Almost Interesting Read Online Free PDF

term now. In today’s terminology, you could say that I wanted a lot of Facebook likes or Instagram followers. Of course, when you think about it, lots of followers on Instagram is even more of a bullshit illusion than friends in high school, because at least in school you physically see the people. Facebook is just fake connection, and if you ever delete your account and start over, half would never “like” you a second time. That’s life on the mean streets of Facebook and everyone knows it. In high school you truly believe that all these people will be friends for life. And you’re lucky if you keep in touch with two after graduation. But making those friends was super-important to me.
    I figured high school would continue my long-standing trend toward nerd city, but a funny thing happened when I got there. My brother Andy was already there, he was a junior, and he was supercool. He had long brown hair that was blond on the ends from sun (yes, it’s possible not to fake this) and he was tan, good-looking, and artsy. (The puss magnet trifecta!) So out of nowhere, just because I was related to him, word got around that I was cool, too! There’s no definition for cool in high school, so it’s hard to spot or argue against, and with such loose regulations I slipped through the cracks. I’ll admit that I did have some of the components of a cool person. I had long white-blond hair, cool surfer shorts and shirts (even though I had never seen an actual wave at this point), and I could skateboard in pools. In fact, the week before freshman year started I broke both my wrists skating in a pool. I tried an aerial axle stall and fell backward into the deep end. So, on the first day of high school I waltzed in with a crispy white OP shirt from Miller’s Outpost, turquoise cord shorts from Quiksilver, long feathered Farrah Fawcett hair, and two splints on my arms. From a distance, I seemed happening, but in person I had zero game. ZERO. I couldn’t close any chicks. I talked too much, for one thing, and my subject matter was weak, mostly about coin collecting and how I fell easily off a skateboard, but still, the rumor of my coolness persisted. Meanwhile, all four grade schools had merged into this high school so everyone from my old school was saying, “Wait, you don’t understand, he’s a geek, he’s a nerd, he hangs out with a Vietnamese kid!” But it was too late. All of Andy’s hot cheerleader friends, juniors no less, took to calling me “Mini Spade” because they thought I was almost as cool as Andy. (Some of them were just nice to me to get in with Andy, which I spotted but was fine with.) Well, all the guys and girls from my freshman class picked up on this right away. They thought, Oh fuck, we had this kid pegged wrong! He is happening! The new coolness spread like wildfire. No one could stop it. Within a few days I was a 100 percent certified non-nerd, aka the shit. I adapted quite well to my new status. I’d even walk past the smart guys from my old grade school and rip on them: “Hey nerds, why don’t you go do some flash cards? Hahahahahhhahahaa! Come on, new friends, let’s hit the assembly.” What an asshole.
    But the problem was, I got a little too excited about this newfound social life. My grades started to slip because I spent less time doing algebra and more time at flower parties and football games or just bailing on class and getting stoned. We had two main factions at school: the freaks and the jocks. It was like a failed Apatow pilot. The freaks were the stoners. And jocks were jocks. Freaks basically got high out in the open, and most of the jocks got baked, too. But they hid it well and often wanted to beat up the stoners. I got along with both. I enjoyed toking away and tried out for sports, even though I wasn’t exactly a star. I wasn’t terrible, but I was never going to be a star. Or even pretty good. I went out for baseball and even football. I tried out for football my senior