GINA.

 I’m sorry.  I’m just kind of emotional right now.  I think it’s graduation.
I’m graduating in a month and I can’t wait to get out of here. (pause) My home
town. My friends.  My family.  (pause)  I hate these people.  And I feel so . . .
guilty for it.  I must me the most horrible person in the entire world.  I hate this
party.  I hate my best friend.  I hate my boyfriend. (pause)  But I really hate
Brittany Tyler.  She’s evil and and she has a bad haircut.  (pause)  I am so
horrible.  Something is seriously wrong with me.  I have lived here for all of my
life.  I should be proud of where I come from.  I should look back with fond
memories and kind thoughts – but I just can’t wait to leave.  (pause)  I don’t
know why.  It’s like this . . . feeling.  I wake up in the morning and just chokes
me.  It’s the same house and the same people and the same school – I just can’t
take it anymore.  I am only seventeen. I should be happy.  I should be sweet.  I
should do a lot of charity work in the community. (Panics)  What if I’m nuts?
What if I need serious help – like therapy or something medieval like that?  My
aunt went to therapy for six months and she totally gained thirty pounds.  She
blew up like a house. (pause) This party is pathetic.  I could be at home right
now, curled up in bed and reading Wuthering Heights.  Instead – I was standing
in the living room and this foreign-exchange student kept staring with this weird
look on his face.  He comes up to me and says, “Oh, you are such a beautiful
American girl!”  So I looked at him – and I told him that he smelled.  So he
started yelling at me in his native language and he freaked me out.  I thought he
was psychotic.  Then he walked away as if it were supposed to shatter my heart
into a million tiny pieces. (pause) Pul-leaze, Don Juan – either go home or
grow.  So he slithered his way around the room until he found Leslie.  She
thinks she’s cool because she went to Paris last summer and made out with
some French guy at the Eiffel Tower.  I’ll tell you how I really feel about Leslie.
She has the personality of a cheese grater.  She’s been a cheerleader since she
was in diapers and she thinks we should worship her because she knows how to
jump in the air and do a cartwheel.  Trust me – I have been to a football gam
and I have seen the girl dance.  It’s not pretty.  She should consider buying
herself a little bit of rhythm before she goes to college.