I have met and spoken with a lot of very famous people in this wonderful experiment I call a career, but I’ve never been more excited to meet a guest we will welcome to the show this week. Heather B. Armstrong, an American writer and blogger, is coming in to talk about her new book “The Valedictorian of Being Dead”, and I just might throw my arms around her and scream ,“Why did you not tell me you went through this?”. Because of course she didn’t, because of course we don’t know each other. But I feel like we do, much as you might feel you know me.

 

This is the way it works with bloggers, with radio announcers, and with people who live a public life in any capacity. I have been following Heather’s blog at dooce.com for as long as I’ve been writing my own blog, which is to say at least a decade. I know her daughters, who are now 9 and 14, I know her ex-husband, and her new boyfriend, and her mother, and her friends. I know her dogs – or dog, rather (RIP Chuck),  her likes and dislikes,  and the minutia of her life, because she posts far more often than I do, and includes more and better photos. I know that she’s intense, and incredibly honest, and very, very funny. What I didn’t know, and this is either because she never really got into it or I didn’t pay close enough attention, is that she suffered from severe, debilitating, suicidal depression. So much so that in 2016, around the time that I was dealing with a lot of life changes myself, and not really following her regularly, Heather underwent a highly experimental treatment in which doctors used anesthesia to quiet all brain activity to the point that she flat lined for a full 15 minutes before they brought her back to life. And they did this ten times. And apparently it worked.

 

I know, right?

 

This is what her new book is about, and when I heard her book tour was bringing her to Toronto, I jumped up and down and said to our producer Ian, “Can we get Dooce on the show? Can we?” to which he replied “who’s Dooce?”.  Which brings me back to the weird nature of this semi-charmed kind of life, where you can be intimately known by many, and a complete stranger to others.

 

By the way, Heather is not my only internet girl crush. I’ve been following Amy at amalah.com, and Linda at sundrymourning.com, and Mimi at mimismartypants.com, and I just found Miss Doxie again on Twitter. I’m not even kidding when I tell you that I probably put more time into my virtual one-sided friendships than I do my real life ones. I have written them once or twice, to comment on some event in their detailed lives, and they’ve even written me back. So when I do the same to you, and you tell me how thrilled you are to hear from me, I know exactly how you feel.

 

“Of course you’ll be best friends,” says my friend Sara, who has also followed Heather for years. I don’t think so, as we will have 10 minutes of her time at best, and for all I know, she could be a complete monster in person. Or think me one. It really doesn’t matter, because she’s there to sell books and tell the world about what she’s been through, and I’m there to ask the right questions and get us out in time for the commercial break. Maybe we’ll connect, because that’s what this business is all about: writing, talking, sharing and feeling. And who doesn’t want to meet someone who’s been dead 10 times?

 

Anyhoozles. I really hope she likes me.

 

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