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Interview with bestselling author Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com, part three
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Heather Armstrong shakes a fist during her book tour in Denver.
In this final portion of my interview with New York TImes bestselling author Heather Armstrong, we discuss keeping a marriage together, Mormons, Oprah, the perils of fame, and much more.
This article continues the conversation posted in part one and part two of the interview. Included are comments from Jon Armstrong and my righthand man, Phil Porter.
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We kind of have a marriage similar to yours. We both work at home. Phil does stand-up comedy, as well…
Jon: Ah.
Heather: Awesome!
Phil: Not at home.
And we’re raising a kid at home and, you know, we’re both together, and that’s a challenge. He’s in the basement, I’m upstairs, so that helps, but how are you balancing being together 24/7?
We’ve gotten really good at it. At the very beginning, it was really difficult, and I didn’t know how it was going to last because he’s six-foot-four, and large. He’s got a lot of elbows, and he comes with a lot of stuff. You know, he walks around and stray cables would fall of his body. [Laughs] You can follow the cables, and you’ll find my husband. Oh, he would just walk into my house, and it threw a wrench into everything, I mean everything because all of a sudden everything was twice as dirty, and there was half as much food in the house, and he’s loud, and he talks a lot, and, um, and I love him. [Laughs] And he’s one of those, like in his office, he likes to talk and share things, and when I get in my working mode, it’s like, “You have to shut up so that I can write.” So he’s learned certain techniques to… We’ve learned… to be around each other and to give and take. Right?
Jon: Yes. I think it’s, we face each other, so we can kind of hide behind the monitors.
Heather: Yeah.
You do have big monitors.
Heather: We hide behind monitors.
That helps.
Jon: So actually… We tried it the other way with our backs to each other, and so we were constantly turning around. I was, anyway.
Heather: Yeah.
Jon: It was not good. I couldn’t see what she was doing, so I’d turn and start talking so I could see.
Do you have any other help with Leta, or are you guys just kind of…
She goes to a Montessori school from about nine until three every day, which is fantastic.
We’re kind of looking forward to that.
It so is the best thing we ever did. It really, really is. I have no regrets about it whatsoever.
So Montessori, you recommend that?
It’s a Montessori.
Jon: We started her at a half day when she was around three and then…
Heather: Moved her up to a full day about a year ago. It was the best decision we ever made. It changed her life. She’s amazing. It’s great.
You’re very vocal about being a recovering Mormon.
Yeah.
Do you think that having kids lessened the strain that you had with your family?
Oh, for sure.
Because that seems to be a big focus.
Yeah, having kids was what brought us back to Utah, and that’s why we can stand living there. And being Mormon informs so much of who I am, it informs so much of who he is, of what our relationship is because it’s a lifestyle. It is very much, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week lifestyle. You rarely… Are you Mormon?
No.
Okay.
We watch [HBO's] “Big Love,” though. [laughs]
[laughs] You rarely meet a Mormon who goes to church just on Easter and Sunday. It is all, or it is nothing, and so leaving the church was like leaving my family in a big way, and so it’s taken years to repair that relationship, and it’s always there.
And the blog kind of…
The blog kind of … And when I do make fun of the religion, I’m making fun of the really overzealous and misunderstood 14-year-old that I was when I was Mormon. I mean, I was the best Mormon you ever did see. I mean, I was as righteous as they came, and it was just… When I’m making fun of things, I’m making fun of how stupid and ridiculous I was.
Do you watch "Big Love"?
For some reason we’ve been so busy in the last few months we only caught the first episode this season. We plan to download the rest of them.
Phil: It’s good.
They showed a Temple ceremony, apparently.
Sarah: Yes.
That got huge coverage in Utah. Everybody was very, very upset about it.
There was a veil, and you had to go through the veil.
Jon: It’s actually Masonic in origin, that rite. It’s similar to Masonic rituals, apparently. Joseph Smith was a Mason.
Heather: Yeah.
It was interesting. Does your family watch?
[Laughs] Oh, god, no! Oh, no, no, no. My family does not own cable that allows that type of language on television.
Jon: They just get what they need to watch Fox.
Hate mail.
Heather: [whispers] Hate mail.
It seems like you get a lot of it. That surprises me, because I enjoy what you’re writing, and you’re fresh and open and honest. Candid. I would think that most people would appreciate that.
Most people do. The majority of the feedback is really, really good. There is that very small and very vocal two percent that really, really, really hates me and wants to see me hurt.
To the point that they want you to know that.
Well, yeah. They want me to know it and they… I think a lot of it has to do… and I’ve come to accept this as part of my job. I’m on the Internet. It’s going to happen. Anybody who lives like this, it’s going to happen. I’ve learned to sort of deal with like an annoying fly that buzzes around my head that I swat at occasionally. And realize that most of it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with something they’ve got going on in their lives that I’ve triggered.
Right. You’ve touched a nerve.
Yeah. It’s not ALWAYS easy to ignore it. [laughs]
I would find that really hard.
Yeah.
With your growing fame, you started out as a small, single lady blogging in the city.
Yeah.
It grew to where you are today. New York Times Bestseller List and Oprah. OPRAH! [gestures and yells like Oprah]
Woo! All of my friends are like, “Did she say HEATHER!”
We’ve been saying that all day. MOTHERS!
[laughs]
Jon: She did that.
Heather: Did she do that? She did, didn’t she?
Jon: Yeah!
Heather: That’s the best part, man. [laughs]
Do you find yourself pulling away from your fans a bit because of the growing demand on you?
I… Well, you know, I try to give back as much as I possibly can. I mean, I can’t answer every email. It’s not possible. That would consume my life. I read every email. I read every comment. My fans take the number one priority in my head when it comes to making decisions about my website. My fame can be tricky though, out, like when I go to conferences or whatnot, and I’ll come home and I’ll read encounters that didn’t happen. I will read stuff people have fabricated stories about meeting me, and so that makes me want to pull away because I can’t trust anybody. And in the past three or four years, I have been stabbed in the back and really shit on by probably six or seven people I considered to be friends, and so it makes me very, very wary of trusting people. It’s kind of sad, it’s a sad aspect to see that side of people. At the same time, I get to come to places like this, and I get to meet fans and people who are here for the right reasons. It gives me a shot in the arm just to continue doing it.
We’ve kind of seen that in his work, in stand-up comedy.
I bet!
Well, it’s showbiz.
Phil: I’m not that famous. Well, people who are way more famous than me have that.
Sarah: And you’re too nice. [laughs]
H: [laughs]
Phil: A lot of the interesting things about your blog, obviously, are that you’ve been really unhappy and troubled. What happens if this baby is great and really happy? Does that kill the blog?
Oh, there would be so much to write about! Well, no… [laughs] The way our lives are like just seems to attract chaos. And, the dogs are a lot of content. Oh, God. I would love it if this baby was easy. Oh, my God. I would take an easy baby over content any day. You know, the baby would want to snuggle. I would sleep through the night, you know, eventually. [taps on the desk]
I think… I come from a long line of storytellers. My dad and my brother, if they had the ambition to do so, could do my website themselves. Always looking for content, always looking for stories to tell and angles of stories. Sitting around, and, if they drank beer, they’d sit on the porch and drink beer. But, it’s ice water.
Jon: And the stories would be a lot better.
Heather: I know!
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To see the end of this interview and to listen to the entire audio, please visit my personal blog, Imaginary Binky. You can follow the entire transcript by reading part one, part two, part three, and the ending with behind the scenes comments and photos.
Dooce.com
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
Exlusive interview with Dooce.com bestselling author, Heather Armstrong (part one)
Interview with bestselling author Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com, part two
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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