Um, hi. Do you remember me?

I know I have been promising to get issue #10 of the Edgy-catin' mama out to you for about, well, 3 years or so...give or take. I have failed time and again. I feel ready now, but rather than make more promises that you have every right to not believe, I thought I would start out slowly and work my way up to the print zine. This blog is my attempt to recapture my Edgy motivation. I loved and adored Edgy, but life has been sorta rough the past few years....

I wrote this blog on a new (to me) laptop while sitting on the floor of my rented, teeny-weeny, 2 bedroom trailer in the woods. I am so far out in the woods that I don’t even have internet or garbage service or reliable water. As a matter of fact, when I actually post this I will be sitting in my car in front of the library ganking their wireless to get this out there. The last time I wrote Edgy I was sitting at my desk writing on a 300 year old laptop in my 3 level, 5 bedroom house, that I owned, in a neighborhood with a real live homeowners association and real live internet. Those of you that know me can stop laughing at the thought of me living in a neighborhood with a stupid homeowners association. Anyway, I am writing this blog post as an out dyke with a girlfriend. The last time I wrote Edgy I was married to a man AND living with him as his wife (I am still married to him for insurance reasons…he is a nice guy like that, but that’s another story). The last time I wrote Edgy I had three kids at home. As I write this I have two kids and a grandbaby at home. Jason and his girlfriend moved in with his dad, but like the good guy that he is, he still calls his mama every day and visits once a week. I am writing this blog while munching an organic carrot and drinking a newcastles fresh out of the freezer. The last time I produced an Edgy I might have been eating an organic carrot and sipping a newcastles, but I really don’t remember exactly and I don’t want to ever lie to you (other than to promise that the next issue of Edgy is “just about ready to go.” That lie I will hold onto). I ate terrible, horrible food (or no food at all) during my few years of hell while I was transitioning into my self, but as life settles I am back to such things as organic carrots and newcastles. Okay, okay the newcastles were, sadly, about the only constant in my life for a while there, but I am happy to say they are much less constant these days. I am writing this blog post while the Teletubbies babble in the background. I can assure you that when I wrote the last issue of Edgy there were no Teletubbies in the background. Maybe some Bikini Kill (I am the original riot grrranny…hahaha just kidding) or some Ani or some other angsty, angry chick music, but no Teletubbies.

So yeah, life has changed…actually life has turned all kinds of upside down, but I landed on my feet and my kids landed on their feet and my ex-man landed on his feet and we are all doing mostly okay most of the time. We are still homeschooling and we are still a family in a very strange and rearranged kind of way. And even with all this strangeness and rearrangedness we are one of the most functioning, close and loving families that I know of. Mommy lives in a trailer in the woods with 17-year-old Hailey and 9-month-old grandbaby Felix (also known as Futti…think tofutti cutie) and 9-year-old Sydney. Daddy lives in an apartment with 21-year-old Jason and Jason’s very sweet girlfriend. Syd visits dad most weekends. We still homeschool…um, okay, let’s stop this farce right here. *I* still homeschool. He never did. I am, and always was, the primary parent doing ALL of the educating and most of the work…but that is also another story. Yeah I am into honesty these days. Anyway, from this point forward when I say “we” I mean my kids and I and grandbaby Futti Patutti.

As you can imagine, we still don’t really fit in anywhere, but we do love each other and we do believe in our family and each other and in homeschooling. The ex-man and I don’t believe that just because I am a lesbian and I needed a new life that we had to become enemies and so we didn’t. We figured that we loved each other before and we can still love each other now…just in a very, very different way. About 90% of the time he makes me completely insane, but that is no different than when we lived as husband and wife, the difference now is that we don’t have to talk to each other very often and so we can remain friends. And the difference now is that I no longer have to pretend to myself that we had some sort of hip, alternative relationship. When the dust settled I was able to see that I was not living as authentically as I like to claim way back in the day. Things are a little more real these days.

So yes, we are still technically married for insurance reasons and because we are LAZY and scared of all things legal and court and mainstream system related. We have no written custody agreement nor do we have a written child support agreement. If Syd wants to stay home on the weekend she does and if she wants to go to his house for a long weekend she does. She doesn’t have to choose between mommy and daddy nor does she have to ever see us fight over her or money or any random ridiculousness. I’m not saying we don’t fight, but it is not out in the open for the children to worry about. In my opinion we still have the healthiest marriage ever. I am not sure what that says about marriage in general when I am a lesbian with a girlfriend and ex-man and I live in separate houses and don’t have sex and don’t hang out and only talk about 3 times a week and yet we have remarkable communication and friendship in comparison to many marriages that I know of. What does that mean???? So now we are just us and our family continues down its path of unconvention and it all seems to work out in the end.

I am about to move again which scares me more than I really want to admit. I owned my first house at 20 or 21 - my memory has never been too sharp - and moved exactly 2 times in 14 years. I now rent and am about to embark on my 3rd move in 18 months. I don’t know how to rent. It freaks me out and makes everything in my life unstable and scary, but I am learning and realizing that there really is no such thing as a safety net. You just gotta jump and hope the net appears somehow if you fall…so far it always has. Let’s hope my luck holds out.

All of this is leading up to my excuse for being such a bad zinester. My life was upside down, lots of people died, lots of friendships died, I had to fly someone across the country and commit her to a mental institution (I highly recommend never doing that), lots of family went missing in action and that all left me flailing about with no raft to grab onto. To be honest I was more than a little crazy during that time. Now that the raft is slowly materializing - not a net, mind you, just a small, patched up raft - I feel like maybe it is time to get this damn zine back in action. I have missed it. Edgy has been my friend and confidant for a long time and it is time she came back to life. And I have missed you. A lot. With another move imminent I cannot promise that the new Edgy will be out in a timely manner - I have already broken too many promises when it comes to issue #10 - but I can promise that it is coming and until then I hope you will enjoy hanging out here once in a while. I will post essays as often as I can. I will post links and news and pictures and calls for submissions and all that other stuff…and then one day soon you will open your mailbox and there will be the print Edgy (don’t worry I will honor all subscriptions) and we will all rejoice and the world will be a little bit brighter. Until then…please hang tight. I have some stories to tell and hopefully they will be worth the wait. Most likely they won’t be, but whatever…I am back. I do hope you will have me. I promise to try really, really hard to not fall off of my raft again.

And by the way, I write a new comic zine now. It is called, “The True Adventures of the Feminist Snails.” If you want one and you used to subscribe to Edgy just email me and it is yours. If you are new to Edgy and you want one then please send me $3 (well-hidden cash) or a something neat in trade. Email me for mailing info.

npackebush@aol.com (some things never change)