The Heather Armstrong Experience

I'm not going to lie... the main reason I wanted to go to blogher was to see Heather Armstrong from dooce.com. Suck it... I'm into mainstream. I don't care. 

I've been faithfully reading dooce since 2003-ish. Bottom line...Heather is a huge inspiration and yes, role model for me. That doesn't me that I want to one day make a living as a blogger, because I don't. 

That being said, I was a little peeved when I went all day Friday with out seeing her. I even over heard other girls gossiping about how Heather wasn't going to do a book signing this weekend. I was kind of irritated. I felt like the little kid who was so excited to finally go to a baseball game and possibly meet his all-time favorite player, but in the end, the player was a complete dick and totally snubbed the poor kid... leaving him in tears with an unsigned baseball in his hands. 

This morning, Ashley and I attended the Break-Out Session: Pursuing Your Passion, hosted by Maggie Mason of Mighty Girl (a personal friend of Heather Armstrong's). That panel actually turned out to be my favorite of the weekend. Where the rest of the panels came across as slightly unorganized and not overly informative (for me at least). Maggie's panel was funny, organized, and very interactive... in the good way. During the session, someone stood up and casually referenced Heather Armstrong and that she probably wasn't here because we'd all pester her to death. At that exact moment, this twangy voice chimed in with, "Um, actually...." and I shit you not, the ENTIRE room turned around and looked past me. I followed suit and started to turn to look towards the back of the room when I soon found myself staring straight into someone's crotch. I moved my eyes up towards their face and found myself looking at Real. Life. Version. of THE Heather Armstrong - sitting DIRECTLY behind yours truly. Di-rectly behind. 

Heather laughed and said, "See, I AM a real person." But she didn't say it in the most jokingly way. Instead, it sounded as if she were proving a point. 

At that moment, I felt the intense need to just play it cool. I turned around, continued with the panel, and tried my damnedest not to twitter, "OMG effing @dooce is RIGHT behind me, and I may have farted." 

The panel continued on, and I was very good about not turning around to stare at Heather or Jon. I tried to laugh at the jokes, twitter regular tweets, and casually bitch to Ashley about whatever may have been bothering me at the moment ( whoever it was who was iPhoning with the keyboard click on... you effing annoyed this shiznit out of me). At the end of the panel, everyone got up to leave and I made the conscious decision not to pester Heather with a picture request. She was ridiculously intimidating to me.  I was just scared shitless that if I did approach her, she'd let me know how much I was bothering her with that pimple on my jawline which she was unable to stop staring at during the panel ... and that was so horrendous, she may have vomited a little in her mouth... and OMG, did you smell that fart? 

Just then, some crazy woman hopped over and stood right in front of Heather asking for a picture for her friend, blah blah blah. I'm not a 100% certain, but to me, it looked as if Heather was none too impressed by said over enthusiastic woman. There was something about the way Heather's voice sounded when she introduced herself at the panel and when she succumbed to crazy blog-fan-lady that really turned me off. Throw all of that in with the lack of a book signing at Blogher and the fact that Heather was no where to be found for 1.5 days... and I was a little upset.  Maybe she was just having a bad morning? Maybe she was hung over?  There had to be a reason. Everything I've ever read about other people meeting Heather has always been about how wonderful and gracious she is. This, this was not the Heather I had expected and I was a teeny bit crushed.

This evening, we attended the community keynote featuring both Heather Armstrong and Stephanie Klein. Heather turned out to be a pretty damn good public speaker. She answers questions fully, speaks properly, and almost never says, "um". She mentioned that someone had threatened to poor hydrochloric acid on her, to reveal her inner robot because she was not a real person. She also mentioned another blog that referred to her as a mythical hobbit. This time, she didn't sound like she was proving a point, but more like she was a little hurt by everyone's negative opinions of her lately. In the end, she came across as the awesome person I always thought she would be. I was relieved. 

As Ashley and I were heading out of the hotel, she spotted Heather in the hallway chatting it up. Ashley pushed me to go have Heather sign my copy of her book. I hesitated a moment before I finally decided to just go for it.

I can only sum it up in dialog... 

Me: "So, I've been trying to leave you alone all weekend, but I just couldn't resist out of fear that I might regret it. I'm sorry."

Dooce: "What? WHY!?"

Me: "Because I know it is probably totally obnoxious for you." 

Dooce: "N......"

Me: (Thrusting the book in her face with a pen) "Oksocanyousignthisbook? I know you aren't doing a book signing......but...."

Dooce: "Yeah, I know. I'm not doing it because of a reason that I am not talking about right now...... So, where are you from?"

Me: (with a wee bit of hesitation) "Um ...... Reno." 

Jon (her husband) walks closer and chimes in: "Awesome!"

Dooce: Says something in twangy accent that I can't quite comprehend, but has something to do with Salt Lake City people liking Reno, I think.

Me: I may have stumbled on my words with a nervous giggle and something about slot machines at the 7-Eleven, seriously, could you ask for more?

As Heather posed for my picture, she wrapped her arm around me and commented on my glasses. Holy. Sweetness. Batman.

In the end, Heather Armstrong was friendly, not intimidating or judgmental, and actually, she  seemed rather appreciative of my fawning over her.  I... can now rest peacefully.