Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me

10. I am my mother's youngest of two kids, but my father's second of five kids.

9. I taught myself to read by age 3. Nobody knows how I managed to do it, but I did. I read a book to my mother at 3 (that's how she found out).

8. My husband is Chinese, a native of Hong Kong.

7. I was in labor with my son for 28 hours, 27 of which was with no form of pain medication whatsoever.

6. I hung out in the Chicago theater scene for many years, and met many famous people. I once attended a party where David Schwimmer from "Friends" got horribly stinking drunk, then spilled his Remy Martin martini all over me. He didn't even apologize----just swore at me like it was my fault.

5. Many of my past boyfriends were foreigners (from countries like Germany, Austria, Japan, India). My husband was also a foreigner (he is now a US citizen).

4. I have visited more than 20 countries.

3. I used to speak fluent French, but I've forgotten most of it. I also studied Latin and German.

2. I first read erotica when I was 14 years old, and I stole it from my parents' bedroom.

1. I used to live three blocks away from Barack Obama. (In Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, when I was a grad student at the University of Chicago, where Obama taught law school at the time). I also voted for him the very first time he ran for public office (for state senator in the Hyde Park district, in 1996).