sex should be like math: an introduction to my life
- We get to know Ed Kennedy a little better, and his life can pretty much be summed up like this: he plays cards with his friends. Riveting stuff, isn't it?
- His closest pal is Marv, who is a Chatty—and argumentative—Kathy. Then there's quiet, beer-drinking, boyish Ritchie. And finally, blonde bombshell Audrey, who Ed is totally head over heels for, rounds out the group.
- Ed's a nineteen-year-old cabdriver with no real hope for achieving much in his life. He needs a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T, but isn't getting it from anyone in his town.
- He lives on the outskirts of a small town in a shack with his dog, the Doorman, a German Shepherd who is practically as old as he is (seventeen) and doesn't like anyone. He also smells. A lot.
- We find out the dog used to be Ed's dad's before he died six months ago from drinking too much.
- Then Ed tells us a little about his family. There's his tougher-than-tough mom, his over-achieving younger brother, Tommy, who's studying to be a lawyer, his sister Leigh, and his other sister Katherine, who left home at seventeen because she got pregnant. His whole fam is in a picture on top of his television, and sometimes he just watches the picture instead of TV.
- Ed holds nothing back. He shares with us that he's bad in bed, something he's not embarrassed about and thinks people should be able to admit, like being bad at math. Yet he knows he can't go around telling people he's no good because he's a guy.
- It doesn't really matter much, because the girl he loves isn't jumping in to bed with him anytime soon. Though Audrey does come over sometimes and watch movies with Ed. They snuggle under a blanket, and sometimes she even spends the night, but nothing ever happens between them.
- She's from a family that beat each other up, so she's been hurt in the past, and won't let it happen again. Ed loves her and wants to protect her.