Tokyo Kate

I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm a really big deal in Japan, more popular than Hello Kitty, vending machine beer and rice combined. Bitch, I'm bigger than Nicky Hilton's handbag line

It all started about a year ago when I first moved to New York and went to the Plaza for their pre-renovation sale. Because I'm fancy.

Although I don't think I was stocked up on toilet paper at the time, I'm pretty sure I thought it was necessary to buy monogrammed Plaza towels. Add to that I had several friends getting married that summer and that there was also talk of an eBay venture with my sister. So all in all I was excited to be there for such a historic moment to run amuck and literally unscrew doorknobs from the rooms.

Next stop swankyville.

While waiting in line to buy get in, I was interviewed by four different media outlets. Maybe it was my charming all-American demeanor. It was probably the fact that I'd brought along a rolling suitcase. (It's called thinking ahead.)

Of the reporters, two were from competing Japanese TV stations. Did they sense my masterful use of chopsticks and my longstanding love of "Big Bird Goes to Japan"? Probably. I gave them my A game, really stellar soundbites about the Plaza, its cultural place in our imaginations, and my excitement to buy $7 towels that have a big P on them. Heartfelt sentiments I never knew I thought until I shared it with all of Japan. All in English, of course. I would have loved to have been a Japanese person watching the news that night and seen the same American girl on two channels, giving the same dubbed quote.

Japanese viewer 1: "But I don'’t understand, there are so many other people there."

Japanese viewer 2: "She must be a celebrity."

Japanese viewer 1: "We should see if we can get her to design purses."

Since then, I've been on NHK and other Japanese stations literally every eight weeks or so. Not always interviewed, sometimes I'm just in the background, but I'm definitely getting my facetime. It happened again this morning, as I blithely sashayed in the path of some cameramen in Midtown. I assume I have my own show by now. Maybe it's a national obsession.

Note: To any Japanese readers who may stumble across this site, finding me on the news would be an awesome drinking game.