"It Sucked and Then I Cried" Part Dooce

Part 2: Waiting for Heather Armstrong, author of "It Sucked and Then I Cried," inside Books Inc.

Missed Part 1? Click here.

I walked into the bookstore on my own, while Stefan retrieved the talking, blogging, camera, and found the front row was filled up. Luckily, the second row was open. Even better, there was a nice person already in it, so I sat down next to her, and we chatted, while waiting for her Awesomeness to appear.

"Oh I wish I had eaten before we came," I say to my new friend.

She was so kind, she offered to save our seats, while we got a bite to eat, in the cafe upstairs. Thank you!

It would have been really embarrassing to pass out in the middle of Heather's presentation. On second thought, maybe she would have written a blog about me or at least a tweet.............Oh well, another missed opportunity.

The saving of seats episode made Stefan very nervous.

While we were eating he kept asking, "are you sure she's going to save our seats? What if they don't let her save our seats? The bookstore is filling up, we better get down there before someone takes our seats."

Heather showed up 15-20 minutes before speaking, in a black dress with high heels. Did I mention she's seven months pregnant? Very impressive.

When I was pregnant, I may have worn high heels once, but never since. And my heels were probably too low to qualify as high heels, in any reputable fashion blog. The rest of the time, I walked around with Stefan's massaging hands on the bottoms of my feet.

Yes, if pregnancy was going to be hard on me, then it was going to be harder on him.

But Heather was making pregnancy look easy, energetic, hilarious and HOT! Yes, all the guys in the room, lit up when she made her blow job microphone reference. She's bringing sex back to pregnancy. The visual lingered over the room for at least 30 seconds. Hopefully nobody came in their pants. Actually, as I recall most people were wearing pants.

With Heather's permission I recorded the entire chat. Thank Goddess, because I was so overwhelmed with inspiration I didn't write down one thing she said. I sat in my chair soaking in her Heatherness, which is off the charts.

I was mesmerized, hypnotized, hearing Katy Perry in my head, and getting a "how to blog better" psychic download, all at the same time.

No wonder I was feeling light headed.

I first came across Heather Armstrong, in August of 2008, in the New York Times. It was an article about her blog, you can read here. I started writing my blog a week later, after not writing for 18 years.

So when I say stumbling across Heather Armstrong and dooce.com was life changing for me, it's an extreme understatement. I finished Journalism School in 1990, then took an alternative path in massage therapy and teaching at a massage school. Every year was a waiting game.

Waiting for my inspiration to come and waiting for the day I would write again. Then snap, seemingly over night after reading Heather's blog, my inspiration had finally arrived.

Sitting in the bookstore audience, listening to Heather speak and read from her book, was emotional for me and nothing short of heaven on Earth. Her performance rendered me speechless and completely star struck. Read: "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"

Even if I never have six million hits a month, at least I'm writing again, every day, even. Besides my goal, for now anyways, is to have one million blog hits a month. It's a start.

"But what did she say!?" Screams someone from the Internet.

Oh sorry but you'll have to wait for part 3 to find out. That could take some time.

Yes, a few people showed up to listen to
author Heather Armstrong read from
her New York Times Bestseller,
"It Sucked and Then I Cried."
Standing Room Only!