Dooce Was Brave. Funny. Self-lacerating. Self-aware. Bubbly. Withdrawn.

portrait of heather armstrong aka dooce
An early pioneer of the “MommyBlogger” phenomenon. 

And now: dead. Far too soon. 

Many years ago, before the rise of “micro-blogging” platforms basically sucked all the oxygen out of the room and got us on the treadmill of creating content for FREE for giant trillion-dollar corporations … Dooce and Jon were at the same conference in Calgary that we were. The topic was how the fast-expanding “blogosphere” was shaping the way kids grew up & experienced the world.

We were there to talk about online cyber-bullying, which was starting to be A Thing. And yeah, it’s gotten way, way worse since then.

Still, Dooce made us laugh when she recounted how she dealt with the Comment Trolls that said nasty things to her.

Her approach: printing out the very worst comments on paper, taking them into the driveway, and backing over them with a car.

If only the negative voices in Heather’s head could have been dealt with so expeditiously, and with such humor.

I knew she struggled with depression, and was far more sensitive than she’d let on. Humor is a surefire way to deflect pain, and works great … right up to the point where it does not.

She will be missed.