true life: i met an olsen twin

During my first year at college, I lived in a building called Hartley.  Hartley is the site of the Living Learning Center, which sounded really great in theory.  Groups of thirteen or so residents, of mixed age and gender, would live together in a suite, share a kitchen and two bathrooms, and receive funds to do cultural stuff together.  You know, like eat Indian food or watch foreign movies or go see a Japanese art exhibit. 

It never quite worked out that way.  Mostly we tried to figure out ways to launder that money so we could buy kegs and have parties. 

I digress.  There were two football players who shared a room in my suite in Hartley.  They were both from California.  One was a surfer dude, one was from LA.  It took only a few days after we all moved in for word to circulate around the suite that the one from LA was in a relationship with Ashley Olsen!  Yes, THE Ashley Olsen. 

The one we all grew up with as Michelle on Full House.

As the fall wore on, it became clear that LA dude and Ashley Olsen had a pretty typical late-teenage romance:  lots of fighting, lots of making up, lots of existential angst.  Ashley was still in high school in California at this point, so they were long-distance as well.  Until she came to visit!

Her visit was unannounced, so I was shocked to walk out of the bathroom with my hair dripping wet, and come face to face with a celebrity!  I smiled, but she didn't smile back.  She looked kind of sad.  I may have just been projecting or imagining things, but she looked like she was sick of everyone looking at her.  As much as I hate celebrities who complain about people wanting to know about them (ooohhh, being famous is soooo harddddd . . . then don't be famous, or just move to Idaho like Demi and Ashton), there was a palpable sense of wariness and heaviness about her.

If I remember correctly, that visit was when LA roommate and Ashley finally broke up for good, so I never saw her again.  But I do have our one little chance meeting as my claim to fame!