Sometimes I forget

I often forget that I know famous people. It's not any fault of my own, it's that I went to a college that spits out performers, some percentage of whom are bound to be famous. But I don't typically run in those circles so it always catches me by surprise when I see one of my old classmates in a movie or a commercial or a tv show.

For example, a couple of weeks ago I was looking at some wedding photos from a college friend's recent wedding. The pictures of her bridesmaids made me stop short. I checked the tags in the picture (thank you facebook!) for the name of one of the bridesmaids and then checked imdb.com. I had seen a few episodes of "Drop Dead Diva" and, lo and behold, one of my friend's bridesmaids plays the main character on that show.

Earlier this year I was watching the Tony Awards pre-thingy. I knew he was doing a new show but I had no idea my old college friend Chad (with whom I share a birthday) was nominated for a Tony for his role in the musical "Memphis"! Yay Chad! (I promptly congratulated him on facebook.)

Last November, I was canvassing in San Francisco for a local election and walked by a store that had the cover of a magazine taped in the front window. The picture on the cover of that magazine stopped me in my tracks. My walking partner asked me what was wrong as I walked up to the window. "That's my college room mate" is what came out of my very shocked mouth. Yup, Florian is not only a well-loved German TV star (a German McDreamy if you will), but also a film star. He was in San Francisco the week before promoting two of his films. One mainstream (with one of my favorite German actors) and one independent one he wrote and directed himself. Very exciting!!! Unfortunately I missed him by one week. It would have been great to see him and catch up.

I recently began watching the TV show "Mad Men" on Netflix. Tonight I was watching episode 5 from season 1. About half way through, a new character was introduced and I completely lost my concentration as I said - out loud - "Andy? Andy Hoff?" So, I hit pause and checked imdb again. Sure enough. Another fellow TBC graduate.

It's nice to see so many of my college friends doing what they always dreamed of doing. Makes me proud.