My So-Called Life

[about sex]

Angela:
I mean, I think about it... all the time, but...

Brian:
Wait, you *think* about it all the time?

Angela:
Brian! Yes! Shut up... guys don't have a monopoly on thinking about it.

Brian:
They don't?

Angela:
*No!*

Angela:
My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it *was*, you're lucky to get out alive.

Angela:
It had become the focus of everything. It was all I could feel, all I could think about. It blotted out the rest of my face, the rest of my life. Like the zit had become... the truth about me.

Angela:
[narrating] I couldn't stop thinking about it. The, like, fact that - that people - had sex. That they just *had* it, like sex was this thing people - *had*, like a rash. Or a - a Rottweiler. Everything started to seem like, pornographic or something. Like, Mrs. Krysanowski has sex. So does Mr. Katimsky. They both have sex. They could - have sex together. Like right now.

[groans]

Angela:
I am, like, the *sickest* person.

Angela:
If only there were a button somewhere that I could push. To force me to stop talking.

Angela:
Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while. And admit the truth: that when you really look closely? People are so strange and so complicated that they're actually... beautiful. Possibly even me.

Angela:
They weren't the kind of kisses you could actually evaluate. They were more like... introductory kisses.

Angela:
This life has been a test. If this had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.

Angela:
The worst feeling is suddenly realizing that you don't measure up. And that, in the past, when you thought you did, you were a fool.

Angela:
Sometimes I think if my mother wasn't so good at pretending to be happy she might be better at actually being happy.

Angela:
Walking into someone else's house for the first time is like entering another country. Not that I've ever been to another country.

Angela:
Each card has its own name: The Magician; The Empress; The Fool; The Wheel of Fortune; Strength. They represent challenges and tests, twists of fate. No card is all good or all bad. Cards can be positive or negative depending on where they fall. When you read someone's future, they must think of a question. They must hold it in their mind. The cards read in sequence, each card leads to the next. We move from terror and loss to unexpected good fortune and out of darkness hope is born.

Angela:
Sometimes someone says something really small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart.

Rayanne:
You wanna have sex with him.

Angela:
Who?

Rayanne:
Who. Jordan. Catalano. Come on, I'm not gonna tell anyone, just admit it.

Angela:
I just like how he's always leaning. Against stuff. He leans great. Well, either sex or a conversation. Ideally both.

First Bathroom Girl:
Wait, so what's fat-free?

Second Bathroom Girl:
When something's, like, free. Of fat.

Third Bathroom Girl:
Well, what's the difference between fat-free, and like, nonfat?

Angela:
People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even. But every so often I'll have, like, a moment, where just being myself in my life right where I am is, like, enough.

Angela:
There's this dividing line between girls who have had sex, and girls who haven't. And all of a sudden you realize you're looking at each other across it.

Rayanne Graff:
"Potential slut". Now where do people get an idea like that about me?

Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez:
Research!

Angela:
When someone compliments your parents, there's like nothing to say. It's like a stun gun to your brain.

Graham:
Prison's not that bad and, and I'll wait for you.

Patty:
Orange juice doesn't grown on trees, Angela.

Angela:
It sorta does.

Angela:
Hatred can become like food, it gives you this energy that you can like, live off of.

Brian:
It's like you have created your own prison and now you have to exist in it.

Jordan:
It's like you think you are safe or something cause you can just walk away anytime, cause you don't need her - you don't need anyone. But the thing you didn't realize is, you're wrong.

Brian:
Dear Angela, I know in the past I've caused you pain and I'm sorry. And I'll always be sorry 'till the day I die. And I hate this pen I'm holding because I should be holding you. I hate this paper under my hand because it isn't you. I even hate this letter because it's not the whole truth. Because the whole truth is so much more than a letter can even say. If you want to hate me, go ahead. If you want to burn this letter, do it. You could burn the whole world down; you could tell me to go to hell. I'd go, if you wanted me to. And I'd send you a letter from there. Sincerely, Jordan Catalano

[Jordan hands Angela the love letter she wrote about him]

Angela:
when I wrote this... I wrote this about someone else, I had... this guy, I had a boyfriend last summer and I wrote everything I... I wanted to remember... and I used your name because I wanted... I didn't want other people to know it was about him because... he died... he's dead.

Angela:
I'm totally over Jordon Catalano.

[From a mid-season advertisement]

Narrator:
Will Angela ever get over Jordan? Will Rayanne ever stop drinking? Will Brian ever be cool enough? Will Cousin Tino ever actually show up?

Angela:
What's amazing is when you can feel your life going somewhere. Like, your life just figured out how to get good. Like, that second.

Sharon Cherski:
My father almost died. And you were the only person who didn't even seem to care. People I barely knew were coming up to me all like, concerned, and you, you acted like you barely even knew me.

Angela:
I know, I know I acted like that. I just didn't know what else to do... I knew I was the last person on earth you wanted to deal with...

Sharon Cherski:
[beginning to cry] You were the *only* person I wanted to deal with!

Angela:
You know, you are sick and demented. You skew everything in terms of sex.

Brian:
Not everything!

Brian:
Here, do you want to... borrow my sweater?

Angela:
Thanks.

Brian:
Just don't sweat into it or anything.

Angela:
Why do you always have to say stuff like that?

Angela:
I am so over Jordon Catalano.

Angela:
I bet people can actually die of embarrassment. I bet it's been medically proven.

Angela:
My entire life became divided into kissing... and not kissing. Kissing... and not kissing.

Angela:
It's so strange how parents can out of nowhere turn psychic. It's unnerving.

Angela:
What I like, dread, is when people who know you in completely different ways end up in the same area. And you have to develop this, like, combination you on the spot.

Angela:
See, there's thinking about him, right... which is what I do, all the time, like, like this...

Rickie:
Obsession.

Rayanne:
Right. So?

Angela:
So it keeps me going or something, like, I need it just to get through the day. It's, it's just...

Rickie:
It's an obsession.

Angela:
Right, and, and if you make it real, it's, it's not the same. It's not, it's not yours anymore. I, I don't know, maybe I'd rather have the fantasy, than even *him*.

Rickie:
I completely understand this.

Rayanne:
I totally and completely disagree. *You want* Jordan Catalano in actuality because... there is no because. You just *want* him. Only you're programmed to never admit it.

Rickie:
That does have the ring of truth.

Angela:
[after Jordan give her the fake i.d] Wow, It looks real. Why does - [Jordan tries to kiss her] . Hey. I'm- I'm sorry it's just ...

Jordan:
No

Angela:
I was talking.

Jordan:
No. Whatever.

Angela:
So how come - [Jordan tries to kiss her again] Quit it! I mean you have to work up to that. I didn't open that wide at the dentist.

Jordan:
How old are you?

Angela:
I don't belive this. What is you point? Fifteen.

Jordan:
You act younger.

Angela:
First of all you don't know me well enough to say how old I seem. And second ...

Jordan:
You talk a lot.

Angela:
I have said like eight sentences to you my entire life.

Jordan:
[sigh] This whole day has been on long, thing that makes no sense.

Angela:
We both stopped talking. Part of his sleeve was touching my arm. I don't know if he knew. Then everything started to seem perferct for some reason. The feel of his shirt against my elbow, the fact that I still had an elbow. It was the perfect moment for him to kiss me, for him to anything me.

Angela:
When you're not sure you trust a person anymore, say a person you really trusted, say your father, you start wishing they'd do something like really wrong so you'd be right about them.

Angela:
What's really horrible, is being a witness while someone's parents start bossing them around. It ruins the conversation.

Rayanne:
It was so Beyond, oh my god.

Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez:
...I'm somewhat afraid of my dad. I mean in the past, my dad has almost broken down my door.

Angela:
My dad always knocks.

Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez:
I had a feeling.

Angela:
They weren't the kind of kisses you could actually evaluate. They were... introductory kisses.

Angela:
You know what I'd really like? To be put out of my misery.

Rayanne:
Are you kidding? This is fun.

Angela:
Fun?

Rayanne:
Everyone runnin' around all upset, rumors flying. Can't you feel it in your fingers and in your toes? It's like being alive. Man it's such a rush.

Angela:
You're out of your mind.

Rayanne:
Last year that rumor about me and Mark Cameron, the orchestra pit, I mean in that case it was true but... man all the conversation, people writing notes and the- they look at you different trying to figure out who you really are, like you're famous. Admit it, it's really great.

Angela:
I don't know what you're talking about. [looks away smirking]

Angela:
When I was little I, like, worshipped Halloween. And truthfully, part of me still does. 'Cause it's your one chance all year to be someone else.

Angela:
It's so weird when you see someone you just dreamed about. Like it's gonna show.

Angela:
[narrating] Hatred can become like food, it gives you this energy, you can like, live off it.

Brian:
[to Jordan Catalano] It's like you created your own prison and now you have to exist in it.

Jordan:
[to Patty] It's like, you think... you're safe or something, cause you can just... walk away, anytime, cause you don't like need her - you don't need anyone. But the thing you didn't realize is, you're wrong.

Brian Krakow:
[for Jordan to put in Angela's locker] Dear Angela, I know in the past I've caused you pain, and I'm sorry. And I'll always be sorry 'till the day I die. And I hate this pen I'm holding because I should be holding you. I hate this paper under my hand because it isn't you. I even hate this letter because it's not the whole truth. Because the whole truth is so much more than a letter can even say. If you want to hate me, go ahead. If you want to burn this letter, do it. You could burn the whole world down; you could tell me to go to hell. I'd go, if you wanted me to. And I'd send you a letter from there. Sincerely, Jordan Catalano

Rickie Vasquez:
[Brian is mournfully watching Angela and Jordan] Oh, so they're back together, huh?

Brian:
Yup. Of course, she's still going to die someday. We're all going to die.

Rickie Vasquez:
Uh, Delia? Um, maybe we should go somewhere sometime.

Delia Fisher:
Ok.

Rickie Vasquez:
You know, like to uh movie or something.

Delia Fisher:
I'd like that.

Rickie Vasquez:
Cuz, um. I really think we'd be good together.

Delia Fisher:
Ok... but, um... you're gay, right?

Rickie Vasquez:
[stuttering] Well, I, uh, you know.

Delia Fisher:
I'm sorry. I didn't...

Rickie Vasquez:
No. It's okay.

Delia Fisher:
[apologetic] That came out so rude.

Rickie Vasquez:
No, see I try not to, um, no, I don't like, uh. [long pause] Yeah. I'm gay. I just don't usually say it like that.

Delia Fisher:
How do you usually say it?

Rickie Vasquez:
I don't usually say it. I mean, I've actually never said it... out loud.

Delia Fisher:
Wow. I feel kind of honored.

Angela:
This is a joke right? That... that the two of you... [pauses] Oh god... I can't believe I fell for it. It's obviously a total lie!

Brian:
No I meant every word...

Angela:
[pauses, shocked]

Brian:
[hastily] I mean... the person who wrote it meant every word... probably.

Angela:
Brian?

Brian:
I didn't write it!

Angela:
But, Brian, you said...

Brian:
Forget what I said! Forget this whole conversation!

Angela:
[softly] How?

Brian:
[pause] You like it though? It made you... happy?

Angela:
[nodding slightly] Yeah...

Brian:
'Cause that's probably all that really matters.

Angela:
[emotional pause] To who?

Brian:
To, you know... the person... who wrote it.

Angela:
[is overcome by emotion; can't do anything but continue looking at Brian]

Brian:
Finally! An erection from actual, physical contact!

Jordan:
Why are you like this?

Angela:
Like what?

Jordan:
Like how you are.

Angela:
How am I? How am I?

Graham:
Well, then I guess it depends on how badly you need wallpaper.

Brian:
I'd say... pretty bad.

Brian:
There's something about my life. It's just automatically true that nothing actually happens.

Angela:
Sometimes I think if my mother wasn't so good at pretending to be happy, she'd be better at actually *being* happy.

Angela:
Walking into someone else's house for the first time, is like entering another country. Not that I've ever been to another country.

Angela:
Each card has a name: The Magician; The Empress; The Fool; The Wheel of Fortune; Strength. They represent challenges and tests, twists of fate. No card is all good or all bad. Cards can be positive or negative depending on where they fall. When you read someone's future, they must think of a question. They must hold it in their mind. The cards are read in sequence, each card leads to the next. We move from terror and loss to unexpected good fortune and out of darkness hope is born.

Patty:
[when a discussion is about to get too adult] Danielle, go play outside.

Danielle Chase:
Mom, it's not fair! My life is totally edited!

Angela:
Things were getting to me. Just how people are. How they always expect you to be a certain way. Even your best friend.

Angela:
Like with boys, how they have it so easy. How you have to pretend that you don't notice them... noticing you.

Angela:
I'm in love. His name is Jordan Catalano. He was let back, twice. Once I almost touched his shoulder in the middle of a pop quiz. He's always closing his eyes like it hurts to look at things.

Angela:
School is a battlefield... for your heart.

Angela:
School is a battlefield for your heart. So when Rayanne Graff told me my hair was holding me back, I had to listen. 'Cause she wasn't just talking about my hair. She was talking about my life.

Angela:
My dad thinks every person in the world is having more fun than him. Which could be true.

Angela:
Lately, I can't even look at my mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly.

Angela:
My dad and I used to be pretty tight. The sad truth is, my breasts have come between us.

Patty:
God, Chelsea Clinton. Will you look at this? No freedom, no privacy, constant surveillance, Secret Service men... That's what we need.

Ms. Mayhew:
How could Anne Frank be lucky?

Angela:
I don't know. 'Cause she was stuck in an attic for three years with this guy she really liked?

Angela:
It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you? And, I mean, this whole thing with yearbook - it's like, everybody's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book.

Angela:
Seeing a teacher's actual lunch is, like, so depressing. Not to mention, her bra strap.

Jordan:
This doesn't seem like a Friday.

Angela:
It's Thursday.

Jordan:
Oh. Are you sure?

Angela:
Yesterday was Wednesday, so...

Jordan:
Oh... Right.

Angela:
So, that's how I know.

Rayanne:
I think lard's my favorite food group.

Angela:
Cafeteria is the embarrassment capital of the world. It's like a prison movie.

Brian:
Oh, look at me, I'm way cool. I'm off with my way cool friends to sniff floor wax.

Angela:
Everybody's an act. Including you.

Rickie:
If you were about to do it, okay, what would you want the other person to say, like, right before?

Rayanne:
"This won't take long."

Rickie:
No, seriously.

Rayanne:
"Do I know you?"

Rickie:
No, like, for real. Like, romantic.

Angela:
"You're so beautiful, it hurts to look at you."

Rayanne:
"It hurts to look at you"?

Rickie:
How'd you think of that?

Rayanne:
Where would it hurt?

Angela:
These guys started hitting on us.

Brian:
What? Like sexual harassment?

Angela:
Like guys.

Angela:
My mother's adopted. So for a while, she was looking for her real parents. I guess that's just what everyone's looking for.

Angela:
I mean, I think about it... all the time, but...

Brian:
Wait, you *think* about it all the time?

Angela:
Brian! Yeah! Shut up... boys don't have the monopoly on thinking about it.

Brian:
They don't?

Angela:
*No!*

Angela:
[narrating] I couldn't stop thinking about it. The, like, fact that - that people - had sex. That they just *had* it, that sex was this thing people - *had*, like a rash. Or a - a Rottweiler. Everything started to seem like, pornographic or something. Like, Miss Krysanowski has sex. So does Mr. Katimsky. They both have sex. They could - have sex together. Like right now.

[groans]

Angela:
I am, like, the *sickest* person.

Angela:
Sometimes someone says something really small... and it just fits into this empty place in your heart.

Angela:
People alway say you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster or something. Like you can know what it is even. But every so often I'll have like, a moment, when just being myself in my life, right where I am, is like, enough.

Angela:
[narrating; Sharon Cherski present] There's this dividing line between girls who have had sex, and girls who haven't. And all of a sudden we both realized that we were looking at each other across it.

Brian:
My parents have a vibrator. It sounds like a lawnmower.

Rickie Vasquez:
I just think it should be like a miracle. Like... seeing a comet. Or just feeling like you're seeing one. Seeing the other person's perfectness... or something. And if you do it before you're even ready, how are you going to see all that? Not that I would like, know, or anything.

Angela:
My whole life became like divided, into kissing... and not kissing. Kissing... and... not... kissing.

Angela:
There's something about Sunday night that really makes you wanna kill yourself.

Danielle:
Do we have to keep talking about religion? It's Christmas!

Angela:
Are you demented? You just view everything in terms of sex.

Brian:
Not everything!

Angela:
Once upon a time there lived a girl. She slept in a lovely cottage made of gingerbread and candy. She was always asleep. One morning, she woke up... She woke up.

Angela:
The worst feeling is suddenly realizing that you don't measure up. And that in the past when you thought you did, you were a fool.

Angela:
Just pop it already and get on with your life.

Angela:
But won't that cause a scar?

Rayanne:
What are you talking about? Everything causes a scar - LIVING causes a scar.

[first lines]

Danielle Chase:
[narrating] My whole life is waiting for something to happen.

Danielle Chase:
[narrating] My life is different people kicking me out of different rooms.

[Rayanne has found handcuffs in Graham and Patty's bedroom and locked herself to their bed]

Rayanne Graff:
Oh Graham, Graham, don't hurt me, master! Or is it the other way around? Graham, that dinner you prepared just wasn't tasty enough.

[imitating Graham]

Rayanne Graff:
Patty, I've been bad - punish me!

Brian Krakow:
This is like so unfunny. Where'd you put the key? What... did you do... with the key?

Rayanne Graff:
What?

Rayanne Graff:
Could you do me a favor?

Danielle Chase:
I could for money.

Rayanne Graff:
A girl after my own heart. Okay, here's what you do. Go down to the liquor cabinet and get me a bottle - anything brown. I'll give you a dollar.

Danielle Chase:
Nope.

Rayanne Graff:
Two dollars.

Danielle Chase:
It's wrong to drink.

Rayanne Graff:
You have a real miserable side to you. You know that?

[by dismantling her parents' bed, Angela and her friends have freed Rayanne from being handcuffed to the bedpost but leaving the room in a shambles]

Rayanne Graff:
Okay, I'm out of here.

Angela Chase:
You're leaving?

Rayanne Graff:
I can still make something out of this weekend.

Angela Chase:
Don't you dare leave now!

Rayanne Graff:
Come on. Hands off.

Angela Chase:
My parents will never trust me again!

Rayanne Graff:
Come on. Now you're crossing the line.

Angela Chase:
I can't believe you. You're like this curse who is destroying me life. You can't just walk out and expect us to clean up after you!

[the phone rings and Danielle answers]

Danielle Chase:
Hello?

Angela Chase:
You're like this living, breathing bad luck omen!

Rayanne Graff:
Don't mince words! Tell me how you feel.

Danielle Chase:
Mom says she'll be home in twenty minutes!

[finding the handcuffs on her bed]

Patty Chase:
Oh my God. Camille never picked these up.

[cut to a shot of the outside of the master bedroom door and the sound of handcuffs locking]

Graham Chase:
Where's the key?

Patty Chase:
Oh. My. God.

Angela Chase:
[to herself after kicking Rayanne out of her house] Weekend from hell.

Danielle Chase:
[narrating] That was the best weekend of my entire life.

Angela Chase:
[to Danielle] By the way... thanks.

Danielle Chase:
So what are we doing next weekend?

Angela Chase:
Danielle, *we* are not doing anything.

Danielle Chase:
We could go to Brian's.

Angela Chase:
Danielle...

Danielle Chase:
I kinda liked him.

Angela Chase:
Danielle!

Angela:
Love is when you look into someone's eyes, and suddenly, you go all the way inside, to their soul... and you both know, instantly. I always imagined I would fall in love, nursing a blind soldier. Who was wounded in battle. Or maybe while rescuing someone in the middle of a blizzard, seconds before the avalanche hits. I thought, at least, by the age of fifteen, I would have a love life. But, I don't even have a "like" life.

Angela:
Huge events take place on this earth every day. Earthquakes, hurricanes, even glaciers move. So why couldn't he just look at me?

Angela:
I'm finally over him.

Angela:
If only there were a button somewhere that I could push to force me to stop talking.

Angela:
This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.

[Jordan hands Angela the love letter she wrote about him]

Angela:
But when I wrote this... I wrote this about someone else, um, I... this guy, I had a boyfriend last summer and, um... I, I wrote everything... I wanted to remember him... and I used your name because I, I wanted... I didn't want other people to know it was about him because... he... he died... he's dead.

Angela:
I was just thinking, could you maybe have Dyslexia?

Jordan:
What the backwards thing?

Angela:
Lots of people have it. My father's brother has it. It makes reading incredibly difficult cause your mind like ...

Jordan:
Let's not talk about this.

Angela:
- Reverses things. I'm sorry. It's actually not... I mean A lot of really intelligent people are dyslexic. Just because a person can't read doesn't ...

Jordan:
Hey! I can read, OK. Just not ...

Angela:
No, I know.

Jordan:
Just not that good.

Jordan:
You know those guys... up in the mountains.

Angela:
what guys?

Jordan:
Who make snow, like as their job.

Angela:
Yeah.

Jordan:
I would really like to do that.

Angela:
Part time or... [Jordan kisses her]

Jordan:
Sorry.

Angela:
What?

Jordan:
I interrupted you.

Angela:
Yeah.