Since people seem to like my personal stories on here - I used to write long-form personal essays on my site (long before I started writing about film). I've had some success with some of them, so figured I'd share some links, if you're interested.
Long-time readers of my site will roll their eyes like "yes, yes, we know about Window Boy and 74 Facts and that cup you stole that one time from a diner ..." lol But so much stuff is just buried in my gigantic archives (I started my blog in 2002) so I'll resurrect them.
The man known as Window-Boy and why. sheilaomalley.com/?p=30653
Many of these are quite melancholy in spirit. But writing is an act of remembering. I was always afraid to forget the good things. Here's the thing I wrote about stealing a cup from a diner in Ithaca, NY and why. sheilaomalley.com/?p=35814
Here's an essay I call Grace Note: Or: Love in a Time of Constitutional Crisis. It's a doozy. Love at first sight. I can't recommend the experience. sheilaomalley.com/?p=38149
Part 2 to the essay above this one. It's even more of a doozy. The two of us honestly should never see each other again, all things considered. Crazy crazy night. sheilaomalley.com/?p=33511
That time I got so angry about an episode of CHiPs I started screaming in my boyfriend's face about it at a party. My friends will never let me live it down. sheilaomalley.com/?p=9648
Here's an essay I wrote about a kind boy in high school, and how he taught me to be kind. An old friend. I'm thrilled I read this essay at Cornelia Cafe in their Writers Read series before that legendary place closed. sheilaomalley.com/?p=58049
Here's the thing that really started it all. Before, I had just written in my journal. This was different. I've performed it as a one-woman show (it runs about 40 minutes long). It was an exorcism really. 74 Facts and One Lie. sheilaomalley.com/?p=39996
The reason I wrote 74 Facts was I was just so SICK of analyzing the whys/wherefores/whyyyyys of why it didn't work. I grieved the loss for years. Finally, at 3 am one night, I said to myself sternly: "Sheila, just write the FACTS. No more FEELINGS." That piece was the result.
Now we can loop it all together with this thread. The moment Window Boy and 74 Facts guy met ... and the result of that meeting, 10 years later. Listen, I'm just reporting the facts.
My proudest accomplishment in high school was getting together with a bunch of rebellious pissed-off friends and forming a cheerleading squad for the girls' basketball team, who were kicking ass that year. sheilaomalley.com/?p=7070 
That time I got lost in the middle of the night in Dublin and met Rory, a guy with a rockabilly ducktail who was an accountant but dreamt of being an air traffic controller. And yes, I'm mimicking The Dead here. Because of the snowfall. sheilaomalley.com/?p=49339
The devastating heartbreak of my "Flying Up" ceremony, moving from Brownies to Girl Scouts. It's not often there's a photo taken of you the moment all your dreams die. sheilaomalley.com/?p=45086
I don't write personal essays on my site anymore - not really - but a couple years ago I made an exception. I needed to try to figure something out. Essay involves:
1. A date to go see HONDO at MoMA
2. A sexual assault
3. A bipolar meltdown
Good times.
sheilaomalley.com/?p=121595
1. A date to go see HONDO at MoMA
2. A sexual assault
3. A bipolar meltdown
Good times.
sheilaomalley.com/?p=121595
An essay I wrote about a short-term boyfriend I had once, who was homeless, and obsessed with the poet Rimbaud. He was a self-described hustler. Fascinating guy and I dread to think what has happened to him. sheilaomalley.com/?p=42820
I should do a Part 2 to that one about the time I visited him in Key West, and stayed with him in the crack house - literally - where he was squatting. I sat on a couch and read a book called The Collapse of Communism, as people smoked crack all around me.
A white parrot strutted up to me and called me the C-word. We were BFFs after that. Anyway, welcome to my message-less Ted Talk. My life is NOT a "self-empowerment narrative." It's more like a black comedy with Surrealist elements.
Thank you to everyone who read, left comments, all the rest. I'm not sorry I stopped writing so personally - at some point I stopped being able to do it, actually - but it is good to have those pieces around and I'm glad people like them.
