a weird, lovely, tiny concert in a person's house in Western Massachusetts to see Anais Mitchell perform. Before she played to a room of about 25 people we chatted in the kitchen. During this conversation, I mentioned (while sweating and blushing) that I had seen her with Paula Cole and how awesome she was. She responded with, "Thank you! Of course I remember you."

SHE REMEMBERED ME.

2) When I was 11, my family and I went on a day trip to Quechee Gorge, VT. While searching for a place to get lunch, we wandered into the only restaurant in the area, where the owner proceeded to tell us he had just served Steven Tyler and Liv Tyler. My dad, brother, and I go racing out of the restaurant while my mother just kind of grumbles. We find them a few storefronts down (in front of a store that had a spectacular one-of-a-kind Biker Barbie on display) and my dad introduces us to them, saying, "I've been a really big fan of your music for a long time." LIES. My father never listens to Aerosmith. And my brother, trying to play it cool, as Armageddon had just come out, tells Liv Tyler how much he liked That Thing You Do.
I just stood there mutely, shaking their hands in awe. I was so overwhelmed that I forgot about how embarrassed I was by the warts on my right hand and just went straight for it. I proceeded to stare at my hand for the rest of the day, venerating it as only an awkward eleven year old girl can.

3) I saw a production of Speed the Plow (I despise you, David Mamet) in London in 2008 starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum. Afterward, when they did that whole window thingy where they chat with people, I got their signatures. Spacey was quite distant and aloof, while Goldblum was the flirtiest motherfucker you've ever seen. He complimented me on my scarf, to which I replied (to my eternal embarrassment), "Thanks, my mom gave it to me. It's cashmere." He then reached over and felt it — with gloves on, saying, "ooh, that's very nice."
I later heard stories about Spacey, as my friend's boyfriend worked at a bar near the Old Vic, but I don't know that I can trust those stories. They involved gay rumors and cocaine, though.

Not quite my story: Wynton Marsalis winked at my mom on the street a few years back. She is (understandably) quite proud of this.

When I was 24, I was *this close* to convincing my bosses to let me take a ride to NYC with Mark Hamill so I could pick up the extra autographed copies of his comic book. I lost the actual item, but I have a photograph of a Polaroid of the two of us that he signed for me. He even drew a little heart on it!

I also met Diane Keaton across the street from Carnegie Hall. She was taking a picture of something, so I paused to let her get the shot, but she waved me past. I couldn't help myself, I asked her "Are you Diane Keaton?" She replied "Yes!" I apologized for interrupting her and told her that I was a really huge fan. She told me thank you, and I was terrified I was bothering her, so I excused myself before other people caught on and it became a "thing" while she was just trying to take a photograph.

If you hang out in Bloomingdale's, NYC you'll meet everyone. Mikhail Baryshnikov a long time ago with Jessica Lange picking out baby clothes. He was sweet and friendly when I accidentally bumped into him. Jessica looked disinterested. Met Joan Lunden; she is about 6 feet tall and even prettier in person. Showed me a dress she was thinking about buying for her daughter and asked what I thought. Struck me as someone who is cool to hang out with. Yoko Ono and entourage- snotty. A woman was walking toward her and she yelled, "get away!" Will give her the benefit of the doubt because it was only a year or 2 after John Lennon was killed. Andrew Dice Clay at a local Brooklyn diner. Sat at the booth across from us. Dressed exactly like Dice character but spoke nothing like him. Regular and very nice to waiter. When they left he knocked on our table, turned back into 'Dice' and winked. Tom Jones in Vegas hanging out at the Casino. Very cool. Bought everyone drinks, hung out a while and was funny as hell. Ivanka Trump at fundraiser I attended (and worked for at the time). I didn't talk to her but I lingered and listened. Very soft-spoken and warm. She glows. I guess the best was Bette Davis about a year or so before she died. Was at Burger Heaven in Midtown and she was at a booth with someone who appeared to be a caretaker. I was obviously staring becasue I had to crank my neck around. She yelled…YES it's me! So I was so flustered I just said, "I knew it!" She then said…"And you will remember this for a long time!" I said I would and couldn't help it but i cried because i was in the presence of greatness…at Burger Heaven.

When I was working at Starbucks, Julian Bond came in with some colleagues to…idk, they were planning something, but we were super-busy. One of the women spilled her coffee, so I got her a new one, mopped up the floor, and was a huge dork and told Mr. Bond it was an honor to meet him. He looked nonplussed.

My mom, you see, keeps sending me the announcements about when he'll be doing various things at UVA next, because my mom is an A+ Civil Rights Leader fan.

I met Tim Berners-Lee (I AM A GEEK, CAN I LIVE) about a month ago. He is my hero, bar none. I was at a W3C thing – it was small, like 25 other people. He and a few others did a panel, and everyone milled about afterwards. I gulped a glass of wine and went up to him and thanked him extremely awkwardly for saving my life and making my world thrilling, and then we talked about semantic markup of books and why his book wasn't available digitally. He is a close talker – I kept backing up and he kept leaning in. I still haven't come back down to earth yet.

I mean, I also met Gene Simmons, but that was awful (and I filed it under Worst Celebrity Encounters here: http://defamer.gawker.com/1987-gene-simmons-has-a….

1. In 1997 I met Sean Lennon after a local show. I gave him a uni-ball pen to sign an autograph for me and he said, "nice pen," and I said "thanks, it's my favorite."

2. I also got Fiona Apple's autograph after a local show. She is TINY. And sweet.

3. Gloria Steinem came to my community college and I got her to sign the cover of Bust she's on.

4. The movie for Coraline did the red-carpet premiere here in Portland because that's where it was made. (Well, suburb of, but close enough.) Me and about twenty-five other Neil Gaiman fans waited next to said carpet. He'd just won the Newbury Award for The Graveyard Book, so I brought my hardcover along. He was an absolute sweetie to everyone there, taking lots of time with everyone. I congratulated him on his award and he responded, "Yes, it's very exciting isn't it?" And he asked my named, and instead of just signing The Graveyard Book, he drew a little headstone that said 'RIP April' with little grass growing around it, and THEN signed it.

5. Ursula K LeGuin did a tiny signing when she released Lavinia. I told her I was introduced to her writing by a friend who lent me her books, and Ursula responded, "That is a very good friend to have!"

6. My boyfriend works at an art supply store, and Portlandia used it for a skit. Carrie and Fred bought things and were very polite. Also a former coworker of mine rented out her house for Portlandia filming. (They literally knocked on her door and asked–she called in sick to work the next day to let them in and watch from her second floor balcony and they paid her and fed her with the cast and crew.) And an acquaintance of mine is in the "No, you go" skit–he just happened to be riding by on his tall bike and they waved him down and asked if he'd do it on camera. If you live close-in Portland long enough you see film crews for Portlandia or Grimm. Sometimes more than once.

In college I got Billy Collins to sign a book of his I'd bought at a reading. While he signed it he was like, "and what high school do you go to?" and I was like "LOL, I'M IN COLLEGE" before I realized he was joking. So basically I got trolled by a Poet Laureate.

I attended a writing workshop last fall taught by big-name sci-fi/fantasy authors & editors, all of whom were lovely and hilarious people. It very much didn't feel like a "celebrity encounter" because, y'know, workshop, but a couple incidents fit. Probably the best was when I first arrived; another student and I got there early in the morning, and since staff were still trickling in, a soft-spoken older gent named Steve (who I was vaguely aware was on staff or something) offered to drive us to the grocery store to get food for the week.

It wasn't until halfway through the ride that he mentioned his wife's name, and I finally realized, "holy shit, Steven Gould, the president of SFWA, is giving me a ride to the grocery store."

Aside from the time my family walked past Aretha Franklin in Chicago once, my celebrity encounters have all been at cons, so it's not exactly random happenstance. But still very pleasant! Walter Koenig was so little and gentle, and John Rhys Davies tickled my side while we were getting a photograph together so that I wouldn't look so nervous, and Mark Sheppard approached me during a panel and commented on my Castiel cosplay in order to make a joke at Misha Collins' expense. Good times!

Though those stories aren't as good as the time where my uncle met Robin Williams in a gym (an encounter which resulted in Robin Williams going full-out Robin Williams while my uncle laughed his ass off). Sigh.

When I was 15 I worked on a half stall-half shop in Camden Market that sold these doll's face t-shirts, and Angelina Jolie came in (leaving Billy Bob Thornton outside who if we're honest looked like he was sulking) and engaged me in conversation about them – I may or may not have given her the impression that I'd designed them. She paid in cash, it was adorable.

Also my mother got given a bottle of whiskey by Keith Moon because she was 'too pretty to be sober.'

1. A stunningly gorgeous man with a dancer's ease of movement would not wait his turn until I asked him repeatedly to please let me help the others first. Credit card: Ru Paul. 2. I walked past Eddie Izzard, got on the other side of a door, and squealed to enomever was there that I'd seen eddie. Came back out trying to be nonchalant and not look at him, but he made eye contact and grinned. He heard me. 3. Ellen DeGeneres was in a Starbucks getting coffee for several people and told the barista she didn't have any money on her. I was behind her in line and was longing to riff with her and ask her if she knew anyone there- if someone could maybe vouch for her, but I chickened out. 4. I have a photo with Chicken Man, *The* Winged Warrior, my life's dream.