The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 22 years ago today. I never should have put my picture up on my site – it led to a lot of creeps! – but the picture was taken on a perfect day, by the boyfriend – and looking at it makes me remember things I want to still feel and experience. I look at the picture and think: “…. that wasn’t a pose. That was real. That was how I actually felt in that moment.” It kind of amazes me. I don’t think I would ever cavort across a field and blow kisses at a camera now but … it’s good to know I DID do that once. I think that must have been on my mind when I stuck her up there in the banner originally. I could have no way of knowing I’d still be here literally decades later. And SHE has been replaced by ELVIS, which is only good and right.
The very first post on this here blog is hilariously un-ceremonious. I don’t even introduce myself! I just launch into a story about a day spent with Allison. On that day, Allison and I went to a nearby speakeasy (or: bar. It had been a speakeasy back in the day. It had a secret entrance, no sign.) We sat there, had some Bloody Marys, and accidentally set our newspaper on fire, while surrounded by the mostly firemen clientele, who … saw the fire, and basically were like, “Meh, not our problem.” I wrote that piece huddled over my laptop in Allison’s apartment, the apartment I helped her move into, the apartment that is my home away from home, and … sitting there on October 18, 2002, I decided to finally just do what I had been wanting to do for about 6 to 8 months: set up a blog.
I discovered “blogs” a month or so after September 11th. A little over a year later, I set up my own blog in the free Blogspot. There was no overall plan. I didn’t want to cover a certain subject. I started with a diary entry, followed it up with a quote from George Orwell, followed by a post about being a fan of Tori Amos and Eminem. In my third post I blabber about Eminem because 8 Mile was coming out and I was, and I quote, “fragmenting and dissolving” with excitement. lol And here we are, so many years later… which proves the point of the original post. I am nothing if not consistent. And loyal. Coincidence that I started the blog the day after his birthday? Well, yes, it was a coincidence.
Blogspot was so simple anyone could do it, part of the reason blogging became so popular. When I moved over to WordPress, I lost a lot of the Blogspot posts, including the very first post. Some years later, can’t remember when, I migrated everything over to my domain name and lost mostly all of my pictures, the majority of the comments, and etc. I didn’t even remember what the first post was. Recently, though, Allison found – somewhere on a hard drive – a Word doc, dated October 18, 2002, with the text of my first blog post. WHAT A FIND. I assume I was shy of typing it directly onto Blogspot, and started on Word. I couldn’t believe it. A relic! An ancient rune! I re-posted it as Blog Entry #1.
Here’s the story of why I started the blog. As per the usual, it’s not a one-sentence explanation, like “I wanted to create a brand”, “I wanted to hustle for writing work,” or even “I would like to create a platform where I can pontificate about This One Single Subject.” It’s a long story. It usually is in my neck of the woods. Trigger warnings for the following subjects: mass murder, self-harm, suicide, a violent altercation in a bar bathroom, a sexual assault, hurricane damage, political upheaval, and honesty about the flawed nature of human beings, including and mostly my own. You got all that? Take care of your own boundaries. I know it’s sometimes tiresome to hear people describe their various nervous breakdowns. I get it. I feel the same way. But it’s part of my story and as I keep saying over and over again, you have to write for yourself, ultimately. It’s amazing if you have readers as well, but at the end of the day you have to write what you want to write. That’s what I’ve always tried to do here.
2001: One reason why I started The Sheila Variations
I guess in a way 9/11 was why I started the blog, even though there was over a year’s separation between the catastrophe and the blog set-up. 9/11 launched me into an altered state that would last about two straight years. This was the case for many New Yorkers. I saw the fireball with my own eyes and I watched the second plane hit and I also watched the buildings collapse, the air filled with screams. When the Air Force jets arrived, maybe an hour later, I ran screaming across the park and hid under a bench, along with 100s of others clambering for cover. We didn’t know the jets were “ours”. On that morning, anything seemed possible. There were the wild weeks following. Mourning. Wild-eyed collective grief. Making out with a guy I met 10 minutes before. There was a lot of that. I bet a lot of un-planned babies were born 9 months later. I never really processed what I would now call the trauma of all of this, mainly because – who the fuck cares about feelings, there are bigger issues at stake – but whatever, I was scarred permanently. I would never be the same again. I can say that now, with the distance of time. Watching almost 3,000 people die at the same time has a way of shifting around your molecular structure.
2000 and 2001: Another reason I started the blog: Two encounters
But let’s rewind to the November of the year before, 2000, during the fabled “recount” – which, of course, is always connected in my mind to 9/11 – since the attack was less than a year later – so it was in November 2000 when I fell in love at first sight. Nothing would happen after that night, but it changed me. It didn’t change me like 9/11 changed me, of course, but on a personal level, things were never really the same after that. Well, you can read the piece to see how it all shook out. I can’t explain why that encounter had such an impact, but it was bad. He has two more cameos, so don’t get comfortable.
Then – almost a year later – on September 9, 2001 – I ran into him again. The date is eerie. My sister and I convened at an East Village watering hole and he was freakin’ there, sitting at the bar. Thus ensued a hilarious drunken night. The chemistry was still there, and it was literally two “nights before” the world as we knew it ended.
This is how my pattern-seeking brain works: The first time he and I met, our country was in the middle of a crisis – the hanging-chad Florida recount – and the second time we met was two days before the biggest attack on American soil in our Gen-X lifetimes, and whatever the numbers a world-tottering event. If I get woo-woo about it, our relationship looks like a sort of geopolitical reflecting pool
2002: The final reason: The third encounter
In April of 2002, I saw him AGAIN. I am sure you all are sick of this. I’m sick of it myself but I have to tell it like it is, and unfortunately, he is tied up in the creation of my blog. In April of 2002, I didn’t “run into him” the way I did on September 9, 2001, but … he invited me to his birthday party, and – like an idiot – I went. And let’s be honest: I wreaked havoc. I went there to wreak havoc and fuck him up and I succeeded, but I fucked MYSELF up in the process. Just a warning in re: the above, there is a moment of – I suppose – what you would call violence – but the violence to me “felt like a kiss” – as the song says, which I realize is fucked up, but again, it’s the truth. If we had hooked up, the mere ACT might have resulted in mutual spontaneous combustion. Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blasted through the air, thereby always and forever associating itself with the bathroom in the aptly-named Bellevue Bar. A heavy sound for heavy days. I can now see this whole mess had nothing whatsoever to do with him. I barely KNEW the guy! In looking back on it, now all I can see is my mental illness, which I didn’t even know I had at the time (and didn’t know I had when I wrote the piece. I would write it very differently now), in the driver’s seat. The illness channeled into the state of emergency following 9/11 … but by April 2002, as the hyper-vigilance receded, the illness needed – desperately – to express itself. And so it did.
The summer of 2002 was frightening. I flat-lined emotionally. It was “wakeful anguish”, Keats’ brilliant description of “melancholy”, so piercing I checked out. I even heard whispering voices urging me to … One night, wandering around Hoboken, stricken, I looked up at the sky and it was a bright pink with some other colors, and something about the overlap of two colors made it look like the fabric of the sky was torn. It looked like there was a rip in the sky. I still remember the color of that pink sky. In my mental state in that moment, I was the only person aware that an apocalypse was occurring up there. A cosmic event was in progress. I went into a nearby church and prayed for humanity to be saved. I was a “cutter” since high school (even though there wasn’t a name for it back then). I weaned myself from the habit, and didn’t do it all during my time in Chicago (and never do it now), but it came back the summer of 2002. Even worse: I was in therapy this whole time. I can see now that I was in imminent danger and I should have been in the hospital not wandering around seeing the sky ripped open and pestered by whispering sinister voices. Instead, my lazy bitch therapist finally referred me to a psychiatrist (her energy was “This is above my paygrade”, not exactly comforting). I had to chase down the psychiatrist since it was August and you know how psychiatrists vanish in August. To “chase her down” when I was in a state of emotional emergency was too much to ask. The psychiatrist bitch met with me for 20 minutes and put me on an anti-depressant, which I now know is extremely dangerous for someone with my diagnosis. (The psychiatrist – if she had taken any time with me, which she didn’t – might have clocked what was really going on, and diagnosed me THEN, instead of me having to suffer for another DECADE – almost exactly) The anti-depressant kicked in in about 4 days: the clouds raced out of the sky, I shivered with energy and exhilaration, and at one point I remember SKIPPING around the corner of 21st Street onto 8th Avenue. Literally. Skipping. I now understand these are all warning signs. I’m lucky I’m alive. Nobody clocked it, though, because the lazy bitch psychiatrist just filled my prescription and never checked in with me again. I quit therapy because fuck her. By the fall of 2002 I leveled out and I felt more like myself. I sat with Allison in a speakeasy, I set a newspaper on fire, and I started a blog.
To sum up
I started this blog because of a lethal mixture of loneliness, mental illness, heavy metal, and terrorism.
Not quite the same thing as saying “I’m going to start a book/cooking/film blog.” No shade on those people, I’m just saying it wasn’t that way for me.
Oh my God, people are actually reading me
At first I didn’t have comments and I was mainly writing for people I knew. In 2003, I think, I upgraded to WordPress, and allowed comments. Around the same time, a couple of big-wigs linked to me, and I was voted Best of the Web (for that week, I guess) by The Wall Street Journal. This brought a LOT of people to my site, and overnight my comments section started exploding. This was before social media. Social media dispersed huge crowds like this. There were days when I legit could not keep up with my own comments section, and there was a lot of fractiousness in there, and I just did not – I REFUSED – to have a comments section where people were mean to each other. I ran a tight ship. I blocked people constantly. I gained a couple of creepy stalkers, one of whom I still hear from on occasion to this day, even though I have blocked him in every area possible. When idiots say, “Just ignore people like that” I want to say – and I DO say – “I never responded to this douchebag, beyond our initial interaction. I never ever respond, I don’t even read his emails, I delete them.” If that’s not ignoring then I don’t know what is. So don’t give advice on things you don’t understand. It’s stupid advice. And just so we’re clear: 99.99% of the people who’ve gotten obsessed and resorted to stalking and harassment have been men. This is expected. But the scariest blog-stalker I ever had was a woman. I reported her to the police. Just to have a paper trail in case something happened.
I don’t trust nobody.
Slow discovery of subject matter and expression, through doing whatever the hell I wanted, and encouraging a wide-ranging non-ideologically-rigid readership
Things developed. Series developed. Categories solidified. I loved writing about the Founding Fathers (particularly John Adams and Alexander Hamilton – YEARS before Lin Manuel Miranda came along, thankyouverymuch). James Joyce was – and remains – a regular topic of discussion. Believe it or not “Stalin” used to have his own category until I finally demoted him to just a tag. Still: I have written as much about him – and Russia, and the Russian revolution – as I have about Cary Grant. Along with this: I still write a lot about thought control, the control of language, the ironing-out of differences with an iron fist, all of the things that help keep me vigilant against those tendencies in our current era, in every era. Propaganda requires anti-propaganda vigilance. We are all susceptible. I wasn’t going to write these things in my journal. It’s stuff I need to express. In a way, the pieces on thought control, Orwell, Stalin, are as personal as any diary entry. Anything you want to know about me politically is there.
The whole Birthday Calendar thing is a relatively recent phenomenon, although I always liked to write posts “for” people’s birthdays. I liked the diversity: You’d have a post about Christopher Marlowe next to a post about Jane Russell or Dane Cook. Don’t try to pin me down. But around 2017 or so -? – the calendar format began to coalesce for real. I had written so much about so many people, the archive was so massive, I decided to resurrect these pieces on the subject’s birthday. We now know how THAT turned out. The birthday posts have basically BECOME the blog. I stopped writing about my daily life, for the most part, and I stopped putting pressure on myself to post every day. I never ever considered giving up the blog. The Birthday Posts means this site is continuously updated, sometimes with posts I’ve written 10, 12 years ago. Very few are recent, although some are. Inadvertently, this whole birthday post thing reflects one of the main reasons I do what I do: Celebrate. Pay tribute. I would rather talk about what I love than argue with people whether what I love is worth talking about or not. The birthday posts turned my blog into one big tribute, and I really like that.
A totally unexpected result of The Sheila Variations
There are people I have “met” through the comments section here who have become, at this point, lifelong friends. I’ve even met many in person. Lisa – whom I finally met during my first trip to Memphis. Emily – whom I finally met in 2005, when she visited New York, and I took her to the same speakeasy where I set the newspaper on fire. I also met up with Emily in Los Angeles, and we are still in touch. Love Emily. Other people I met whom I am still friends with: Regina, Carrie and Anthony, Bill, Sean, Therese, Anne, Sarah, Cate (RTG), Tracey, Tommy, De, Kelly S., and etc. I haven’t met some of them offline but we are friends. And let’s not forget STEVIE, whom I first met in 2007, when we traveled to Taos to meet Dean Stockwell. As you do. Stevie, who ALWAYS remembers my blog anniversary. These people are regular presences in my life – in an online way – and we are all “friends” on social media, and this can all be attributed to my site. (They all blogged too.) Then there are the regulars, like Todd and Melissa and mutecypher and DBW and a couple others, who have shown up on occasion for literally 20 years to see what I’m babbling about and leave thoughtful fun comments, and I appreciate them all.
And then there were the annoyances. You knew I had to address them. I don’t experience them so much anymore because apparently all the people who are like that have congregated on Twitter. The people who “what about”-ed me to death. The people who were homophobic, if you can believe it. Like, get the fuck off my site. I like the boys myself but my whole world and friend group is gay people and has been so since high school. I don’t know who you THINK you’re reading but if someone is invited into my home, and they proceed to say homophobic shit, then I show them the door. Then there were those from the right and the left who brought politics into everything – and this turns a comments section into a war zone. The other drags are people who scold you for liking someone even though that someone doesn’t have a blemish-free morally-correct life record. I’m not a contrarian so much as I resist consensus like it’s a full-time job and I’m interested in film – and books – and all of it – because it’s art, man. Only admiring people whom you deem have “correct” ideas or morally pure behavior … I guess you’ve never read Orwell. Or Tale of Two Cities. I guess you think Madame Defarge is a positive role model? (And look at what happened to HER.) I fear moral purity like it’s a fucking plague, because it IS – and always has been – a fucking plague. And so: people “come after you” because of your incorrect artistic opinions. This can lead to self-censorship: I better not share this because it won’t “play on Twitter”. If you are a writer and this thought comes into your head, you must kill it with fire in the public square. If you really want to write, you just can’t care. It’s a discipline: not caring.
All of this is to say: I moderate comments. I made the choice early on to do so and I still do it. Un-moderated comments sections descend into the ninth circle within two exchanges. It’s time-consuming but I protect the nice people who show up here against the rude ones. I disagree with plenty of people who show up here! But if your tone grants the other person humanity – and their right to hold a different opinion – then we’re good.
Transforming the blog into something elsee
In around 2005-2006 I started writing mostly about film – or, more accurately – actors. I had lots to say about actors, and … those pieces sometimes make me cringe now, it was early on, but it was part of me spreading my wings, testing out the waters. The blog became a place to document my obsessions. Weeks devoted to Cary Grant or Bogart. Weeks to Howard Hawks. MONTHS to Dean Stockwell, plus crashing a party in Taos and meeting him. And I started getting attention from another crowd, way better than the political animals who descended on me post Wall Street Journal … I started being looped into the later-adopters of blogging, the film bloggers, particularly the film bloggers in New York City. These people mostly started blogs in 2005-2006. Now these people have become regular and treasured friends: Farran, Keith, Dan, Matt Seitz, Jill, Imogen, Kim, Steven Boone, Simon, Dana, Charlie, Stephanie Z. All of them are still writing about film – some have been nominated for Pulitzers, all of them are amazing and my whole life changed. I started getting actual gigs writing about film – my first paid gig in 2010 – and … here we are today. Where I get a hand-written note from Martin Scorsese thanking me for my “insight” into Raging Bull. Where my first book is coming out at the end of this month, and I got the assignment because Guillermo del Toro requested me to write it. I don’t even know how it all happened. I certainly didn’t HUSTLE for it.
Then in 2013, on the same day I got my monster mental health diagnosis – the same day – Roger Ebert emailed me, asking me to write for him. And then everything REALLY changed.
20 Years of Life History
My life has gone through so many different changes over the course of the blog. It starts when Cashel was a 5 year old in Brooklyn and I saw him almost every weekend. He is now a musician and an actor, a college graduate, living in New York. WTF. My brother moving to Los Angeles. My father. The death of my friend Brett. Multiple world events. Multiple catastrophic storms. Katrina. Irene. Sandy. The economy crash. Losing my long-time job. My very first published piece, which had nothing to do with film, in the Irish Letters issue of The Sewanee Review, the oldest literary journal in the country. My time on Block Island, re-grouping. My writing career starting in 2010. A life-changer. Too late for my father to see though. A couple of really damaging romances, particularly in 2009 and in 2012, identical “romances” with identical endings. They both also lasted three months to the day and ended very very badly. Two major breakdowns, one in 2009 and 2012. Shit got a little eerie on here. I kept the posts up including The Triangle, which I can’t even read now it’s so scary, but I figure … I was bearing witness to my own experience, and … it should stay up. This blog saw the birth of my script July and Half of August, which traveled from New York to Los Angeles to Chicago and back to New York. It led to meetings with Broadway producers, bites from gigantic New York agents, who wined and dined me, and finally, turning a scene of it into a short film, which traveled from New York to Albuquerque to Champaign-Urbana and – just recently – in Bushwick. I don’t even know how many day jobs I’ve had since I started up this site. I work in New York’s media world, and over these years I had jobs at NBC, Disney, Oxygen, Martha Stewart, The New York Times, a crazed stint at The Today Show … I can’t even count. Those jobs dried up after the crash. I managed to get by because basically I know everyone in New York media. “Hi. Just lost a job. I need another one. You got anything?” They always did. I moved five times. Am I missing one? Yes, I am missing one. The last one. When I started up this blog, I had a longtime roommate. In 2020 I interviewed her about her methods for teaching acting! Lifelong friends. In 2008 I got Hope. In 2012, I lost Hope for three hair-raising days after half my apartment building burned down. Hope died in 2020. Multiple trips to Ireland, one of which resulted in one of my favorite pieces I ever wrote. A trip to Croatia. Multiple trips to Memphis. Giving a talk on Elvis in Memphis, introduced by Robert Gordon. !!! My dear brother-in-law’s tragic death in 2020. When I started the blog, Cashel was my only nephew. Now I have 7 more nieces and nephews. Can’t imagine my life without all of them. Getting diagnosed in 2013, finally, after the crackup in 2012 that could have been my last. Renewal and actual mental well-being, which I have never had, not since I was a small child. The sexual assault after the weird date-that-wasn’t-a-date (I’m sorry, it was a date), which led to my first crack-up post-diagnosis. It was a bad one. I tried not to let the experience of that night change me, but I failed. I can see now the effects were long-lasting. Like, that night still feels like it happened last year. I never get over anything. Multiple upheavals in Iran, which I followed closely. 2003. 2009. Panahi. Now. Women. Life. Freedom. Watching an insurrection. A pandemic. An Elvis 68-comeback-special mask. We make it through however we can.
That’s a lot of life, and that’s just scratching the surface of events.
I didn’t want to just talk about my own life on the blog, because I sensed – correctly – that even if I didn’t mean to, I would be creating a “persona” of some kind, and I didn’t want to have to live up to it. (I read many diary-type blogs, and I loved them. I just didn’t want to go that route. I didn’t want to “perform” my life.) I didn’t want a single-subject blog. I just wanted a place where I could speak in public. I did write personally, mostly old stories I always wanted to write, memories I wanted to capture – good memories a lot of the time – and it was also a way of working out what I thought and felt in print. I don’t do that so much anymore, although just recently I wrote this huge piece about something I’ve wanted to write about for years, mainly because I knew it was super important but I never could put my finger on why. Writing really helped, even though the piece went way beyond my initial idea. I sometimes get confused about what actually went on in my life, particularly when super strong romantic-ish feelings are involved, and writing really helps. Some of the story posts become regular staples, posts people look forward to every year, and one settled in so much to the collective consciousness of the commentariat – much larger at the time I wrote it – that this particular gentleman is still referred to as “Window-Boy” by old-timers.
This has continued to be the place where I can expand – at length – in a way I never could in a major publication – on the subjects that obsess me. Elvis started here, although just out of curiosity I did a search and found a post I have no memory of writing … it’s so strange, but 2005 Me somehow knew what she would unleash if she ever started in for real, although … I think even I was a little surprised by what has happened, and what writing about Elvis has brought to my life. Supernatural started here. If I was forced to choose the most regular readers, the smartest regular readers, the funniest regular readers, it would be the Supernatural crowd. My God, these people do not mess around. I consider some of them friends. Helena. Lyrie. Cassandra. Jessie (whom I actually met in person, a real treat).
All really pleasant byproduct of blogging regularly. I am one of the last holdouts. As is Kelly, who started blogging just before I did. I highly recommend you bookmarking his site.
When I crouched over my laptop in Allison’s apartment, coming out of a suicidal depression, still in a state of shock from September 11th, still reeling from my encounter with THAT MAN WHO INFILTRATED AND ALTERED MY EMOTIONAL DNA, and then “cured” by the irresponsible prescribing of antidepressants, I had no way of knowing what would happen and where it would go. I did not plan for all this to happen. I went into it with no goals whatsoever. I wanted to put my voice out in the world, even if it just meant posting excerpts from my book collection. I was so lonely and I was tired of writing in my JOURNAL. I felt like it was time to come out to play.
And so I did.
Happy birthday to you, Sheila Variations. You changed my whole entire world. I would even say you saved my life.
Getting ready to go to the 50th anniversary gala for the Film Society at Lincoln Center, to which I was invited, on the same day Film Comment featured my cover story on Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir”. Tilda Swinton, who was in “The Souvenir” along with her daughter, was at the gala, and the two posed with the magazine on the red carpet, holding it open to my article. Would any of this have happened if I didn’t start the blog? Honestly? No.
Thanks for stopping by. To anyone who visits here on a regular basis, and to anyone who finds me randomly and leaves beautiful comments, thank you.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
Thank you for always taking us along for the ride, no matter the bus number xoxo
Love, Carrie
The bus number day is, hands down, one of the funniest days in the history of this site.
I am so glad this blog brought us together! xoxo
During the heyday, every time someone said ‘you should do a blog’, I would think on this site and decline. If I can’t post everyday or multiple times a day and care about it all, then why bother.
Oh gosh, no, Scott, you should do it if you want to. No need to post every day – in fact, I look at my own output and want to tell myself to calm the hell down!!
Oh, spending a couple months making regular posts on FB clarified how much I really wanted it. It also further showed how much other people suck, so yeah, an occasional comment here and there is enough for me. I go to other peoples parties, never throw them.
And your output – there was more than one occasion where I’d hit the link to see the rest of your post and scroll down, and scroll down, and keep scrolling and scrolling….I appreciated the comprehensiveness, but often wondered if you were okay. Glad you are.
Hell is definitely other people.
I was not prepared for how time consuming it would be – DEALING with these people. should I just let their rudeness stand? But I can’t – because then everyone is responding to the rude comment – and not engaging in conversation about the subject at hand … Ugh. It’s pretty under control now, mainly because the assholes are on Twitter.
// I appreciated the comprehensiveness, but often wondered if you were okay. //
lol Most probably I wasn’t – or, putting together a post like that was how I was making myself okay. :) In general, I am much more toned down now. I just don’t have the TIME for that anymore.
Thank you for your blog. I’m not sure when I found it, but through it I have found many, many new favorites, and learned things about old favorites that I hadn’t known.
Bill – thanks so much! I always enjoy your comments!
My God, Sheila, 20 years! I will come back to read or re-read some of those links – I can never resist Window Boy, I’m weak!
And if you’ll allow me, I’ll probably also – in the Supernatural tradition – leave a much longer comment to share how much your writing and this space mean to me. I didn’t expect to see my internet name up there, and I am incredibly touched, especially alongside those amazing people. It’s an amazing thing you’ve created here.
A very happy birthday to the Sheila Variations!
Who could ever resist Window Boy??
// share how much your writing and this space mean to me. //
That is so meaningful for me to hear – thank you!!
I know during some of the more heated years of SPN fandom – when the fandom was imploding – people would show up here with a sigh of relief like they escaped a war zone. Here you could actually express yourself without the fear of being called horrible names or “put on blast” lol
Thank you for choosing to spend some time here! It’s been super fun and I appreciate you!
Just like with your Rust and Bone post, I had written an extremely long comment that I’ll never post. But with Twitter on the verge of – maybe – imploding, I find it even more important to celebrate a blog. I get that Twitter is an excellent tool for so many things and that people have found community that way, but I remember the age of blogs, and of forums (I still miss phpBB forums), and I have no doubt we can keep finding each other.
I love that everything you post comes from love. I love your deep appreciation for artists, for places, for moments, relationships. I love that you unabashedly talk at length about something you’re passionate about, and that you seem to really enjoy other people’s long rants as well, as long as it’s also in the spirit of appreciating somebody else’s work. I’m grateful for all the wonderful artists I’ve discovered or re-discovered here, and I love that it’s never snobbish, and that you don’t look down on any form of popular culture.
I don’t always agree with you, and I love that too – see our conversation about groupthink. I love that there is room for different perspectives, and that you also have no problem with the fact that this space is yours, and some things don’t fly here.
I learnt the term sui generi here, reading you. How appropriate. It really suits you well, and I am so incredibly grateful to have found this space and to feel welcome here.
Thank you and long live The Sheila Variations.
Thank you so so much, Lyrie!
This place has become a haven for me as well – and I built the damn place. lol I had no idea when I set it up that there would be a thing called “social media” and how it would obliterate personal blogs – there have been a couple of interesting pieces about how blogs may be on the rise again, although in different formats – i.e. newsletters and/or Substacks … places where individuals can write long-form about whatever pleases them.
The whole Twitter thing is wild. I stopped posting on there this past August for various reasons – but … it’s going to create such upheaval when it goes. Not for me – I weaned myself from it – but … it has done me a lot of good. It’s upped my profile. I’ve gotten jobs because of it. A lot of freelancers rely on it.
Not to mention media – and governments – they have become so reliant on Twitter in such a short amount of time. It’s truly alarming!! Twitter has been a way for protestors to get the word out – there’s a reason Iran shut down Twitter in 2009. The Arab Spring – much of it played out on Twitter. It’s scary to think of that mouthpiece shutting down.
I am very glad, personally, that I stepped away when I did. It was taking up too much brainspace – and the whole status-quo group-think thing we were just talking about in the other thread – is how Twitter works. and that is BAD for my writing. I don’t want that fear to get into my writing. “How will this play on Twitter?” is a question I don’t ever want to ask when I’m writing something.
Anyway, all of this is to say I’m happy to have this place – that I kept it running – AND very grateful to anyone who chooses to spend even a little bit of time here.
Thank you!!
Hurrah. Long may you wave. (And posting here, instead of FB, so you know, yes I did read, to the end, entranced all the way.)
Stephen!! lol Yes, it is a long one, as is my wont, and that’s another good thing about having your own spot on the internet where you can do whatever you want.
Thanks for showing up!! Great to see you – albeit briefly – on Friday!
Thank you, Sheila.
Thank YOU, Jincy!!
Your reading. Your writing. Your viewing. And this beautiful, wonderful, must-visit-every-day blog. Your intellect. Your vision. Your knowledge.
How do you do it?
Is it ok to speak for your MANY fans and say, “WE LOVE YOU!”
Keep on doin’ the doin’!
Thank you, Marc!!!
Congratulations, Sheila! I check you out every day. My favourite blog.
Best
Duncan
Thank you so much, Duncan!
Happy Birthday, indeed! I discovered your blog in 2003, and at the time my youngest son was 9 years old. Now he’s graduated with a Performing Arts degree from San Diego State, and I get text messages from him saying, “Did you see what Sheila O’Malley wrote about ______?” So you’ve captured two generations of us…here’s to even more!
Jeff!! Oh my God I love this about your son!! Please thank him for me and best of luck to him in his studies!
Your early support of my Elvis writing was VERY encouraging. It meant a lot.
Thanks for sticking around all these years. 2003!!! do you remember what it was that brought you to my site? I am trying to re-create those early years and there’s so much I don’t remember.
I know I was looking for reviews of a certain movie, but for the life of me I can’t remember which movie it was. Your blog popped up, and then I found “An Eyeball and a Dozen Roses,” and the rest as they say was history.
lol
As a “relatively new” reader, I’m so glad you came through the fire and rain, so to speak, and you have a blog that is worth checking in on everyday. Those are few and far between. If the post is personal or more informative, the writing is always first-rate. It’s not clickbait. It’s LIFE. Happy Birthday!
Brad – thank you so much!!!
Wow, 20 years…I wish I could remember exactly when (and how!) I found your site, but it’s been a daily read for just about the entire time. I think I knew I’d found at least part of a kindred spirit when you wrote about ALL OF ME: “Back in bowl!”
Anyway, there’s something special about the ones who have kept going even as blogs all became Twitter feeds (or, sadly, paywalled substacks or other newsletter forums). That’s the way I see it, anyway!
Kelly – I was thinking the same thing about your site – I can’t remember how I discovered you. Member the whole “blogroll”phenomena? I discovered a lot of cool people mainly by scrolling through the blogroll of someone I loved – Oh, okay, so this person reads and recommends THIS person so let me check it out. It might have been because of that? I just can’t remember!
It’s funny – there are people who closed up shop years ago – in some cases 15 years ago – and I STILL miss their sites, their voice.
Sheila, Happy Birthday! What a treat, an education, an inspiration, and a joy you and your site have been for me. Congratulations. My very best to you.
Thank you so much for reading all these years and for all the great discussions!
Hi Sheila, congratulations on twenty years! I stumbled on your site when I was in high school, and I’m now a mid-thirties English teacher. You’ve been a daily ritual, and I’ve sought out many books and films on your recommendation that have become really important to me, everyone from Lorrie Moore to Stefan Zweig. (Not the least of which, I read Ulysses front to back with your posts as a guide!) Thank you for sharing your passions with us all these years.
// I stumbled on your site when I was in high school, and I’m now a mid-thirties English teacher. //
Okay that kind of freaks me out. lol
WOW.
// recommendation that have become really important to me, everyone from Lorrie Moore to Stefan Zweig. //
this just warms my heart to hear!! Plus – a Ulysses guide!! I’ve received so many emails about those crazy posts I wrote – people telling me they read the book referring to those posts – and I am just so happy about this and happy those posts actually mean something to people. My dad did that for me when I read the book – so somehow those posts doing that for other people is like me carrying his spirit forward.
So thank you.
Happy Happy Sheila Variations.
Over the years of checking in every day, I’ve noticed that we don’t share as many interests as I thought. Very few, actually. But I read almost everything you write because you make it interesting, and you write so damn well. You have opinions. That is rare. People are afraid to write down what they believe. Afraid to be judged? To be criticized? Afraid. You appear to have no fear. Thank you for that. And for the many years of yourself you’ve given us. I’m so glad you mentioned Hope. I still have some pictures you posted which I saved. I miss her, too.
Thanks, Melissa!
Thank you Sheila. I’ve been reading you almost as long as you’ve been posting. You have turned me on to writers and actors and fucked-up obsessions I would never have considered before.
I lift a tall, hot mug of Connemara Kitchen tea to you.
20 years is a long time to be cool, a long time to be smart.
Believe me, I know!
John Doherty
Hey John. Always so good to hear from you. I love turning people on to fucked-up obsessions. lol
Thanks for reading all these years!
I don’t comment all that often, but I visit almost every day. I’ve been reading you for almost half my life!
I’ve enjoyed learning new things from you and I’m thrilled with all the windows this blog has opened for you (and while I know all the Amazing Things you mentioned in the post above, nevertheless my brain goes like this: “opening windows” + this blog = Window Boy breaking into Mitchell’s room by accident — but to paraphrase your comment above, who could ever resist a Window Boy reference?).
I like how some old posts have been resurrected into Birthday posts; it’s like a visit from an old friend — and they always have more to share.
Thank you so much, Sheila, for sharing and writing and curating such an eclectic treasure trove. Long live the blog, and long live you!
Similar to a comment I made long, long ago:
“Is it blog, MY-favorite-blog?”
“Yeth.”
// “opening windows” + this blog = Window Boy breaking into Mitchell’s room by accident //
hahahahahahaha
I mean, it makes perfect sense!
You’ve been around since almost the very beginning and I appreciate you!
20 years. It seems like just the other day when I read your moving, heartfelt essay on 9/11 that so closely mirrored my own thoughts…and, then, that photo. I thought, “THAT person wrote this essay?” Little did I know that I’d still be reading that young lady all these years later. You still seem like a mostly undiscovered marvel to me, but it’s easy to see from the comments that you have touched so many people in a significant way, and I’m one of them. Of all the people I consider good friends, it’s funny to think you are the only one I’ve never met. Thank you for so bravely sharing yourself with all of us.
// I thought, “THAT person wrote this essay?” //
lol
// Of all the people I consider good friends, it’s funny to think you are the only one I’ve never met. //
I know! We did talk on the phone once though didn’t we? We ALMOST met that one time? I can’t remember the circumstances now. I was in Chicago and you were maybe going to be in Chicago too? Why can’t I remember? Did I make this up? I was staying with Alex and I seem to remember talking with you briefly on the phone. so we came close to meeting!
At any rate … there are only a few people still around who have read me from the very beginning, dating from that WSJ link – I think you might be the only one.
I appreciate you!! 20 years, it’s just crazy.
Oh, yes, we did talk on the phone. You were in Chicago, and I was there playing in a golf tournament (Don’t all your friends play in golf tournaments?–LOL). We had made some preliminary plans to meet, but, when it came down to it, we were more than an hour’s drive apart, both of us were busy with other plans, and it didn’t work out. Which is a shame. Still, our conversations over the years have been varied and very enjoyable. I still think you are a special talent, and wonder how the rest of the world hasn’t figured that out. For a number of reasons, I don’t comment nearly as frequently as I once did, but I’m still a regular visitor and loyal reader. I’m grateful I stumbled on your little spot in hyperspace.
That’s right! The golf tournament! and I am 99% certain I was car-less and couldn’t have driven to where you were, at any rate.
Cate and I – member Cate? – were just talking about how it is absolutely bonkers that she and I have never met. I joked, “You and I meeting would be basically a moot point at this point.” It’s so strange how that has happened – those early blogging years – say, 2002-2005 – early early years – that’s when all these friendships I mention here started. Really kind of extraordinary – it’s a forgotten slice of internet history really – the brief window of blogging before social media came along and killed it.
I still miss it sometimes. Those days where you’d just stroll around from blog to blog and hang out with the same people all day, chatting about whatever. It was really quite cozy, in a weird way. I mean, definitely cozy compared to the wild-west regression of social media.
Very grateful I jumped on board the blogging train – and that I got in so early. Lots of great memories.
It WAS cozy. That’s a perfect word. Before the descent into the madness that so much of it has become, it was like a friendly little backyard conversation with bright neighbors or friends–over a few glasses of wine. And, of course, I remember Cate. I miss those days, too. It’s why I’ve checked this comment section something like 10 times the last two days–I miss those days. It felt as if we had discovered a new path to meaningful connection.
I’m laughing because you and Cate could both be quite funny at times. You two led each other on, and the results were ‘special.’ Her “Hitachi” post remains a treasured memory…ha.
There is too much to say, and this isn’t the place. Again, Happy 20th!
// it was like a friendly little backyard conversation with bright neighbors or friends–over a few glasses of wine. / /
Exactly! Like, let’s wander over and see what THIS section of the party is discussing. Okay, I don’t find that interesting, but maybe I can find something of interest with that group over by the pool! I loved it!
oh my God Hitachi. We were shameless. lol
The whole Sylvia Plath shared obsession was when our friendship REALLY went into the stratosphere. I miss miss her writing. She’s up to great things though – happy and productive, husband, kid, getting her Master’s – but still … I miss her writing!
// This isn’t the place //
Of COURSE this is the place. hahaha there is no other place!!
It’s nice to know others look back on that time with fondness. It was unique – we had no idea it wouldn’t last.
Happy Birthday, Sheila!
I’m one of the ones who found you via Supernatural, more specifically via Jensen Ackles. You’re are the ONLY blog I read regularly because I’m usually entertained or learning something or comforted, sometimes all at the same time!
Play on, Sheila, play on!
Carolyn – I so appreciate our conversations – and I just love how Jensen Ackles brings people together, lol.
Thanks for reading all these years!!
Happy Birthday to all the Variations of Sheila!
Thank you Melanie!!
thank you sheila for a fascinating account of your journey! i think you are one of the best writers on the internet! you know i love your music posts, and reading your writing every day is part of my daily routine. thank you for the joy and insight you have brought me! greetings from down here in mississippi! much love to you and your family.
Hugh – thanks so much!!
At 78 years of old, I am one of the faithful. You hooked me somewhere in 2005 with a Joyce post, and I’ve enjoyed visiting ever since.
Steve!! Thank you so much for reading all these years – it’s always so good to hear from you.
Happy Birthday!
And also, “wow”. And sincerely “I’m sorry” … for all of what you have gone thru. But you’ve made it, you are valued. You are a talented and engaging writer. A success and an inspiration. My favorite place to visit on the internet is right here. Your writing, especially and most importantly (to me) on Elvis is what I have in my heart but can never fully articulate. So, thank you for that. I wish I had something more to say that carries you thru the day the way your essays often carry me.
And by the way, on your posts not Elvis related. I read them. I learn alot. I love those writings just as much.
Joseph – thank you so much!!
// Your writing, especially and most importantly (to me) on Elvis is what I have in my heart but can never fully articulate. So, thank you for that. //
I truly appreciate it. My writing on him comes from the heart – (deep in my heart there’s a trembling question, and etc.) – and it’s sometimes a challenge to put those things into words – but it seems like the most important thing to at least TRY to do – so I am glad it comes across.
Thank you so much.
Wow, happy 20th, and here’s to another 20!
I’ve exited the internet to a great extent the last few years, but I still make it a point to stop by here, even if ‘real life’ intrudes and there’s an extended time between visits.
Thank you for all the great writing over the years, and thank you especially for all the artists you’ve turned me on to, starting with Cary Grant.
// I’ve exited the internet to a great extent //
I am truly impressed.
Thank you for continuing to stop by!!
//I am truly impressed.//
Don’t be. I still stream a ton of music and movies. :-)
Being ‘very online’ as far as social media/news was not good for me so I had to adjust reading habits is all.
Cheers, and thank you again. Enjoying the latest view dairy.
Congratulations Sheila and Thank you! :)
I found this blog through your Library of America East of Eden/James Dean article and it’s been an absolute treasure trove since then. It’s my go to place for writing on the arts and artists and creativity. Your writing is first rate and the breadth and depth of your knowledge and insight into art and artistry is inspiring. I absolutely love coming on this blog and not knowing who exactly I’m going to read about today. I learn SO much. It’s eclectic and in-depth and your writing is so smart and a joy to read.
Most of all thank you for sharing your joys and story and journey and love of these great artists with us.
Lady Bug – ohhhh that East of Eden piece was SO meaningful for me to write – it’s SUCH a bummer that that site didn’t continue on – in its one year of existence editor Michael Sragow created an incredible archive – with such an amazing roster of writers – and I am so proud to be a part of it. Glad that article sent you my way!!
Thank you so much for all the kind words – it truly means so much and I appreciate it.
This is the third time I’ve ever posted on the internet. The other two times were also on this blog. So I thought it appropriate to publicly thank you for providing such interesting and diverse and thoughtful and entertaining and well-written material. I think I found this blog through the late Lance Mannion. We lurkers do appreciate all you do. Thank you.
Will – thank you for coming out of lurker-dom to comment!! I appreciate your presence, even if you lurk! Lance Mannion was such a good egg.
this is very good and sometimes heartbreaking I also read your Dean Stockwell posts and of course really appreciate them .well done on your writing ..and blog …I wish you well ….jeanie
Thank you so much, Jeanie! I love your love of Dean!
Happy blog birthday!!! I check regularly to see what’s going on, and your monthly viewing diaries are always a must read. Many happy returns, Sheila, and keep on keeping on.
Thank you, Helena!! Always excellent to hear from you.
what a journey — enjoyed every word — thank you for linking to key pieces of the archive — the havoc party! I gasped when he followed you into the bathroom!
I found you in the mid-late 2000s via, I think, Anne Helen Peterson’s classic Hollywood writing and set up an RSS feed to be able to read you on my livejournal friends page. I followed so many blogs back then with my acres of spare time and they all dropped away as life became more complicated. Except yours! As LJ and my friends page faded away I kept coming back to the source. I was content to be a lurker but then you just had to go and post a picture of Dean Winchester’s face. I suppose in one way or another we are all victims of Dean Winchester’s face.
I think of you every time Logan Lucky comes up and laugh remembering standing in line for popcorn saying “what is happening” in bewildered voices back and forth for five minutes about the then-recent lamentable turns in SPN haha. I hope we can do it again some day!
Congrats on this incredible milestone, your exciting and deserved successes that have sprung from this blog, and your fostering of a lovely community. Sláinte!
// the havoc party! //
Right? Sheila, you have no business being at that party and you have no one but yourself to blame, lol.
The weirdest thing is that maybe 5 or 6 years ago – he DMd me – !! – – to tell me how happy he was for me at my success as a writer. Soooo …. he’s been paying attention? he kept his promise? Life is a strange thing.
// I was content to be a lurker but then you just had to go and post a picture of Dean Winchester’s face. //
HA!!! I still remember your first comment. I don’t think I even posted any thoughts – just that crazy picture of his face in the roadhouse. and boom, there you were. And so our long journey began. Seriously maybe the most fun I’ve ever had on this here blog – those years of SPN writing.
// saying “what is happening” in bewildered voices back and forth for five minutes about the then-recent lamentable turns in SPN haha. //
hahahaha!! We were so confused! We were in the thick of it and we knew it was all wrong and it was so dismaying. That was so fun.
and yes, if you ever come back to the Eastern coast of this continent, please let me know!!
Thank you for your continued presence here!!
Happy blog birthday, Sheila! I first encountered you via Self-Styled Siren. I’m more of a lurker than a commenter (I think I’ve only commented once before on here), but I’d like to take this opportunity to say that your writing about acting, and your insights into actors’ key performances, are second to none; you illuminate the process without turning it into something mechanical. You let the magic remain. Very few people seem to write about what is actually DONE on screen – your deep dives into the careers of specific performers are some of my favourite writing about cinema. Long may you continue!
Rebecca – so nice! Thank you so much for the kind words. I am happy to hear that my writing on acting has had an effect – I really love to do it! Thanks for lurking all these years!
Sincerest congratulations for this twentieth year.
You are the best, bar none.
John – many many thanks!!
Sheila! I will forever be grateful for the day I came across your blog. I had binge watched 8 seasons of Supernatural in a very short time…I found it during one of those “rough patches of life” and it hooked me. I was looking for episode reviews and I found you, and you blew me away with your deep dive into the show and your writing style. Those years of being part of that Supernatural crowd were some of the most fun I’ve had. Even when the show went off the rails…being able to come together and vent about it going off the rails was such a relief. Thank you for creating this wonderful space!
Michelle! Thank you so much!! We went through a similar time span: I started writing about the show in Season 9 (after binge-watching the rest). I think I was almost caught up when I started writing so I had (most of) the context of the rest.
// found it during one of those “rough patches of life” and it hooked me. // This makes me very happy to hear. I was in a rough patch too when I started – and writing about Supernatural really helped me!
// Those years of being part of that Supernatural crowd were some of the most fun I’ve had. Even when the show went off the rails…being able to come together and vent about it going off the rails was such a relief. // I love to hear this. I felt like the host of one of the greatest (and longest) dinner parties known to man.
Thanks so much for showing up all these years!!
20 years! Wild. I don’t read as regularly as I used to but I have always loved your writing and how much you’ve made me think. I know I enjoy things simply because you pointed out the beauty in them. I see or read something and think “I bet Sheila’s got thoughts on that” and I come back and 9/10 you do. It’s made me pay more attention to things that I never noticed before and I’m forever grateful for it.
I’m so glad you’re here.
alli – always so nice to hear from you. You’ve been stopping by here since almost the beginning and you wrote about OFFSIDE for my Iranian film blogathon! :). 12 years ago – can you believe it?
Thanks again for taking the time out of your life periodically to stop by here. :)
I don’t comment much but I still check back here nearly every day. Came for Supernatural, stayed for your funny, often-surprising and always fascinating takes on books/films/music/everything really. (I couldn’t believe that you’d written so much on two of my absolute favourite subjects– Supernatural AND L.M Montgomery). I discovered this blog when I was 16 and I’m now 24- and books I’ve read in the past years solely because you recommended them include The Shipping News, Kavalier & Clay, Lives of the Saints, House of Leaves, Sexual Personae, The Double, everything Jeanette Winterson, Ulysses, At Swim-Two-Birds, The Talented Mr Ripley, Possession, The Master and Margarita, lots of Waugh, Franny & Zooey, Fear & Loathing, & don’t even get me started on how reading here has broadened my taste in films. Some of these books are now favourites. I always pay attention to a rec from you. You’re honest and you’re willing to go against the grain with opinions/recommendations. Which is so rare now.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this site– and please keep doing it!
Hello! Oh my gosh, you were 16 when you first showed up here?? Amazing to think – time is a weird thing. Supernatural and LMM – a great combo! my heart swelled with pride and happiness to hear all the books you’ve read!! Jeanette Winterson!! I fell off the Winterson train for a while and am back on with a vengeance. I’m going to do a full re-read of all of her stuff in 2024, I was just thinking about doing that. The Passion was such a huge book for me – I read it “when I was around your age” (says the granny blog-host) – and it just was so important for me in terms of clarifying/illuminating some of the experiences I was having. Obviously not as a cross-dressing web-footed Venetian woman but … those are just DETAILS, everything else was the same! I think the first of hers I read was Sexing the Cherry – the gateway drug, but Passion was the one that made me a fan for life! What was your gateway drug?
Very very glad you have chosen to spend some of your time here over the years. I am grateful!! Thank you!
Yes– obsessive and highly precocious, lol. It was like finding a safe haven. I felt understood by those SPN threads!
I think Winterson might be my favourite discovery from here! The Passion was absolutely my gateway drug. Meeting Villanelle was like meeting myself– or what I wanted to be (let’s be honest, what I still want to be). And the way she writes about Venice– the only author that gave me that same feeling was Javier Marias in his wonderful essay Venice, An Interior. I read Oranges afterwards and felt almost… disappointed? because it wasn’t just The Passion all over again. I should give it another go because I read Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal recently and found it so moving. Loved Sexing the Cherry and Written on the Body really hit me as a bisexual teen. I still have Lighthousekeeping and Art & Lies in reserve for a rainy day.
Oh– and how could I forget– you got me into Melville and now I have become one of those weirdos who tries to persuade everyone they meet to read Moby Dick…
Moby Dick!! Now that’s an accomplishment! seriously – it’s such a MAD book, like truly insane – its reputation as this super solemn TOME really doesn’t do it any favors!
I’m surprised Passion hasn’t been turned into a movie – it’d have to be done right, though, of course. It’s got it all. and yes – just the WAY she writes about Venice, and then the cameos from Napoleon – it’s just so good!
I’ve also enjoyed her essays on art and writers – there’s a collection called Art Objects – I think? – I love it because she’s working class – her perspective is so important, since so much of criticism/academia comes from middle-upper class.
It’s been A WHOLE YEAR?! What the fuck.
I don’t mean to alarm you, Sheila, but not only is your blog old enough to drink, it’s also old enough to have babies. How do you feel about THAT? I’m thinking more unclaimed little bastards running around, in the same way X Files and Buffy are Supernatural’s parents – I couldn’t not mention it, could I? :)
I’ve been thinking about starting a Substack for a while now (about a year, I guess?), I just haven’t been brave enough to actually do it yet. It’s good I’ve taken my time, though, so I could decide what I wanted to talk about and how. Unsurprisingly, I always end up wanting to talk about tv shows, mostly. Either to revel in a moment, dive deeper into what meaning I find into a scene/character, or as a starting point for something else.
Not reviews or criticism, although sometimes there is some aspect of cultural commentary to my thoughts. Mostly, just obsessive weirdo takes? There are a few artists whose work makes me want to write, and you’re definitely a big influence. Some conversations I wouldn’t even know how to have without linking to your work – mirrors, Supernatural, masculinity… so many ideas I haven’t found explored in a way that resonates as deeply anywhere else.
Given how time seems to be folding on itself, I guess I should really get started. With your 21 years of experience, I’d love your advice on some stuff, if you ever find the time – things maybe you wish you had known earlier about creating and maintaining your own space, or things you did instinctively and only realized it after a while, that benefited you,… Maybe twenty-one years from now we’ll look at the bastard grandchildren of the Sheila Variations in amazement!
Of course, there are tons of great stuff in your post already – about moderating comments, about not creating a persona and performing your own life.
That’s one of the things that has stopped me, actually – with social media culture, some people have made a business of getting paid to be just be themselves publicly. It’s not about “making money without having any specific talent” – that’s not actually a new idea, and I find that it’s also not often accurate, but that’s another topic. The whole idea of showing our selves scares me, and on platforms where it is or can be monetized… I have ISSUES with it. I don’t know when it’s being vulnerable in a way that is generous because others can relate, and when it’s self serving, self pitying, self indulging. I admire how you write about some very private things without falling into those pitfalls. These are also true for memoirists, but online, the feedback can be so immediate and brutal.
and to your second comment – I totally know what you mean.
I was thinking about the Pioneer Woman this week actually. who started out as a lil ol blogger like myself – she’d post recipes, photography posts, and describe her life on a cattle ranch and it was all very interesting and different. Now, she has a TV show, multiple books – she’s massive – and her blog has been woven into her larger TV show site – and … let’s just say, she has a team of people who have scrubbed her archives. there used to be some wild shit on there. I was thinking about her because I just saw the new Martin Scorsese movie – it opens this week – and it’s about the Osage tribe in Oklahoma, and what happened to them in the 20s/30s. Based on an amazing book called Killers of the Flower Moon. ANYWAY. the pioneer woman who basically positioned herself as “I’m a city girl who married a cowboy” (which wasn’t true at all) – married into one of the biggest landowning families in the United States – and their entire massive ranch is Osage land.
I am only mentioning this because – well, because after I watched the movie I remember thinking “I bet the Drummond family wishes this movie would just go away” – but also: in the start of her blogging days, Ree was silly and girlie and posted hilarious off-color stories. She sent me a gift once – very generous – a movie book! she was just a blogger, just like me.
But then she kinda hit the jackpot – and clearly she had a team – marketers? PR people? – who knew how to get rid of every off-color story in her past – condoms, and uterus stories, and even – the biggest – her brother with Downs syndrome whom she refers to as the R-word. this was controversial back then and she would say “this is just how we are in our family, we love Mike” – Mike was a HUGE character in her blog. He is nowhere to be found now.
so something is lost along the way when you start to “perform” a VERSION of yourself, and you try to make it fit into a neat box.
She did what she had to do – I’m not judging – I find it fascinating and I wish, actually, she would talk about it. What was that process like? How do you decide which posts can stay, which had to go?
So whatever happened with my writing – I did not want THAT. ^^
I have always felt that the most honest things I’ve written have always been baked into my reviews or pieces about actors or the SPN posts – some of my most personal stuff ever!
I’ve definitely had mean brutal commenters. I feel like starting out as an actress – and working and auditioning for years – gave me a really really thick skin. You can’t be too sensitive! It’s a real challenge! Because it’s YOU they’re criticizing.
at this point, though, I really just don’t care.
that’s a long-ass answer. forgive me, I’m just fascinated by the Pioneer Woman thing – especially with this whole entire movie coming out about the Indian tribe her in-laws stole their land from. I mean …
I’ve got skeletons but nothing like that!
“obsessive weirdo takes” is all that interests me! I think the only advice I really have is … to do it for you. To have fun putting your weirdo takes into words – to find the pleasure in it – and to share it, because you love to share it. That’s how I started – and of course I wanted “readers” but I didn’t even think of it that way. I started in a very informal way. It was also a different time – pre social media, etc. Blogs used to be these really cool little corners of niche interests – someone writes about baking – someone writes about professional wrestling – someone writes about politics – and everyone was doing it because they had stuff to SAY and just wanted it “out there”. I was the same way, except I didn’t have one topic I wanted to focus on.
So that’s mainly what I would say. Do it because you want to – and because you love giving yourself the space to nerd OUT.
By the time the Supernatural era began on my site – I already had people checking in here every day – so eventually you do find your “people”, the ones who want to hear what you have to say, whatever it is.
But in the beginning, I was howling into the void – and I loved it. I didn’t even care if anyone commented. I didn’t even have comments at first, lol .
The world is so much different now – the online world. I kinda miss the old Blogspot blogging days – where the internet felt a little small – like a neighborhood – and you would wander around the block every morning, seeing what each neighbor was up to. “Oh! so and so just put together some Halloween decorations and are sharing DIY tips. cool!” “Oh! next door neighbor is delving into Czech cinema in the 1960s. awesome.” and etc. I kinda miss that.
//that’s a long-ass answer.//
Sheila, to quote our favourite brothers in our least favourite seasons: “It’s what we do.” (“we grind”)
I had never heard of the Pioneer Woman, so of course I checked her out. So interesting to see what’s become of her blog, and to think you started around the same time, on similar platforms. But then you had different content, and diffeerent philosophies and priorities.
If it weren’t for the sordid aspect of this particular “success” story (by certain metrics, at least), you know – why not. And honestly, when I see some people who become famous seemingly overnight on TikTok or Instagram for their jokes, or makeup videos, or whatever else they do well that people enjoy seeing… I’m in awe of those who manage to keep the essence of who they are not become clones, all selling the same shit. Elyse Myers seems to have managed to navigate that for instance – but, seven million followers on TT for her little jokes about being an anxious person? I would get EATEN by anxiety.
When I was on TT, I followed a lawyer, who was speaking about coping with her job, and depression, and being a first generation Canadian, etc. and she too, was smart, funny, self deprecating but not TOO self deprecating etc. And she quit her job to become a full time influencer/Tiktoker/whatever the YOUTHS calls it these days, and… I deleted the app after a few months because it was making me crazy (no, but really), but I think about her from time to time. Is she doing ok? How is getting paid to perform full time being yourself with depression going? She can’t even perform being a lawyer because she quit so… you perform being a performer? Can’t wait to see THAT meta episode by Ben Edlund. I’m laughing but it makes me seriously anxious just to think about it – just, the whole process, not her in particular. I hope she’s doing ok.
Re: Pioneer Woman, that’s WILD! I read Killers of the Flower Moon a few years ago – in one sitting. I started the book on a Saturday or Sunday morning and spent the whole day reading, I just couldn’t stop. I was stoked to see it was being adapted by Scorsese.
Scraping the off colour stuff is one thing – but the complete absence of her brother, especially since he used to be so present, is completely heartbreaking. And as much as I get wanting to get rid of the more shameful stuff… when does scraping everything clean become revisionist? Or do you provide context for things. I don’t have the answer, and of course it’s very different for individuals and for institutions, and it’s very much context dependent, but… Sometimes the way forward is to own that you’ve been a bit of a cunt in the past and move on.
But that’s also something that has always prevented me from putting out anything in the world: because I’ve always been such a weirdo and I’ve never found a community, it came with a quasi systematic sense of shame, even about the smallest, most innocuous things, that has always made me want to disappear – in every sense imaginable. So then something happens, I spiral, and I try to erase every trace of me everywhere I can, which is… well, it’s a certain type of cray-cray, I guess, but it makes the idea of writing or sharing anything very complicated. And maybe needed, also.
It would certainly be some type of progress, if I managed to actually push through the discomfort of being seen, and own even what I find stupid and repulsive. I have the opposite of a thick skin, but I’ve had to learn to cope with a lot of shit, and I think I have gotten better at that too. And again, I find seeing you doing it in a way that I find authentic really helpful.
//I have always felt that the most honest things I’ve written have always been baked into my reviews or pieces about actors or the SPN posts – some of my most personal stuff ever! //
Yes, and how the things we react to create those spaces and these kinds of connections is what I’d like to explore. I have also shared things in your SPN posts that probably wouldn’t still be online if one could delete comments, ha ha. And there are only so many monologues about Supernatural or John Wick my friends can take. But really, I talk about those things, and I reveal so much of my obsessions. I’ve started writing more fiction in the past year and I still keep making discoveries.
I really appreciate your advice and your perspective. I want to start posting before the end of 2023. Just because I am going to EXPLODE if I can’t talk about how Our Flag Means Death makes me feel like a teenager, in the most cringe and delicious way. And about John Wick and male friendship and the word UNALONE (I once monologued at a friend for something like 15 minutes just about that). And the soundtrack of Succession. And about the painting I made when I was a child which was titled Mom in the Fire and the fact that I only realized this year how fucked up it was, and how strange it is that I didn’t think about it when I watched Supernatural. How after an episode of Reservation Dogs that was not particularly dramatic, I turned my tv off and sobbed for 20 minutes straight because I was so deeply moved by one of the characters. Weirdo takes!
I get that you miss blogs. Clearly, I miss phpBB forums about tv shows, on which we could write long ass posts to deconstruct a scene or fight over a ship. And people had to find them. And there was no money to be made doing it.
// I’m in awe of those who manage to keep the essence of who they are not become clones, all selling the same shit. Elyse Myers seems to have managed to navigate that for instance – but, seven million followers on TT for her little jokes about being an anxious person? I would get EATEN by anxiety. //
I don’t know who she is – I’ll check her out. But yeah, when you’re “trading” on these things – or monetizing them – it becomes a “brand” – and then … what if you no longer believe in those things anymore? Or … what if, for example, the Pioneer Woman divorced her husband, whom she has mythologized all over her blog as a hot hunk of a man cowboy – and people are so INVESTED in it (her fans are intense).
I think of Heather Armstrong (aka Dooce) – who recently committed suicide. When she and her husband split – so many fans didn’t forgive her (which … is insane). But they were so invested in the story of these two hip ex-Mormons – and him being so patient and loving during her various nervous breakdowns – and the humor and all that … You are basically a success because you are putting yourself all out there on the Internet. And then, when things change, sometimes your fans won’t forgive you.
Not to get too inflammatory – but there are a couple of body positivity “influencers” – who have decided to put together a workout plan, or get their diet under control – and the VITRIOL they experience from their fans – for trying to lose weight … wow. Internet fans are ROUGH!!
So when you put yourself out there – so strongly – it makes it really hard to change your mind, or change course, or switch it up. It’s a trap. Heather Armstrong was the first one to face all of these things – she made every mistake in the book – but she was always just trying to tell the truth about where she was at.
Granted, the Pioneer Woman wasn’t like that – but she used to tell really inappropriate (and very funny) stories – about life on a farm, her big crazy in-law family – all of her kids are internet-famous – and seem to be doing okay – but … none of them consented to have their childhood documented for a massive fan base?
// And there are only so many monologues about Supernatural or John Wick my friends can take. //
This is basically one of the reasons why I started the blog. I wanted to talk about Cary Grant 24/7. My friends might tolerate one monologue – but they would get worn out pretty quickly. Here I can just dig deep into whatever it is and it’s cathartic and fun.
// And about the painting I made when I was a child which was titled Mom in the Fire and the fact that I only realized this year how fucked up it was, and how strange it is that I didn’t think about it when I watched Supernatural. //
wowwwwww
// on which we could write long ass posts to deconstruct a scene or fight over a ship. And people had to find them. And there was no money to be made doing it. //
yeah: it was such a good period of time. Pre-social media too – so you really had to just find your people and there was a sense of privacy and like you were all there together sharing your weird little worlds. I loved that.
I’m trying to figure out when I first bookmarked the Variations. At least 2008. Your blog is fantastic. I’m always posting it in FB–hope that’s okay. I’ve got a Hey Let’s Read a Poem group there, and I’ve learned so much about poets here, along with everything else. You’re not only an excellent writer, you’re the most all-encompassing reader I know. Thanks, Sheila!
Jincy – it means so much to me, this coming from you. I love your writing so much!
happy 21st birthday to your blog and systematic writing, Sheila! what an amazing corpus of work you’ve built up, truly inspirational – looking forward to enjoying the fruits of your future successes!
thank you Jessie!!
Many, many happy returns!
thanks, Dan! you’re one of the old-schoolers!
A very happy blog-iversary!
I’m a relative newbie here – only 6 or so years, haha. I first came here after you guest judged a Supporting Actress Smackdown on The Film Experience and I’m so glad I did!
I love the sheer breadth of your topics (how am I only finding out about your Tori love from this post?). Also, I can only imagine the work you must put into monitoring comments, but a big THANK YOU for your diligence. In many ways, this blog comes off like what the Internet should/could have been – a welcoming space for like-minded people. Hell, even the commenters are brilliant. (I’m totally stealing the “I go to parties; I don’t host them” line as it applies to blogging.)
Tori! Yes! I was ALL IN for the first albums – kind of dropped off the Tori train after that. Little Earthquakes I honestly listened to too much. It’s hard for me to even “hear” those songs anymore. I listened to that album over and over and over the first year it came out – it’s so completely attached to that year of my life, where I was living, what I was doing – HUGE album for me.
I saw her on her small tour just before Little Earthquakes dropped. So it was a small venue, easy to get tickets. Just her and her piano. She’s amazing live as I am sure you know!!
My favorite Tori is angry Tori. :)
Thank you for stopping by all these years!
Just some appreciation: I found you in high school when I was Googling “Alexander Hamilton HOT” or something else equally embarrassing…And now I’m a grown-up and a suburban mom and also a rabbinical student. But also still a writer. And I genuinely think your writing has been one of the biggest influences, not just on my writing, but on my taste. I love how you write about acting, and about choices, and about the magic of human creativity. I love how fiercely you love things. Your writing is so alive. I remain just a great big fan of yours. Thank you.
Kate –
// I found you in high school when I was Googling “Alexander Hamilton HOT” or something else equally embarrassing //
hahahahaha. This makes me so happy.
Thank you!!
I found this place immediately after college when I was working a temp job where they only needed me maybe 40% of the time so for the rest of the day I’d screw around on the computer and read blogs. I found this place because Alexandra Billings linked to a post you wrote about seeing wild horses (I think?) and I clicked around and found something you wrote about Lucy Maude Montgomery and so kept reading. But it was your personal posts that pulled me in, I’d never seen anyone write about themselves that way. I barely felt real at that age, like I was just this frozen person, in a way that I now understand was a lot of numbness from an afterschool special of a childhood. Somehow it was really helpful to read about someone who lived their life in a completely different way than me–being open to possibility. Even if it took me years to catch up!
Oh wow – I don’t think I remembered you came here from a link on Alex’s old Live Journal. I do miss those days – when she and I would basically just link to each other – ha. every single day we were basically conversing through our sites. I am trying to remember – I know I saw a herd of wild horses in North Dakota – racing across a field ahead of a storm. I think that might be the piece – although I’m not sure why she would link to it. anyway – that’s very cool!!
// Somehow it was really helpful to read about someone who lived their life in a completely different way than me–being open to possibility. //
this is really really moving to me – thank you so much for telling me. I had no idea what I was doing half the time but it’s so nice hearing it reached other people like this.
thank you ! always love your comments.
Happy belated birthday to your blog! I’m a newish reader (someone recommended your Supernatural analysis to me after reading something of mine that was more in the way of SPN character analysis), but honestly, I was immediately enthralled. My background is English literature & rhetoric, but I loved learning so much about visual storytelling from your posts. I have to admit I haven’t even made it all the way through your SPN posts, though, because I keep stopping to check out your reference material… I don’t have a very wide experience of film, so when you make comparisons to The Shining and Angel Heart and Hurt Locker and Giant, I’ve been trying to actually track those films down and watch them myself.
So (understandably, I hope!) it’s taking me a little bit to get through them! I think I saw a comment from you somewhere that you’d stopped doing the really in-depth scene-by-scene analysis of Supernatural episodes because you’d gotten too busy with paying work… I don’t know if that’s still true or not, but I would bet there are still enough SPN fans out there that you could be well-funded via Patreon or something to write those if you still had interest in that. After all, the conventions are still going strong, and Supernatural continues to be one of the top streaming shows (comparing to top “original content” for context: SPN had more unique viewers in 2022 than The Handmaid’s Tale & The Witcher combined).
Anyway, I only mention it because I would be over the moon if I could read an analysis from you of some of my favorite episodes in season 4 (like “On the Head of a Pin”) or seasons 5, 6, 9… Even just what I’ve read so far has been fascinating, illuminating, and educational — some of the richest analysis I’ve ever had the joy of reading online.
Ginny! Hi!
// My background is English literature & rhetoric, //
Interesting! Have you listened to the Plaidcast? I really love it – the two hosts also have literature backgrounds and approach SPN from that space, making all kinds of connections which deepens my appreciation.
It really speaks well of the show that you can approach it in all these different ways. It’s such rich material. amazing. For me, it wasn’t even the story that got me hooked – I was just blown away by how beautiful and moody it looked. And then with Dead in the Water I realized what the show was REALLY going to be – an exploration of these characters – and then I was really hooked!
// I don’t have a very wide experience of film, so when you make comparisons to The Shining and Angel Heart and Hurt Locker and Giant, I’ve been trying to actually track those films down and watch them myself. //
this is so cool – happy to hear it!! there are so many film references – those early directors in the early season were just movie scholars, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff I’m missing, but it’s so fun to dig into what they’re doing visually!
// it’s taking me a little bit to get through them! //
they are seriously so long. Someone printed them all out if you can believe it – and sent me a picture of what it looked like, out in the real world. It was INSANE. it looked like a binder you’d see in, like, the Pentagon or something, detailing the entire history of one region. I was almost embarrassed!! lol but still, it was great.
// I would bet there are still enough SPN fans out there that you could be well-funded via Patreon or something to write those if you still had interest in that. //
I have definitely thought about this. I have a Substack with a paid option – I wrote a big post about Jensen on there! It’s really a TIME thing at this point – but of course I don’t need to spend an entire month writing one of these re-caps, like I did back when I started.
I’ll think about it. I love that you included season 9! I loved that season. OHHHHH the things I could say about Season 9!! and season 6 too! although season 4 is probably the most cinematic – they switched to the Red camera, it’s shot on film – and boy you can tell. Just gorgeous!!
Thank you so much for stopping by – for reading – and for leaving a comment. I love hearing from people!!
It makes me so happy that you wrote back to me! And thank you SOOO much for the Plaidcast recommendation — I’m loving it! I had been listening to Rich & Rob’s rewatch podcast (Supernatural Then and Now), but they’re on hiatus due to the strike, and I’ve just been starving for SPN content. I had tried a couple of other Supernatural podcasts, but none of those were quite hitting the right notes for me, y’know?
(Actually, come to think of it, SPN Then & Now is probably at least partly to thank for me getting into the film side of things. They just do such a great job of bringing the technical folks into the conversation: interviewing Serge Ladouceur, Jerry Wanek, & Brad Creasser, as well as Bob Singer, Phil Sgriccia, etc. Although I guess I should also give some credit to Patrick (H) Willems, whose channel my husband likes to put on while we play Minecraft — he’s probably the original influence on me in that direction!)
I’m actually sorta weirdly proud of myself that I’m using SPN to broaden my cultural experiences… I’m on the spectrum, so intense, narrow interests are kind of my jam, but Supernatural just touches so many other pieces of media that it really lends itself to being leveraged that way. I now have a list of films I’ve only seen because they were directly or indirectly referenced by Supernatural… 😅 (I think my husband’s just glad I’m finally showing some interest in his extensive movie collection!)
I’m not very familiar with Substack, but I created an account over there & did the “free subscription” thing for the moment while I figure it out. I really hope you find a way to fit Supernatural back into your schedule — I would honestly be over the moon. I’m just sitting over here imagining how wonderful that would be… Man, even if you just did a handful of your favorite scenes, that would be amazing… I definitely know a thing or two about being busy, though!!
I’ll have to check out the Then & Now podcast – thank you!
I was alerted to the Plaidcast from someone who found their way here because of it – the hosts referred to my posts quite a lot – I had no idea! I had a listen and was SO impressed with their approach.
// I now have a list of films I’ve only seen because they were directly or indirectly referenced by Supernatural… //
Ha! I love this!! I bet the SPN team would be so pleased to hear this – they put all these Easter eggs into the series, visually – so it’s so cool to try to track them down. Like High Noon. I feel like High Noon really helps explain basically … ALL of Supernatural. All hell Breaks Loose, part 2 wouldn’t exist without High Noon. It IS High Noon – I feel like the whole episode was designed to reflect High Noon, not just thematically but visually. Of course, you can understand what’s happening in the ep without having seen High Noon – but once you see it, all kinds of associations are set free.
Thanks again for reading and commenting!
Sheila –
I’d like to add my name to this list of readers who owe much to this enthralling journey of writings you’ve given all of us; all of these years.
From your works on The Founding Fathers and their ideas of what could be – to the poets and actors and directors and the words and processes and passions of their Art – to specific insulated works of small worlds and small moments like ‘The Price of Salt’ and its twinges of sense and yearning – to the need and naivete and heart-break of the Before Trilogy (and really anything Linklater) but most especially ‘Before Sunset’ and its ache of what might have been with the one and what just might maybe be with that one – to the cloying humidity of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon and Ann Reinking and their assured sensuality and confident grace and sultry sexuality – and finally to the small films that come and go but resonate like ‘By the Sea’ and its broken love and lingering wanting and tragic ghost of loss in a film that seemed barely noticed.
To all of these writings of yours but to so many, many more.
Happy Birthday to the Shelia Variations…
-Jack
Jack – thank you thank you!!
I love all of your references here – the Price of Salt! Ann Reinking!!! The diversity of references makes me proud and happy that I’ve just followed my own star here – and not tried to limit the subject matter or “stay in my lane” or whatever – “stay on brand” (ugh) – No. I’m happy I just followed my interests – because other people will follow – and bring their own things to it.
I so appreicate having people like you who choose to spend some time here. It means a lot. Thank you again!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
love you!!
Happy Anniversary!
If you go along with the half the age plus seven rule, your blog could now date an 18 year old blog and no laws would be broken. They grow up so fast. ;-)
thanks!! I had never heard the half the age plus seven rule. lol the way I see it – once you’re 18 you can do what you want.
I read you every day.
Huzzah!
means so much, Jincy – thank you!!
Congrats Red, it’s been a helluva lot of fun being along for parts of the ride.
thanks, old-timer!
Hey I only started in 2005! I am but a wee lad!
We were all early adopters!! everybody else got blogs in 2006-2007. and then FB killed it a couple years later. But in the interim, we had some fun!
Happy 22nd blog birthday, Sheila! so glad this wonderful space is still going strong xxxx
thank you Helena!! it kind of amazes me. 22 years?? thanks for choosing to spend a little bit of your time here. good times.
Happy blog birthday to the OG. Delighted this joint is still open.
thanks, Dan! It’s pretty cool to be an OG!