My So-Called Life 101
This series revolved around Angela Chase, a high school student. She lived with her mom, dad, and little sister Danielle. Her friends included Rayanne and Rickie; for most of the show's run, she had a crush on Jordan Catalano. The show was often described as "angst-filled" and I'd say that was pretty accurate since the teen years are generally an awkward time of trying to find oneself.

Why am I a My So-Called Life fan?
Although I was slightly past my teenage years when this show originally aired I could relate to it both from my high school experiences and in my current (so-called) life. I mean, struggling to find out who you are and where you fit in are pretty common themes in life. As if to emphasize this fact, the show spent time developing each of the main teenaged characters, in addition to portraying the ups and downs faced by the adults - teachers, parents, etc.

Katimsky (reading to class): 'My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun. If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seem roses damasked, red and white, but no such roses see I in her cheeks. And in some perfumes there is more delight, than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go...my mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare.' What kind of girl is Shakespeare describing here? Is she, is she the most beautiful girl?
Brian: No.
Katimsky: Is she a goddess? Physically perfect? The kind of girl who...uh...stops traffic when she walks down the street?
Brian: No.
Katimsky: So, he's...not in love with her?
Jordan: Yeah. He is.
Katimsky: Well, why is that? Why is he in love with her?
Brian: She's not just a fantasy. She's got, like, flaws. She's real.
Katimsky: Thank you.

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.

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 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?

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

Angela: If Jordan Catalano is nearby, my whole body knows it. Like one of those dogs that point. I'll keep talking and stuff, but my mind won't even know what I'm saying. I keep wondering if there's a term for this.

Rayanne: Look, I was there.
Rickie: And I was practically there from hearing it so many times.
Rayanne: And he is definitely semi-interested.
Angela: So you think he...
Rayanne: I think part of him is partly interested in you. Definitely. I mean, he's got other things on his mind.
Angela: But that's the part that's so unfair. I have nothing else on my mind. How come I have to be the one sitting around analyzing him in like microscopic detail, and he gets to be the one with other things on his mind?
Rickie: That is deep.

Angela: When I was 12, my mother gave me my sex talk. I'm not sure either of us has ever recovered.

Angela: Mom, I'm not having sex, alright? Really! I'm not even close. To an embarrassing degree.

Rayanne: So, not to shock you, but your dad's attractive.
Angela: Oh, I'm sure.
Rayanne: Not that I'd attack him or anything, but I wouldn't leave me alone with him, either.

Angela: You know how sometimes the last sentence you said, like, echoes in your brain? And it just keeps sounding stupider? And you have to say something else just to make it stop?

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: 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: 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'd 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 15 I'd 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: This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do.

Angela: Why is dad playing catch with Brian Krakow?
Patty: I guess if you live with three women, that would make any man desperate.

Rickie: Kyle was probably her Popular Jock phase. Now she's probably moving into her Awkward But Sensitive Guy phase.
Brian: So, you're saying I'm, like, someone's phase?
Rickie: Hey. I wish I was.

Jordan: Why are you like this?
Angela: Like what?
Jordan: Like how you are.

Brian: My mother's a behavioral psychologist, and my father's a Freudian psychiatrist, which basically means they fundamentally disagree on, like, everything.

Brian: I became yearbook photographer because I liked the idea that I could sort of watch life without having to be part of it.

Angela: Wait. You're comparing me making out with Jordan Catalano to you getting your stomach pumped?
Rayanne: You don't see the connection?

Angela: Why are you like this?
Jordan: Like what?
Angela: Like how you are.

"Okay, should I rat it, spray it, tease it, freeze it, spike it, shave it, or shove it?" Rayanne, with the question we all consider when starting to fix our hair

Angela: There's something about Sunday night that really makes you want to kill yourself. And that creepy '60 Minutes' watch that sounds like your whole life ticking away.

Angela: She's someone Jordan used to, umm...
Rayanne: Yes. Jordan used to umm her.

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

Jordan (to Angela): Can you imagine what that's like? To have to sit around trying to figure out what someone else is, like, thinking?

Angela: See, I had this dream last night, and he was wearing a towel, but it was like this really weird towel, made of like, Saltines, and it kept crumbling.

Angela: Mom, I've been alone with Danielle before.
Patty: Yes, and I can't help but recall the time you put her in the dryer.
Angela: Oh Mom! That was so long ago. I can't believe you're still talking about that...Anyway, she *begged* me to do it.
Patty: Whoever's idea it was, I don't want to come home and find anyone in an appliance.

Rayanne: See, when I look at myself I see everything in like slow motion and I think, *something* has to happen. Only it never does, so I have to make it happen.
Danielle: Wow.

Brian: Nothing. It's just ironic.
Jordan: Well SO WHAT?... What's 'ironic'?
Brian: When you realize the, like, component of weirdness in a situation.

Delia: You're gay, right?
Rickie: I try not to...um...I don't like, uh...yeah, I'm gay. I just don't usually say it like that.
Delia: How do you usually say it?
Rickie: I don't usually say it. I mean, I've actually never said it out loud.
Delia: Wow. I feel kind of honored.

Delia: I guess I'm just sort of in the mood to have a crush on somebody where it can't hurt too much.

Rickie: Well, if you must know, she's in shock. Once again, something Jordan Catalano did has left her completely and totally mystified.
Brian: It was me. I mean, I told Jordan what to say.
Rickie: What?
Brian: I can't, like, defend it. It's undefendable.
Rickie: Brian, I don't believe this. You're using Jordan Catalano.
Brian: What? He's using me.
Rickie: Yeah, but you're using him, too. To, like, express your true feelings towards Angela.

Angela: I can't believe I fell for it. It's obviously a total lie.
Brian: No, I meant every word -- I mean the person who wrote it meant every word. Probably.

Brian: You liked it though, right? It made you like... happy.
Angela: Yeah.
Brian: Cause that's probably all that, you know, matters.
Angela: To who?
Brian: To, you know, the person... who wrote it.

* Sometimes beautiful people aren't so nice.
* School is a battlefield for your heart.
* People tell you to be yourself, like yourself is some defined thing.
* The one you want isn't always the one you need.
* Before using a pair of handcuffs, make sure you have the key.
* People won't wait for you forever.
* If we all did what was in our hearts, the world would grind to a halt.
* Seeing a teacher's actual lunch is, like, so depressing. Not to mention, her bra strap.
* The cafeteria is the embarrassment capital of the world.
* Everybody's an act. Including you.
* People throwing themselves at people is, like, the basis of civilization.
* It's amazing the things you notice.
* It's weird how something has to happen sometimes to see how you actually feel about someone.
* I bet people can actually die of embarrassment. I bet it's been medically proven.
* There are some times in my life where being me, right now, where I am, is just like, enough.
* Sometimes it feels like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we hate ourselves.
* When someone compliments your parents, there's, like, nothing to say.
* How did locking kids in their room get such a bad rap?
* I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother. It just means too much to her.
* To raise a girl is to walk on eggshells half the time.
* Maybe teachers have a hidden life, where they're actually, like, human.
* If only there was some button that I could just push to force me to stop talking.
* They say that colleges really like it if you play more than one instrument.
* There are so many different ways to be connected to people
* Halloween is your one chance all year to be someone else.
* Walking into someone's house for the first time is like entering another country.
* The only really great foods are appetizers and desserts.
* When you're yearbook photographer, you're, like, never in the picture.
* Boys are less afraid of being wrong.
* A person can have feelings for someone even if they're not like, THE person.
* It's always tempting to lose yourself with someone, who's maybe lost themselves.

Angela left the classroom during a test because she saw her father in the hall. Jordan watches her leaving, and that simple look reveals that the attraction Angel feels for him is not entirely one-sided.

Patty, Angela's mother, was thinking of cutting her hair short. Her friend advised against it, saying that men want women to "have long hair and wear red." Patty does decide to get the short haircut, but when she meets her husband to reveal the hairdo, she wears red. (It's, like, although she got the haircut for herself, she wants to let him know that she still values his opinion.)

Angela was in the hall at her high school, figuring the popular guy that she was secretly seeing would ignore her as he did when they were in public. Instead, he walks right up to her, takes her hand and they walk down the hall.

In one scene, Angela is waking up. She's thinking - in a voiceover as she often did - how she "loved Jordan Catalano so much and thought about him so much ..." Beaming she thinks happily, "And then one day ... I got over him." And she gets up and starts dancing around her room to 'Blister in the Sun' by the Violent Femmes as she's getting ready for school.

In another less happy scene, Angela is crushed at having been stood up by Jordan. Having put on a brave face while waiting downstairs with her parents, she finally retreats to her room where she falls to the floor in front of her closet, sobbing. (I can relate!)

When I first saw the final episode, I didn't like the very last scene. To me, Angela being moved to learn that Brian wrote the letter ruined her big win of finally getting Jordan. But watching the scene again more recently, I loved it, because I realize that Brian was willing to give up his own happiness and stay out of the picture so Angela could be happy. You just don't often see that happen much on television.