If You Are Going To

Teenage Girls, Please Don’t Worry About Being Super Popular In High School, Or Being The Best Actress In High School, Or The Best Athlete. Not Only Do People Not Care About Any Of That The Second You Graduate, But When You Get Older, If You Reference Your Successes In High School Too Much, It Actually Makes You Look Kind Of Pitiful, Like Some Babbling Old Tennessee Williams Character With Nothing Else Going On In Her Current Life. What I’ve Noticed Is That Almost No One Who Was A Big Star In High School Is Also Big Star Later In Life. For Us Overlooked Kids, It’s So Wonderfully Fair.

I'm Not Good At Anything Except Writing Jokes. I Wasn't Good At Sports, I Wasn't Good At Anything Artsy, Ever. I Think There Was A Real Worry For A While About What I Would Be Good At. I Was Just This Chubby Little Indian Kid Who Looked Like A Nerd.

I Feel Like If I Had My Personality But Was An Ob/gyn, You Would Be Psyched. You'd Be Like, 'my Chatty, Pop-culture-interested But Plainspoken, Wants-to-talk-about-clothes But Serious-minded Doctor.' I Feel Like I Would Clean Up With Patients. That's Kind Of A Cocky Thing To Say.

Sometimes I Eavesdrop On People. I Could Rationalize It - Oh, This Is Good Anthropological Research For Characters I'm Writing - But It's Basically Just Nosiness. It Also Helps Me Gauge Where I'm At: Am I Normal?

If You're A Kid Who Was Not Especially A Star In Your High School, I Recommend Going To A College In The Middle Of Nowhere. I Got All The Attention I Could Ever Have Wanted.