My So-Called Life (TV Series)

Why Jordan Can't Read (1994)

Jared Leto: Jordan Catalano

Quotes 

• 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.

• Jordan : Oh, I almost forgot. Here.

  [hands letter to Angela] 

  Jordan : I found it at the museum. You wrote it, right?

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

  Jordan : Look, I didn't read it. Okay? So you don't have to, like, tell that stuff.

  Angela : You expect me to believe that?

  Jordan : I don't care what you believe.

  Angela : Well, you find a five-page letter in a museum and it starts "dear Jordan," and you expect me to believe you didn't read it?

  Jordan : Nevermind. Look, I read parts of it. Okay?

  Angela : What? You must really think I'm stupid.

  Jordan : It just didn't hold my interest, okay?

  Angela : Oh really? Why is that? I'm curious!

  [stops Jordan] 

  Angela : I'd really like to know what it was that made it so incredibly boring. Just tell me! Was it too emotional? Too personal? Too many big words?

  Jordan : [yells]  Shut up! Geez.

  Angela : You couldn't read it. That's it, isn't it?

  Jordan : I never told anyone before.

• Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez : Um... she's a little upset. I guess, well, because of... well, nevermind.

  Jordan : [stops Rickie]  No, what?

  Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez : Um, I guess you know she figures, why didn't you call or something?

  Jordan : Yeah, that makes sense. She just... she, like, wanted me to meet her parents. I just, I wasn't in the mood. You know? It's like she knows to much about me, or something. And not really, but she just makes too big a deal out of everything. She makes everything too complicated. Anyway.

  Enrique (Rickie) Vasquez : Well, it was partly that song that you wrote. She really liked it. And it was obvious what it was about, so...

  Jordan : Yeah... my car.

• Jordan : Hey, you want to hear that song I was telling you about?

  [singing] 

  Jordan : I was going nowhere. Going nowhere fast. Drowning in my memory. Living in the past. Everything looked black till I found her. She's all I need and that's what I say, I call her RED She's my shelter from the storm. She's the place to rest my head. Late at night she keeps me warm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I call her RED.

  [stops] 

  Jordan : That's all I have so far.