Kristy Hanson

I have a very strange knack for running into famous or even semi-famous people in public restrooms.

Back in 2004, my first LA celebrity sighting transpired in the restroom of the Laemmle theatre at 8000 Sunset, where I’d just seen Napoleon Dynamite (eh. Don’t get why everyone loved that movie) with my friend Jocelyn. As I walked into the bathroom stall, Paris Hilton was walking out of it. No joke. It takes you a while to realize that when you run into someone who looks like a celebrity out here, it probably is a celebrity…so it took a second to sink in. But it was definitely her, so tan, so blond, and SO (perhaps too) thin. Really tiny, not that short, but shorter than I would have thought. Talking on her cell phone, I think, about having gotten home from partying at 7 am that morning. It sounds soobvious that it’s possible I just made that up, but I did hear something about 7 am. :)

It was shortly after that that I realized with great certainty that paparazzi are lame beyond belief. It was a Sunday evening, and Paris was coming out of the Virgin megastore with a tiny bag and these 3 photographers were just going crazy. As I watched the whole scene, it was like, “Wow. Could this be more boring?”

But I digress.

The next time it happened was at the restroom of Largo on a night when we went to see Dave Palmer. Fiona Apple was there, purely as an audience member, and as I was walking out of the restroom (it’s a one-stall affair), she was walking in, to the point where we both kind of giggled because we almost slammed right into each other. I was on slightly higher ground, but I think she’s actually shorter than me. Talk about tiny. She’s adorable, actually, and all I wanted to do was scream, “you’re so awesome! You’re so amazing! You mean so much to me,” or something equally foolish and stalker-like. I held back.

I sort of have it in my mind that I almost ran into Aimee Mann near the restroom of Largo, too, but I may be making that up. I was equally nerdily excited to see her at Largo that one night, though. (I should really get over it–our engineer for the album has worked with her tons and I’d venture to say they’re friends, and then there I am feeling like I’m going to fall off my stool just because she’s 10 feet away.)

At Hotel Cafe, just before Vienna Teng went on to play, I almost slammed into her on her way out of the bathroom in that same, “Oh, geez, sorry,” way.

And finally, a repeat of the Fiona run-in; she was coming out when I was going in this time. Then in between Dave Palmer’s songs, I got up to go the restroom again and saw her jump up from her table not far away and beat me there. I seriously considered turning around and pretending I hadn’t just gotten up to use the restoom. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed me anyway, but I felt like such a stalker, and what a sad way to stalk someone–by following them to the restroom. I thought about how on this new show called “Iconoclasts” Fiona laughs about how her whole life is trying to avoid awkward moments, which actually happen to her all the time in spite of that…awkward indeed. Story of my life!