PrefaceEverything I Needed to Know about Web Community I Learned in High School Algebra Class

It’s a little-known fact that I failed algebra in high school. Twice. That second time was with Mr. Payne. He took great, well, pains in spelling his name to the class. P-A-Y-N-E. We all spelled it the other way, anyway.

Especially me. I can say without any embellishment that I sucked at algebra. I sucked the air out three classrooms over. Two years later when my sister took the same required algebra courses that I kamikazed through, the teachers all sighed, “Oh Lord, please, not another Powazek.”

But Jenny was good at algebra. Not me. I was good at writing. I was good at design. I even survived a weightlifting class by hiding in the corner and pretending ...

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