{"id":177694,"date":"2025-10-18T09:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=177694"},"modified":"2025-10-18T22:31:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T02:31:01","slug":"blog-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=177694","title":{"rendered":"Today, the Sheila Variations turns 23."},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI don’t even know what to say. And now I will proceed to say some shit. <\/p>\n

The above pic of me – taken by Michael – graced the top of my original blog, when I set it up 23 years ago today<\/em>. 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<\/a>, by the boyfriend<\/a> – 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<\/i> literally decades<\/em> later. And SHE has been replaced by ELVIS, which is only good and right. <\/p>\n

The very first post<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

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<\/a> I blabber about Eminem because 8 Mile<\/i> was coming out and I was, and I quote, “fragmenting and dissolving” with excitement. lol And here we are, so many years later<\/a>… 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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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, suicidal ideation I guess you’d call it, 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.<\/p>\n

2001: One reason why I started The Sheila Variations<\/big>
\nI 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<\/a>. Making out with a guy I met 10 minutes before<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

2000 and 2001: Another reason I started the blog: Two encounters<\/big>
\nBut 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<\/a>. 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. <\/p>\n

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”<\/a> the world as we knew it ended.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

2002: The final reason: The third encounter<\/big>
\nIn 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<\/i>. And let’s be honest: I wreaked havoc<\/a>. I went there to fuck up his shit 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. I can now see this whole mess had nothing whatsoever to do with him. I barely KNEW him! 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 about that night. I would write it very differently now). The illness channeled into the state of emergency following 9\/11 … but by April 2002, as hyper-vigilance receded, the illness needed – desperately – to express itself. And so it did. <\/p>\n

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<\/em>. The psychiatrist bitch met with me for 20 minutes and put me on an anti-depressant, which I now know is extremely dangerous<\/i> 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. <\/p>\n

To sum up<\/big>
\nI started this blog because of a lethal mixture of terrorism, mental illness, and passionate unrequited love.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Oh my God, people are actually reading me<\/big>
\nAt 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<\/i>. 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.<\/p>\n

I don’t trust nobody. <\/p>\n

Slow discovery of subject matter and expression, through doing whatever the hell I wanted, and encouraging a wide-ranging non-ideologically-rigid readership<\/big>
\nThings developed. Series developed. Categories solidified. I loved writing about the Founding Fathers<\/a> (particularly John Adams and Alexander Hamilton – YEARS before Lin Manuel Miranda came along, thankyouverymuch). James Joyce<\/a> 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<\/a>. 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<\/a>, the compulsory ironing-out of differences – the peer pressure and groupthink – 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. <\/p>\n

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<\/a>. 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. <\/p>\n

A totally unexpected result of The Sheila Variations<\/big>
\nThere 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. I am in awe that Cate (RTG) and I have not met. We have been in a state of almost constant contact for 20 years at this point. That doesn’t seem possible! If we met in person, would we just stare at each other blankly? hahaha I feel the same way about De. There is no way we haven’t met in person – it FEELS like we have. Other people I’ve met whom I am still friends with: Regina Bartkoff and Charlie Schick, Carrie and Anthony McIntyre (I stayed with them when I went to Belfast), Bill (“Trekkie” Bill), Stephen Silver, Therese (we meet up every year for Bloomsday in New York), Anne, Sarah, Tracey, Tommy, Kelly Sedinger – who has been blogging as long as I have. And let’s not forget STEVIE, whom I first met in 2007<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

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 off my site. One strike policy. I like the boys myself but my whole world and friend group is made up of gay people and has been that way 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 not just a war zone but, worse, a fucking bore. 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<\/i>. 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. <\/p>\n

All of this is to say: I moderate comments. I made the choice early on to do so and I still do it. I pay the bandwidth and I want this space to be welcoming. Un-moderated comments sections descend into the ninth circle within two exchanges. It’s time-consuming but worth it. 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. <\/p>\n

Transforming the blog into something elsee<\/big>
\nIn 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<\/a> or Bogart<\/a>. Weeks to Howard Hawks. MONTHS to Dean Stockwell<\/a>, 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> … 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 Smith Nehme, Keith Uhlich, Dan Callahan, Matt Zoller Seitz, Jill Blake, Odie Henderson, Imogen Smith, Glenn Kenny, Kim Morgan, Steven Boone, Simon Abrams, Dana Stevens, Charlie Taylor, Stephanie Zacharek. 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 – I was recommended for the job by Matt Seitz – and … here we are today. Where I get a hand-written note from Martin Scorsese<\/a> thanking me for my “insight” into Raging Bull<\/i>. Where my first book is coming out at the end of this month<\/a>, and I got the assignment because Guillermo del Toro requested me to write it – because I interviewed him onstage at Ebertfest back in 2015. I don’t even know how it all happened. It’s obnoxious to say but I didn’t hustle for any of it. Unless by “hustle” you mean “I wrote every single day for years on end.” <\/p>\n

Then in 2013, on the same day I got my monster mental health diagnosis – the same day<\/a> – Roger Ebert emailed me, asking me to write for him. And then everything REALLY changed.<\/p>\n

20+ Years of Life History<\/big>
\nMy life has gone through so many different changes over the course of the blog. It starts when Cashel was a 5 year old<\/a> 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<\/a>. Multiple world events. Multiple catastrophic storms. Katrina<\/a>. Irene<\/a>. Sandy<\/a>. The economy crash. Losing my long-time job. My very first published piece<\/a>, which had nothing to do with film, in the Irish Letters issue of The Sewanee Review<\/i>, the oldest literary journal in the country. My time on Block Island<\/a>, re-grouping. My writing career starting in 2010<\/a>. A life-changer. Too late for my father to see though. A couple of really damaging romances, particularly in 2009<\/a> and in 2012<\/a>, identical “romances” with identical endings. They both also lasted three months to the day<\/i> and ended very very badly<\/a>. Two major breakdowns, one in 2009<\/a> and 2012. (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that those years match the “romance” years.) Shit got a little eerie<\/a> on here<\/a>. I kept the posts up including The Triangle<\/a>, 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<\/i>, which traveled from New York<\/a> to Los Angeles<\/a> to Chicago<\/a> and back to New York<\/a>. 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<\/a>, which traveled from New York<\/a> to Albuquerque<\/a> to Champaign-Urbana<\/a> and – just recently – in Bushwick<\/a>. 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, where I worked at 30 Rock<\/a> and on the closed-off 17th floor (we never figured out why they put us there) … 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<\/a> five<\/a> times<\/a>. Am I<\/a> missing one<\/a>? Yes, I am missing one. The last one<\/a>. When I started up this blog, I had a longtime roommate<\/a>. In 2020 I interviewed her about her<\/a> methods for teaching acting! Lifelong friends. In 2008 I got Hope<\/a>. In 2012, I lost Hope for three hair-raising days<\/a> after half my apartment building burned down. Hope died in 2020<\/a>. In November 2024, I brought Frankie home<\/a>. So we are coming up on our year anniversary. Multiple trips<\/a> to Ireland<\/a>, one of which resulted in one of my favorite pieces I ever wrote<\/a>. A trip to Croatia<\/a>. Multiple<\/a> trips to Memphis<\/a>. Giving a talk on Elvis<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a> (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.<\/i> Multiple upheavals in Iran, which I followed closely. 2003<\/a>. 2009. Panahi<\/a>. Now<\/a>. Women. Life. Freedom. Watching an insurrection<\/a>. A pandemic<\/a>. An Elvis 68-comeback-special mask. We make it through however we can. <\/p>\n

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\nA near-constant buzz of alarm and anxiety as I watched the rise of authoritarianism. That’s a lot of life, and that’s just scratching the surface of events. <\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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<\/a> and felt<\/a> in print. I don’t do that so much anymore, although just recently I wrote this huge piece<\/a> 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<\/a> people look forward to<\/a> every year, and one settled in so much to the collective consciousness<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

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<\/a>, although just out of curiosity I did a search and found a post I have no memory of writing<\/a> … 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<\/a>, and what writing about Elvis has brought to my life. Supernatural<\/i> started here<\/a>. If I was forced to choose the most regular readers, the smartest regular readers, the funniest regular readers, it would be the Supernatural<\/i> 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). <\/p>\n

All really pleasant byproducts of blogging regularly. I am one of the last holdouts. As is Kelly<\/a>, who started blogging just before I did. I highly recommend you bookmarking his site. <\/p>\n

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<\/i>. <\/p>\n

And so I did. <\/p>\n

Happy birthday to you, Sheila Variations. You changed my whole entire world. I would even say you saved my life. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nGetting 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<\/i> featured my cover story on Joanna Hogg’s “The Souvenir”<\/a>. 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<\/a>, holding it open to my article. Would any of this have happened if I didn’t start the blog? Honestly? No.<\/i><\/p>\n

To anyone who visits here on a regular basis, to anyone who finds me randomly and leaves comments, thank you. <\/p>\n

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\nThank 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<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n