G Pigs
About to really start writing again. Taking a break from the fine art painting I’ve been doing for months and turning the painting studio into a writing office/studio/nook. It will be a place of great positivity and hope…I hope. Flowers are there now. A plant I’ll name Roger. A fish, maybe. I am 50 pages into a new book I’m calling The Flying McGreevys about a family that travels in a Winnebago and performs stunts on motorcycles and various other contraptions to wow the audiences of Americans in the 70’s. It was a time in which a person could jump a motorcycle over a whole bunch of stuff and if he lived, anything was possible. All you had to do was take that risk over and over again. Our protag, Ty McGreevy has a lot going on in his head as he watches his brother become a star and his father a legend. The family “Winny” he gets to jump each night is small and embarrassing and he’s fifteen now for crying out loud, such a small inconsequential jump, but it leaves him a lot of time at night to roam these various fairgrounds and carnivals and freak tents and soon he learns and understands where his brother, and family, are really headed.
The publicity train for my second novel Peep Show is warming up and I can feel that the summer will be unlike any I’ve ever had. In normal life, here at home, I am a dad of two, a girl and a boy, 6 and 9 respectively. My wife and I just got them Guinea Pigs because, it turns out, we’re subconsciously being prepared to be dog owners. I grew up loving a special dog but my wife only had “outdoor cats”, otherwise knows as “feral cats.” No nuzzling, no unspoken understanding of their owner’s daily problems. My dog, Lucy, a mixed schnauzer and poodle I received for my 10th birthday, understood fully that my young soul was one that would need to absorb all the pathos I was breathing and one day turn it into something other than melancholy. We did it together, although she needed to be put to sleep while I was living in Tokyo in 1991. I loved her and I dream of her still today. She will certainly be in the eyes of whatever puppy we bring into our home in the coming months. A little and oh so quick story about parenthood. I would rate this a 9 out of ten on the “Okay kids, you may or may not be old enough for this lesson, but, just know I didn’t invent any of this, and here we go.” Two baby Guinea Pigs are at the local pet shop. My mother, with her grandchildren, my kids, calls me and says they’re gorgeous, you have to get them. I’ll pay for everything. I actually say, NO, thanks, it’s not the best time, I have a lot going on and the notion of cleaning up newspaper with Guinea Pigs urine on it is not what I had in mind, for say, this weekend. After we hang up, I remember the rabbits, the many rabbits my mother brought home when I was a young boy. A male, a female, and then not long after, many, many rabbits that were tiny vulnerable babies that yes, at one point were eaten by their mother due to the fear she apparently felt by what, not sure. My mom says wild dogs in the woods behind us. I can’t remember if I believed they ate them because, I, personally got too close to them or if it just sounds really dramatic and achingly sad now. Let’s say to be safe, that I never felt the guilt of the baby rabbit’s deaths. But, the mother’s still killed the babies and this always stayed with me. Cut to my house, Feb of 2010 and my mother has now called my wife and gotten a YES, SURE, BRING ‘EM ON HOME from the girl who had feral pets and has never and will never touch a newspaper saturated with animal piss of any kind. I guess we’re getting pets. Okay, I see them, they’re unusual I’m told, jet black, soft, nice, and one of the baby sisters has a white spot near it’s butt, that’s funny, she’s cute, okay, I’m liking them, they like lettuce, it crunches, that’s cute, look at their teeth, those two big teeth, no Honey, she doesn’t need a hat. Don’t Honey. Sweetie. Okay, that is a little cute. Stop, it’s cruel. This one has a chunky stomach, a bulge, feel that? Weird. My wife looks up Guinea Pig gas online. Sister two has what is called “Critter Farts.” Terrific, I’m the one who said NO THANKS and now we got an agitated and bloated “Critter.” Critter Farts starts looking worse and the other sister is pissed now and running around the cage in circles. All of us are trying to sooth the sisters now, using all the words and tones we save for babies and the really elderly. They soon get quiet and retreat to the wooden house we bought them. It isn’t until about noon the next day that my wife sees what looks a lot like a really itsy bitsy version of our new pet, only this one has what the Guinea Pig website calls “Guinea Pig Placenta” all over its surprisingly hairy body.
“What’s that?” she says squinting and pointing at it.
What? That? The thing with the Guinea Pig placenta all over it? Why Dear, I believe, upon further observation, that a newborn Guinea Pig just dropped out of our “not so gassy anymore” baby Guinea Pig. To make a really weird story weirder, your guess-timation that sister number one is in fact brother number one, is incorrect. If you guessed that there was a brother with the sisters before they got to the pet store, before my mother “rescued them” and before they came to live in my house, you would be dead on. What’s that you say, the brother knocked-up the sister who was a baby herself. Okay. Got it. Got it, kids? Is this clear now? This “nature” experience aimed at educating my children has now imbedded in them some life lessons that only Shakespeare himself could evoke in words.
INCEST – Just fine for Guinea Pigs, in fact, the offspring of this moral wackiness end up thriving in life, becoming well established and well liked accountants and dentists.
THE KILLING AND EATING OF ONES OFFSPRING – Sure lions are famous for this but Guinea Pigs who have something like, 75% of the same DNA we do, will snack on baby if it feels baby will be slaughtered by some other means. See horrific rabbit lesson from earlier.
HOMOSEXUALITY – When sister two gave birth she also became officially “in heat,” so her twin sister, who would need to be separated, tried to hump her straight through the floorboards. We would later learn that it was a gesture of dominance. So let’s recap. Humping FINE, eating babies BAD.
Hey, I’m very very, excited to head out there and support my new novel Peep Show. My summer and fall tour dates will be on my website, so, keep an ear out and see you soon.
Happy almost March,
Joshua
March 12th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Hi Josh,
I temporarily lost track of you…but here you are. Your schedule looks busy, and it may not be the time to ask if you’re still willing to read the manuscript for my second memoir to supply a blurb. However, I’m asking anyway. The title is “The Home for the Friendless.”
I thoroughly enjoyed the March 1 entry of your blog and will read the other posts after sending this letter. By the way, your interest in painting makes me smile. I was a high school art teacher in my previous life, and painting was one of my loves.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Betty Auchard
author “Dancing in My Nightgown.”
Los Gatos, CA
May 24th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Thankyou, that is extremely good information, cheers.
May 24th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Amazing Dude, that is really nice information, cheers.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Extremely useful. I love the way you write. Do you provide an RSS feed?
January 30th, 2011 at 9:34 am
The intro rocks !! !