From: mckay@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ruth Isabella McKay)
Subject: B&B: Sheila - the world has changed
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 04:52:47 GMT

James Acker writes:

>You may get to see this twice:    if so, read the note
>at the bottom of the other one.

I only got it once, what did I miss ??

>Neither me, but Thorne's still got a couple of hours.

Can't believe Thorne was cool and seemingly unpreoccupied when
Taylor visited him in his office earlier. Seems like the ultimatum
is not really being taken seriously..

>But where?  Who to infiltrate?
>BING!      The answer is #6, Forrester Fashions.

This is really going to help Jack. He will fall back into Sally's
comforting embrace and then much later when Stephanie gets him back
after not being able to bear seeing him with Sally, the infiltration
will be discovered. Poor Jack, his future is filled with obstacles.

> Tune in tomorrow, when Sheila requests of the waiter:
> "Do you think I could have a plate of raw sliced Spanish onions ?"

Here is my big admission to all. I cried. Well nearly. Hey I cried in ET.
My view of Sheila is changing daily. I used to think (being influenced
by the stories of her old exploits) that Sheila was BAD. And maybe she
once was.  Until this week I was convinced that she still was. I was 
looking forward to seeing her clash with Brooke and Stephanie. She
certainly has some major problems. Like "I'm not paranoid, but that doesn't
mean people aren't out to get me". I beleived that she did love Eric,
but she seemed to be ready to stoop to anything to get him - eliminate
Brooke, Judy - and I thought that she was the same scheming obsessive
woman that we had been told about.  I guess she found it hard to beleive
that she didn't need all her plots and machinations to get a man, he
could actually fall in love with her all by himself.

Then at the supermarket checkout line the last weekend, I saw a soap
mag and started to read an interview with the actress who plays Sheila.
She saw Sheila as really having changed and trying to leave her past
behind her. I was surprised. But then came this week and now I believe
it. First Shiela gave in and admitted to her mother that she was "Sarah
Jane". Then she actually went with Molly to dinner, knowing full well
what Molly was intending to do. The old Sheila wouldn't have done either
of these things I suspect ? I was waiting for her to tie her mother up
and make up another excuse for Eric, or something, rather than go to
the dinner and wait for her life to be ruined, with no scheme in mind
to get out of it ?

All of a sudden I found myself totally switched around and instead of
wanting to know what trick Sheila would pull, I actually found myself
feeling exactly what she was feeling - an ache for what she was about
to lose, hopelessness that she couldn't stop the scene without going
back to her previous persona, the thing she has been trying to leave
in her past (so I now beleive). And I had a lump in my throat, and
was fervently hoping none of my housemates would walk in at that moment
to either say something rude about my soap habit and destroy the mood,
or (even worse) actually figure out the fact that any minute now, if
the scene had played out a little longer, the waterworks would flow.

And then Molly actually beleived. As I just had. I don't know Jim,
I don't mind that Sheila didn't cry, some people in the world find
that hard in real life as well as in acting, so it wasn't unrealistic.
(Some people find it too easy in real life too, as well as in acting).
And the look she gave her mother when she realized her reprieve was
perfect.

> Jim "Tears 'R Us" Acker

Ruth "Well I'd rather feel too much that nothing at all !" McKay
(remark made to my young sister after she yelled at me for crying
in the middle of a theatre in the sad bit of ET)

Well I have been working really late, and it's been a tough week...