ngl, part of the reason I’m running away to the countryside today to see art I’ve just seen is because it’s unexpectedly hard to sit at a computer, at a blog dashboard, and know that Heather Armstrong was around, and now she’s not. Our paths ran in parallel for a long and formative time, and they intersected in many ways, both major and minor, and they diverged. But her voice, her presence, her influence, has been a constant in some form for decades of my life, and it’s painful to know she’s gone. It’s painful, too, to even get glimpses of the suffering and challenges she dealt with, and it is gutting to know that her family and friends will have a hard road ahead. So yeah, I’m going to take a minute.