As usual, asking questions of my journal is no help whatsoever. I don’t even know why I bother.
ME, A PRINCESS???? YEAH, RIGHT.
A Screenplay by Mia Thermopolis
(first draft)
Scene 16
INT/DAY—The penthouse suite at the Plaza Hotel. A scary-looking old woman with tattooed eyeliner (DOWAGER PRINCESS CLARISSE) is glaring at MIA, who cowers across from her in a chair. A hairless toy poodle (ROMMEL) shivers nearby.
DOWAGER PRINCESS CLARISSE
Now, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Your father tells you that you are the princess of Genovia, and you burst into tears. Why is this?
MIA
I don’t want to be a princess. I just want to be me, Mia.
DOWAGER PRINCESS CLARISSE
Sit up straight in that chair. Do not drape your legs over the arm. And you are not Mia. You are Amelia. Are you telling me you have no desire to assume your rightful place upon the throne?
MIA
Grandmère, you know as well as I do that I’m not princess material. So why are we even wasting our time?
DOWAGER PRINCESS CLARISSE
You are the heir to the crown of Genovia. And you will take my son’s place on the throne when he dies. This is how it is. There is no other way.
MIA
Yeah, whatever, Grandmère. Look, I got a lot of homework. Is this princess thing going to take long?
Thursday, September 9, Homeroom
I’m going to do it. I mean, Do It. Tonight. I was up all night thinking about it, and I know now—this is the on
ly way.
I know it’s selfish. I know I will be keeping a shining beacon of hope from all of the many heart patients Michael could be helping with his invention.
But that is just too bad for them. Plenty of people have had open-heart surgery and were just fine. Look at David Letterman. And Bill Clinton. People are just going to have to suck it up. Maybe if they ate less meat, they wouldn’t NEED open-heart surgery. Did anyone think of that?
Oh, God. Did I really just write that? I can’t believe I just wrote that. WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME? I’m becoming one of those militant vegetarians, the ones who think the Heifer Project, an organization that gives cows and goats to poor widows so they will have an income from selling the milk, and be able to buy food for their children, is bad because it enslaves animals.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. It’s like I’ve gone mental. I even checked to make sure I still had my condoms left over from when we were forced to go buy them during Health and Safety as part of our Safer Sex project. Of course, I made my selections on the basis of color. I mean, there were just SO MANY to choose from. I knew I should have gone to Duane Reade and not Condomania. I have strawberry and piña colada in my backpack right now (I didn’t realize the ones I bought were FLAVORED until I checked their expiration dates this morning. Thank heaven they’re still good).
I am willing to sacrifice my virginity for the sake of keeping my love in the same hemisphere as me.
But I just realized, that during the course of this, I may actually have to Touch It.
For the first time, however, this prospect is not making me say, or even think, the word Ew.
I must be maturing.
Thursday, September 9, Intro to Creative Writing