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Exclusive interview with Dooce.com bestselling author, Heather Armstrong
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Heather Armstrong poses with Sneakers the Seaside Cat.
Heather Armstrong has presence. She is tall and formidable, yet approachable, funny, and very charming. Her blog, Dooce.com, has essentially become the mother of all Internet blogs, but Armstrong maintains her Southern roots and inviting appeal that wrap you up on a big front porch with lemonade (perhaps spiked) in one hand, and a whole lot of parenting truth as she laughs and speaks with a distinct Southern drawl.
I sat with Heather and her husband Jon Armstrong in the cluttered (but charming, mind you) back office of the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover bookstore before she spoke to a packed house about her latest book, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita.
My husband, Phil Porter, joined us as photographer and occasional injector of humor.
Over the years, Armstrong has risen to fame with her funny and honest look at parenting, becoming a “recovering Mormon”, raising frenzied dogs, and living in the disjointed world of depression.
Earlier in the day, Armstrong appeared with other women on Oprah, talking about the parts of mothering that no one talks about, but should. It is one thing to ride on the tumultuous high of being on Oprah for the first time, but her book is also now on the New York Times Bestseller List. Life is sucking far less for the Armstrongs, despite the struggles they endured to get here.
Sarah Porter: Thank you so much for doing this.
Heather Armstrong: Yeah, absolutely! It’s a beautiful day in Denver.
So, Oprah, huh?
[laughs] Yeah. I’m going to be dealing with Oprah for the next few weeks, I think.
You will. The whole world is atwitter about it. Is this the first time there has been a book with the word “sucked” in the title of it on the New York Times bestseller list?
I don’t know, that’s a really good question. No one has asked me that. I have no idea.
I think it’s a milestone. You really need to investigate that.
[laughs] It is.
Jon Armstrong: I’m going to google that.
Heather: It wasn’t… I was actually dreading coming up with a title because I’m really bad at titles. It’s my least favorite thing about my website, having to title things.
Because it has to be clever.
Yeah, and it has to represent this whole piece of work. And, I was joking about how I was going to turn in my manuscript, and all I had written was a paragraph and it said, “It sucked and then I cried. The end.” Then my editor wrote and said, “That’s it!” Boom. Done.
And I was like, you know what? I can’t wait for this to appear on bookshelves in Utah. [laughs] People are going to go up to Barnes & Noble in Utah and say, “I want the book ‘It Sucked… and Then I Cried.”
Well, it has the cross-stitch in it [on the cover].
It has the cross-stitch in it, so it diffuses it just a bit. Yeah. [laughs]
Someone had actually asked me, one of the interviewers, “You know, when I first heard about your book, I thought it meant you were talking about your baby and how she was nursing you and how afterwards you cried because it was so beautiful. [hearty laugh] She goes, “And then I got about a paragraph into the book and thought, ‘I don’t think that’s what this book is about.’”
There’s a doubling meaning in there somewhere.
Yeah.
Jon: Math Doesn’t Suck. [after searching for other New York Times bestseller books with “sucked” in the title]
Heather: Math Doesn’t Suck, okay. But “sucked”?
Phil Porter: But your book is pro-sucking.
Right!
Sarah: Pro-sucking, and yours has the “ed” at the end, “sucked.” I still think you should pursue it.
[laughs]
Okay, so you’re, what, seven months pregnant?
Thirty weeks today.
City to city, flying in and out [for the book tour]. How are you doing that? Is it different this time around?
Yeah, this is all with the blessing from my doctor. “I don’t care if you do this.” So, he made sure everything was going to be safe. I’m in really good health. I work out a lot.
I’m five years older this time, so the physicality of this pregnancy is much more alarming. I’m 15 pounds ahead of where I was [laughs] at this point last time. And, the last time I didn’t buy maternity clothes. I was really adamant about not buying maternity clothes. All of my clothes are maternity clothes now. And, it’s just physically so much harder this time.
I think I slept most of my pregnancy.
Oh, really?
Yeah. I just really admire that you’re going city to city, talking…
[laughs] I was good up until last week, about Thursday afternoon. I just kind of sat in my hotel room and cried for a couple of hours.
[laughs] You gotta get it out.
Phil: We actually expected people to wheel you out, sort of like Hannibal Lector, and wake you up when they need you.
[laughs] Well, I think it was in Seattle, someone came up to me right before the signing and they go, “Can you sign my book RIGHT NOW, because I don’t want to have to wait that long.” I was like, I’m going to be here all night long! [laughs] I’ll be here for hours!
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In part two of this interview, Armstrong discusses Oprah, depression and being medicated while pregnant, the book writing process, maintaining a blog, and much more. Stay tuned tomorrow.
It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita
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Other articles of interest:
Win tickets to Sesame Street Live: Elmo's Green Thumb
Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce, to read and sign her book at Tattered Cover
The secret life of moms: low libido
Teaching kids to love music, one kazoo at a time
Fretful Mother: breastfeeding is beautiful, until you do it to someone else's baby
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