I am, by nature, a list maker. I love lists for both their form and their function. I love their orderliness. I love their conciseness. I love how they organize my thoughts and memories; I love how they motivate me to action.

I have several list-making books in my little library, including two of my favorites All About Me and The Wish List, and I just recently added a new one, Listography: Your Life in Lists.

While I would love to say that I will definitely someday pen my memoir (it’s number 88 on my Life To-Do), just in case I never actually get around to writing it, I feel like Listography will do a good job of telling My Story to my children and my children’s children. It may even help me get my thoughts organized enough to actually get my memoir written. Who knows?

Sitting down with the book for the first time, I flipped through its 150-ish pages and picked a sort of easy one to start with, but when I couldn’t come up with anything to fill the lines of List Your Character Flaws, I decided to do List Famous People You’ve Encountered instead. (shut up.)

I will share that list with you. Let’s start now.

ACTUALLY MET / CHATTED UP / PHOTOGRAPHED / HAD SIGN A PIECE OF PAPER

1. Ricky Schroder and 2. Alfonso Ribeiro (Circus Circus, Las Vegas, 1985)

THE STORY, PART ONE: I am fourteen years old. I am on a road-trip style vacation with my mother, brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother, and two cousins. We stop at Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas for some entertainment and an all-you-can-eat buffet. After much consuming of the boiled shrimp and chocolate pudding, we head for the show under the big top and I spot Ricky Schroder and Alfonso Ribeiro walking my direction. Their TV show “Silver Spoons” is in it’s heydey so I am giddy, and I approach them with a gaggle (swarm? school?) of butterflies in my tummy. I timidly ask Ricky Schoder for his autograph. He says, “I’m sorry, I’m not signing any autographs tonight.” I turn bright red and walk away. In the process, I have ignored Alfonso Ribeiro altogether, not knowing that HE is the real star because HELLO HE IS THE FUTURE CARLTON BANKS. I would like to take a moment right now and apologize to Alfonso for COMPLETELY DISSING him that one time in 1985, and to tell Ricky that he will now and forever be known as The Celebrity Who Humiliated Some D-List Blogger When She Was Fourteen.

3. Lauri Hendler (Circus Circus, Las Vegas, 1985)

THE STORY, PART TWO: After being shunned by Ricky Schroder, I drown my sorrows in a Sprite (on the rocks), while my family finds a spot for us to stand and watch the circus act. Before the show starts, I see Lauri Hendler, of “Gimme a Break” fame, and spend a good fifteen minutes working up the courage (thanks, Ricky) to approach her for an autograph. I finally DO ask her, and she responds, “I’m sorry, I’m not signing any autographs tonight.” ONLY KIDDING. She said “sure.” Proof:

I would like to take a moment right now to thank Lauri for her graciousness that night, and to tell her that I always DID like her more than that douchebag Ricky Schroder.

4. Lorenzo Lamas (Darryl Starbird’s 22nd Annual Hot Rod & Custom Car Show, Tulsa, 1986)

THE STORY: I was at Darryl Starbird’s 22nd Annual Hot Rod & Custom Car Show and I know you are asking what in the Sam Hill I was doing there and I already told you. Lorenzo Lamas was there.
SIDENOTE: See the guy in the picture with the comb-over and the Tom Selleck mustache sitting next to Lorenzo? His single solitary role in the process was to ask each starstruck teenager and/or drooling cougar person in the autograph line her name and to write it on the back of the picture, so Lorenzo could pretend to know her name and how to spell it when she sat down. I wonder how much he got paid to do that. And where to apply for that job.

I would like to take a moment right now to say LORENZO, BABY, I STILL haven’t seen you in So. Cal.! No matter how long I waited and waited outside the gates of your Bel Air mansion and also those times I tried to sneak onto the lot where you taped “Are You Hot?” LORENZO! I AM YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN! I’M NOT GOING TO BE IGNORED, LORENZO.

5. Sam Kinison (Buttons Records & Tapes, Tulsa, 1987)

THE STORY: Did you know my first job was as a salesgirl-slash-cashier at Buttons Records & Tapes (formerly Peaches) here in Tulsa? And did you also know that Sam Kinison’s parents live here in Tulsa? And that, in the years before he was killed by a drunk driver, Sam used to come visit his folks in Tulsa and one day he went shopping for a WHAM! album at Buttons just like regular folk? And that if you had been a salesgirl-slash-cashier at Buttons while Sam was shopping there that you could have asked him to do his “SAY IT! SAY IT!” line from Back to School and get him to autograph a Buttons sales flyer? Neither did I. But that’s exactly what I did.

I would like to take a moment right now to tell Sam Kinison that I am so very sorry some extremely selfish and totally stupid excuse for a human being made the choice to drive drunk and ended your life in the process, that I hope you are resting in peace, and that I KNOW you didn’t really buy a WHAM! album that day. It was actually Def Leppard.

6. Garth Brooks and 7. Trisha Yearwood (Barnes & Noble, Tulsa, 2002)

THE STORY: I was Christmas shopping at the Tulsa Barnes & Noble on Yale, the one I never go to because the one on 71st is closer to my house, and I was trying to pay for my purchase but the cashier was taking FOREVER to ring me up since she was babbling ON AND ON about something that I was totally ignoring while pretending to dig through my purse for gum hoping that she would kindly SHUT-UP and hit the TOTAL BUTTON and when it became apparent that she was not going to hit TOTAL until I acknowledged her babble I looked up and said “I’m sorry, what?” And she whispered in CIA top-secret fashion through gritted teeth “Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are shopping right — over — there,” pointing to them with her eyes and a nod of her head. Which, yeah, totally got my attention. Because them’s some mighty famous country-sangin people and I totally went through a Garth-loving phase. Also because the two of them were still in their “We’re just friends” phase and now here they were — together — picking out stocking stuffers down to the Barnes & Noble. YEEHAW. Anyway, I borrowed a pen from the cashier, grabbed a blank journal in a Christmas theme off one of the shelves, and walked right up and asked them for their autographs (screw you, Ricky) which they gladly gave me after introducing themselves with smiles and handshakes, and making small talk for a few minutes. I had them sign it to my kids (this was pre-Katelynn) because I thought it would be a cute stocking stuffer, and also because, after chatting with them, they seemed kind of like friends to me and it would be stupid to ask for an autograph from a friend. In my opinion anyway.

I would like to take a moment right now to say HOLLA! Garth and Trish! It’s your old pal, Jenny! From Barnes & Noble on Yale! Remember that one Christmas in 2002 when we got to know each other? Yeah, I could totally tell right then that the whole “We’re just friends” thing was a BIG FAT LIE, but I kept your secret all this time. You are welcome. Call me.

MERE BRUSHES WITH FAME (yes, they do too count)

8. Wynonna Judd (Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, 1999)

This one time, Rob and I went on a vacation to Las Vegas and we went to Caesar’s (or, I don’t know, Harrah’s maybe) to play War and we won $40 and I said let’s stop while we’re ahead so we took our winnings and walked away and on our way out of the casino some lady with crazy hair and a fanny pack grabbed me by the arm and squealed “Wynonna Judd is coming this way! Look!” So Rob and I stopped walking and watched in boredom wonder as a group of ten or fifteen three-hundred-pound men in black suits with earpieces walked circled around someone, who was supposedly Wynonna Judd, right by us. It was awesome.

9. Rick Springfield (concert, Million Dollar Elm Casino, Tulsa, 2008)

And this other time, I went to a Rick Springfield concert at a casino in a questionable part of Tulsa to, you know, give him ONE MORE CHANCE to propose since he passed up those opportunities I gave him back in 1984 and 1985 and this time not only did he NOT propose (AGAIN), but while singing “Human Touch” he walked on chairs through the audience and came within SIX! FREAKING! INCHES! of touching my hand and all I can say is Rick? We ALL need the HUMAN TOUCH. I need it too.
(Photo credit: Soup is Not a Finger Food)

10. dooce and 11. Jon Armstrong (BlogHer, San Francisco, 2008)

Finally, the most recent time I shared an oxygenated room brushed elbows with a celebrity was at a BlogHer conference. I was in a standing-room-only breakout session moderated by Maggie Mason, when one of the attendees stood up to make a comment, the gist of which was something about blog readership and internet fame, and at the end she says something like, “I am a huge fan of Dooce, but Heather Armstrong is not here right now, because we would all be like, ‘AHHHH!’” at which point Maggie (a friend of Heather’s) gracefully interrupted and said “Actually, she is here. In the back.” at which point we all turned to ogle Heather, the mother of all mommybloggers (as I like to refer to her), who was approximately ten people over and seven rows back from where I was sitting, so, yeah, SO VERY VERY CLOSE!!!! And her husband, Jon, was right beside her. Heather said, “I just want to take this time to prove that I am, in fact, a real person.” which I had suspected all along but was relieved to have had confirmed. Anyway, Maggie turned back to the original commenter with a smile and a well-timed “AWKWARD.” And we all laughed. Good times, good times.

So, I’m dying to know, which celebrities have YOU actually met / chatted up / photographed / had sign a piece of paper and/or had mere brushes with in your lifetime? Leave me a comment and tell me everything.