25 random things about me

So far I’ve resisted Facebook’s “25 Random Things” fadlet. Look, I enjoy my navel just as much as the next guy; it’s the chain-letter aspect I object to. But I’m thinking it’s actually a useful exercise by which to introduce myself to you. So here are 25 things you didn’t ask to know about me but nevertheless may help you decide whether or not to hang with me again. Quid pro quo: throw me a random fact about yourself in the comments, won’t you?

1. I’m a recovering print journalist, most recently of TIME magazine, where I was a staff writer for eight years.

2. I’m married to a clarinet player named Chris, and we have two girls: Mika, 4, and Kana, eight months.

3. I was born and raised in Japan.

4. In 2008 I gave birth, lost my mother, and quit my job.

5. I am not in therapy.

6. I started blogging in 2006. Work in Progress was a blog about work on Time.com. My most-read post was a complaint about my employer, Time Inc., and its annual habit of forcing me and every other employee to read the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which I called porn, for which I was flamed furiously on talk radio.

7. My most-read article in TIME magazine was probably an essay on how I hate my dog. He’s a diaper-eating, rug-shredding, pee-dribbling basset hound named Hoover. I don’t really hate him, so please stop e-mailing me, angry dog lovers.

8. I have freakishly long toes. Also, they’re hairy.

9. I spent my first maternity leave crashing funerals with my baby, then wrote a book about it.

10. My childhood home was shot–twice. I mean with bullets. We lived across the street from a yakuza kingpin and were caught in the crossfire of a gangland war.

11. The resulting story on “60 Minutes”–or, moreover, the visit to our house by Diane Sawyer–made me want to become a journalist. Or so I said on my Columbia J-school application.

12. I insisted on doing my mom’s makeup for her funeral. The sparkly eyeshadow was a mistake.

13. I spoke only Japanese till I was five. Lucky, Engrish very easy to me now, think so.

14. I talk to my sister Emy at least twice a day on matters of great importance that have nothing to do with “American Idol.”

15. The tattoo on my left shoulder blade is a Japanese character that means “life.” Like most of my immutable decisions, it is not one I can explain.

16. I have 21 first cousins.

17. I usually smell of baby puke and Purell. And I like it.

18. I got my brown belt in shotokan karate when I was six months pregnant. For some reason, the other guy wouldn’t hit me.

19. My dad was a Catholic priest until his mid-30s.

20. I attended an international school in Japan called Canadian Academy, but I don’t say a-boot or eh.

21. Cooking relaxes me. That’s a lie: drinking while cooking relaxes me.

22. My husband is way smarter than me. But I have longer toes.

23. I still don’t get how or why the 13th Colony would be Cylon.

24. I am a struggling Catholic.

25. I believe circumstances have not yet revealed the person I can be. (Thank you, David Milch.)