Totally Joe Read Online Free PDF Page A

but then she decided that having the hots for your friend’s older brother (who also happens to be a jock and not exactly what you’d call politically enlightened) was too much for her feminist soul, so she went from giggling whenever he was around to making these
huh
noises to pretty much ignoring him.
    So, anyway, this is who is in my family:
    I’ll start with Jeff because I’ve already written about him and there’s not much else to say. He is:
    1. 15
    2. Growing what he calls a beard.
    3. Obsessed with a girl he met at camp last summer whose name is something that ends in
na
(Joanna, Sienna, Brianna, Banana, whatever). He mostly calls her Clark, which I believe is her last name. She calls him “the J-man.” This is so
not
a healthy relationship.
    (Guy-guy Fact: Guy-guys love putting “the” in front of their names and adding “man,” “ski,” or “ster” after them, as in: “the J-man,” “the Jeffski,” “the Jeffster.”)
    4. An expert on all those guy-guy things I talked about back in B. (Except acting tough. As I said before, despite everything, he’s actually a fairly decent human being.)
    5. Possibly a computer genius
(definitely
a computer geek).
    6. The owner of a stunningly boring wardrobe, made up of two colors and the World’s Largest Collection of Identical Pairs of Athletic Shoes.
    7. The quietest member of our family.
    In some ways he and my dad are alike. They both love sports, they’re both into their computers, and they both have beards (except my dad’s actually
is
a beard). Oh, andthey both love these meat-snacky things called Slim Jims. Do not ask. I am, like,
this
close to becoming a vegetarian.
    But in other ways my dad is like me. We’re both funny (well, I think I’m funny, thank you very much), we both like to talk (although we often talk about different things; my father has nothing to say about hair, clothes, or movie stars), and we both like to cook.
    My dad’s name is David, but everybody calls him Dave. He’s a social worker at this agency over in Saratoga that works with “troubled teens.” My dad loves kids, and it’s pretty obvious to anybody with eyes that he loves Jeff and me. He’s always outside with Jeff throwing a ball around or shooting baskets. When they’re inside, he gets Jeff to help him with computer stuff. With me, he plays games and watches movies (he gets a little squirmy during chick flicks like
Steel Magnolias
,but he hangs in there), and, as I said, we both like to cook, so sometimes it’ll just be the two of us out in the kitchen making dinner for the family.
    The best thing about my dad is that he’s not afraid of showing what he feels. He’s big on hugs (even with my friends, which is one reason they like him so much) and … Oh. My. God … he cries at the drop of a hat! True story: Last Christmas, Bobby and I were watching
A Christmas Carol—
the old one in black-and-white—and my dad happens to walk through the room right at the moment when Tiny Tim says, “God bless us, every one,” and he starts sniffling!
    â€œDad,” I say, “are you
crying?”
    And he’s all choking back these tears and he says, “Gets me every time.”
    Maybe you don’t think that’s a cool thing in a dad, but I do. Colin says my dad is THE BEST and that I shouldn’t worry about telling him I’m gay. He’s right. I don’t know why I
do
worry about it. Maybe it’s because when I see Dad and Jeff outside shooting baskets, there’s a way my dad laughs that makes me think he has a lot more fun with Jeff than with me. I listen very carefully for that laugh when we cook or play games together. When it comes, it’s almost the same as his Jeff laugh—but not quite.
    Here’s something else about my dad: He is much neater than my mom. He’s always picking stuff up and