Hi Folks – There seems to be a little confusion about what I have been trying to tell you. I want us to understand each other! Don’t you see, I LOVE YOU! I want to be together foreeeevvvveeerrrr! So here, listen: I’m not writing my zine anymore. I hope I can return to it someday, but for now, it’s too much work. I’ll tell you what happened: Several years ago, I started a wee publication, the beloved Hinky, to help still the craziness I felt in my core from being the mother of small children. I loved my kids (still do!), but I didn’t handle the chaos of those early years with the grace I imagined other moms had. One of my problems was I didn’t know any other moms! So I stayed up late, writing funny stories, sometimes drawing irreverent pictures of naked game animals (I know, I know, they’re all naked – but mine wear kinky undergarments). This creative outlet kept me driven, and I looked forward to getting my thoughts out on paper every day. Once the copy was done, I took them to be printed, then I brought them home to assemble, staple, and mail. At its biggest, my subscriber list was 50 (thank you Marky G!), so the operation from start to finish was a bit involved. After a couple of years of this, something amazing happened – I got some friends! Real live other moms just like me who sometimes never got out of their jammies before dinner, moms who admitted they didn’t always feel like spending a 15-hour stretch with a toddler who didn’t necessarily have great interpersonal skills, moms who sometimes wished a jar of peanut butter and a handful of Cheez-Its could pass for “dinner.” In other words, I found out I wasn’t alone! And not only that, my friends had interesting things to share with me, and they liked hearing what I had to say too! I felt like I came out of the darkness and into the light. I still credit my mommy group for making my town a nice place to live, because once I met my new friends, all sorts of other opportunities and outlets for stir-crazy moms like me started to open up just because I had new input from other people who were looking for the same sort of distractions as I was. Suddenly, Hinky started to take a back seat to my new life as a mom who could actually handle things. My stories didn’t seem as outrageous anymore, none of my recipes seemed publication-worthy, and worse, I couldn’t think of any more large game animals I hadn’t already put into a skimpy nightgown. So I slacked off, dear reader, and I didn’t write much for what’s getting to be a year and a half now.
Several friends suggested I write a blog. I never liked that idea because with my Hinky zines, I told everyone you can just take them to the bathroom and read them piecemeal while you’re in there…doing, uh, other things. It was portable – you could give it to a friend, put it in your backpack, keep it near the toilet…whatever! You can’t do all that with a blog, and you can’t turn the pages, which I think is what I liked about it. Also, I don’t want to scan my pictures because it seemed sort of sterile. But since expressing this concern, friends have told me there’s nothing to using the scanner. So I’m going to figure out how to do that and see if I can’t start producing some artwork for youse guys.
I’ve missed you too! I don’t want us to grow apart! That’s why I’ve started this blog. And your job is to let me know how it’s going. Leave me comments, give suggestions, complain if you need to. I welcome your ideas. Let’s work it out. I think we belong together.
hinkyzine 