The Christmas Photo

I sat down in one of those plastic waiting seats at Sears Portrait Studio. It was near the end of October so far as I could figure judging by my photo waiting compatriots - a woman in her thirties, and her four kids. She was trying to herd her droves of children into costumes with the promise of an ice cream cone or a Beanie Baby from Hallmark, or so I assumed. I try not to listen to families; they make me sad. I’ve always wanted one, but at thirty-nine going to the bar every Friday and Saturday night. I’ve had a few close calls, but they were just that – close.

At thirty I had stopped paying attention to the date. The leaves had changed color and NBC's fall lineup was finally hitting its stride, that's all I knew, which was plenty. It meant that soon the marigolds would be gone, and I'd stop taking walks in the park. It meant that they'd turn on the heat lamps at the train stations. It meant that you could buy Christmas cards with your picture on them at Sears Portrait Studio for a discounted pre-holiday rate.

I had a few done up every year, and every year I though that the next I'd go somewhere that could afford the apostrophe after "Sears," showing possession, but when it came to it, there were no "Sears' Portrait Studios" with such a deal. So, there I sat, next to the woman with too many kids to know what to do with.

They called my name, “Stephen,” and I stood up with a squeak, Christmas-crimson turtleneck clashing horribly with fall’s burnt orange. I thought about how long it had been since my last photograph – a year almost to the day, I’d wager. I thought about how a year’s worth of faces was lost - those silly replacement glasses that I had to wear when I slept on the old ones, that one time I had laughed so hard at Jerry’s joke about the peanut butter. I thought about how I would never remember thirty-nine, except for that turtleneck against the off-season backdrop, and how I had blinked in the picture too.

Fantod Fire, Water, Burn (now with a mixtape for you!)

If you'll excuse the cliché, I've felt like a fish out of water as of late. If you won't excuse it, I submit to you these alternatives: a rug off of the floor, and a hipster at a Creed concert. I, personally, blame my own special form of fantod wanderlust; that is to not be home, or even to be someone else entirely. Not that I particularly dislike either, I'd just like the experience. Well, most days it is the experience - some are not so lucky.

Sometimes life can get so stuffy, like the attic room you're forced to store your furs in the year you can't afford cold storage. Heat is a dangerous beast. It makes you languid, it droops your flower's petals, makes you so thirsty that you turn brown, shrivel and catch fire. While often it serves to burn away the excess, to melt off winter's pudge, it is known to take you with it. Some days I fear that it has taken far too much of me.

Now that my temp job is over, I'm left looking for more work. Day to day money seems to be the biggest worry. College debt is a terrible thing. Every time I feel that I've learned a lesson I relapse, though I know, somewhere, that I'm getting better. It's just hard sometimes. I'm sure that there isn't an adult out there who doesn't understand, still, I'm losing

sleep over it these days. Try as hard as I might to get some sleep, something always keeps me up. It's the sound of someone's cash register. I know that I'm going to be better off than I was last time when I finally make it back, but will it be enough?

Still, I burn in my second story room. The new job will be here soon if the temp people are to be believed. Two weeks of unemployment in this economic climate certainly isn't terrible, still it makes one restless, makes one question and lose faith.

It rained today, though it did very little to restore my hope in things. My family is at odds with each other, and what with the annual family vacation this weekend, I don't know what to do. The escapist in me tells me to run away, because it isn't all my battle. I live in this household in the way I feel will be easiest for everyone - I stay in my room, out of the way. Or, I try, but it seems that staying out of the way, and doing what is needed when asked serves to make certain parties think me ungrateful, though I explain in buying my own food, riding my bike for miles upon miles daily, that I just don't want to be a burden.

I am not the sole reason my family is having difficulty. Though I did not hear everything, there were screams from the kitchen, and my sister was told to find a new place to live. I worry about

her. She doesn't understand cause and effect, and some days I fear that she never will. She asks for the world, but before putting her hand out to accept her prize, she fetters it, and slings it across the back of her mustang, and rides off into the desert without a glance back. It seems the price on her head is too much for my mother to handle any more. I have no doubt that she'll leave, but with no money to her name and no job, I can't see her getting too far.

I hope that we survive this weekend. I can't deal with fighting, I just can't. Camping leads to cabin fever, which makes everyone irritable, and the heat is just so dangerous. I feel my sides curling, and what's left of the childish crayon on my paper facade melting.

I feel tied to this place by guilt that is so very hard to get over most days. It is easier to burn in the heat of my attic room. I suppose that there is a certain fear in there somewhere, coupled with the guilt of being of age and at home. There lies the wanderlust, I imagine. I need to go, but never can.

And there is so much more to talk about, but this will have to suffice. This is long enough already.

Luke warm regards,

Caleb

P.S. fantod - a state of extreme nervousness or restlessness

P.P.S. Here, I made something for you. It's a mix entitled Music Therapy. I made it some time ago, and never gave it away. For a long time there, I lauded it as my favorite mix, and it eventually got lost in a stack of cds. I found it today, and it needs a home. Please, treat it well. If you'd like a full size album cover, just shoot me an email at caleb.s.lesher@gmail.com

Flash Fiction - "No More"

I try to wash you from my skin in the night air. The vile stench of you consists mostly of Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion the likes of which I gave my ex one time, because I thought that she would smell beautiful. She did. So do you, in that way that fragile things are beautiful. I shouldn't nuzzle into the pools of your clavicle anymore.

"Don't think about how it would taste, that lotion, under your quivering tongue."

Like the bitter silk of a lavender tea.

I pump my petals, urging myself forward through the drizzle which can only be perceived around the edges of Four A.M.'s nitid street lamps. The cool summer air touches me like I want to be touched. It slowly tugs at the sides of my clothing, the night's hands clutching to the cotton through its night terrors. And it nests itself on my breast.

I try to rid you forever from my skin, but can't with my senses ensnared.

"Don't think about what she did. Don't think about what you're doing."

I sit up a long time before going to bed thinking about my designated distraction, how convenience was a god at whose alter I knelt. Then, kicking off my shoes, I quoth "no more."

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - only this, and nothing more."

Be that word our sign of parting,

Caleb

P.S. nitid - bright, lustrous

And The Tree Was Happy

"I made an airplane out of stone. . . I always did like staying home."

- Shel Silverstein

I don't know how to better put into words my life when January rolled around this year. The story need not be told again anytime soon, not here, not anywhere. I was looking up all things Shel Silverstein this evening, and nothing could encapsulate everything so simply. I just had to share. It didn't make sense not to. I've had months to write, and yet . . .

It hardly matters.

In the spirit of sharing things that I've found over the course of the week, I saw something scrawled on one of the most dingy boxes taped to the boxing line at the Foot Locker warehouse. It caught my eye because of its decidedly female handwriting. As a terrible hand-writer, I take a special interest. I suppose that is how things go.

Before I get to what was there, on the box imagine -

There is a man in the side room of his home. He wears his income on his sleeves. They are white, sort of. At least, they were at the time of purchase some time ago now. The passage of time is evidenced by the white collar nature of the shirt attached to the sleeves. Around neck hangs the limp, loose form of one of many daily assailants, subdued. Today it has chosen to don math equations - a father's day present from any son whose father does "something math-related at work," a product of a bring your son to work day when the offspring in question was too young to understand simple accounting. Truth be told, simply thinking about some of the formulas made Dear 'Ole Dad's head hurt, but he'd never say so. A small triumph in suburbia is getting your kids to think that you're worldly.

The math was dead, however, murdered by wrists developing carpel tunnel at forty-seven. He has no pants. You wouldn't either after a long Summer day in the office.

Early evening sun hits the room's west side window, one of two that break the forrest green wall with their white trim.

I suppose that the sounds should now be mentioned. Subdue the strike of typewriter keys to a low, consistent clack, and you can hear the rhythm of the place. There are only horns on top of the rhythm, or, whistles, tiny, miniature train whistles, the trains which own the clacking and, in due course, the room. There are mountains in the side room of One-Six-Four Wallberry. The Lionel knows them well. For all its traveling the toy chu-chu could've gone to California and back. For all the man cared, it had taken him to California and back.

There are highly detailed towns with small model-perfect people walking their streets, there are tunnels with little glass windows built into their sides so that the Engineer or your everyday onlooker can still see the train. Much is green like the walls. I'd be hard-pressed to tell you the number of little plastic trees dotting the imitation landscape.

Only once taking in the full room's full expanse should one mention the man's hat, because it is quite an expansive, however small it is in real space, corner room if ever there was one. It is his dominion, and the white and blue coal-shoveler's hat is indisputable evidence of this.

That is how I feel as that man must feel about trains when I look at handwriting. (Well, there are many things that I can't do, much of which I take a special interest in. For the sake of this, we'll stick to handwriting ) It was curved without an edge in sight in blue ink, probably a few hours old. The question mark at the end, my favorite part, wasn't dotted, but was instead circled.

"Where you lost."

-anonymous

I know that it sounds strange, that this off, mincing of the English language would stick with me long enough to write about, but it did, and I am. First I corrected it: "were you lost," I thought with a laugh, but then I began to wonder if they did, in fact, mean "where are you lost." It is a question which I have revisited for some time since. Both statements have something special in them despite their face value. That's words for you. What most grabs me is the story that both of the meanings tell, if there are two, that of the seeker of the lost, and the one who did not think to look.

It's a very natural coupling, completely cliche by now - that who did, and that who did not at is root, which may grow into the one who knew, and the one who didn't, which lends itself to the source a tad better. It's proof both of the though that good, quality, thought-provoking things can come from anywhere. "There is beauty all around us, and all of those optimistic things," I say while buying a new eighty dollar power chord for my computer, the other broken, and, somehow, having to pay fifty dollars for three ma-and-pa pizzas.

Zaftig Regards,

Caleb

P.S. fulgurate - to dart like lightning

P.P.S. Song of the week: Strange Animal (Gowan Cover) by The Acorn

Cloth

Tonight I am on tenterhooks, but, if it is possible, contentedly so. Regardless, I find the idiom apt, because I, like fabric, am set. Stretch me out, I'm malleable, and attached to the implements of change. These recent events in my life -the short-lived time in Chicago, the debt, the women, my many newfound allies, etc. - have fastened me steadfast to the tenter. Not that much of my life isn't reliant on my own action, but the chemicals that work their magic in my head have, if you'll excuse the pun, made up their minds.

Though normally strength-sapping, Summer's heat brought me new vigor, the likes of which I haven't seen since my prosperous little high school life fled these parts. I am fate's phoenix; set me ablaze.

It's strange; being tied to bills and obligations above my head makes me strive to be a different person. I was given something nigh irreconcilable and my happiness drive failed me. It was not okay to wait. To be fair, it never was, but it certainly seemed like obligations were for for others, and that, oh, I'd get them some day. Maybe. It looked like I'd be forever with one foot in a rut, but I became the very rut I was in.

Weeks of solicited change come closer now that Spring has barreled through the equinox with Icarus-esque disregard for the position of the sun. I am a college student again; by this time next week I will have picked my classes. I am employed full-time, a first, and shit work or not, it makes me happy. I have reapplied for one college, and plan on sending out more within the month with the hope of being back in my city by January.


Writing this, I feel dewey-eyed. In the cool air, my heavy lids grow wet for joy. Things are far from over, and I am far from stretched on tenterhooks before I'm dried.

Tear-filled Regards,
Caleb

P.S. vespertine = occurring in the evening

WASP

Drowned a wasp yesterday. I'm not really sure why. I'll say that it was because it scared me, and I didn't know how to get it out of the house without making it angry. I got it to the ground with some lysol, caught it in a cup, and covered the top with a paper towel. The sad part is that the poor thing probably just wanted to be free, and I couldn't let it, based on my own belief that the sting would hurt me more than it. Looking back, I remember that once a wasp stings, it dies. If I had just let it get me, then it wouldn't have been slow. I watched it struggle in the water, too afraid of paying it a disservice in its last minutes. I will remember you. I am sorry that I couldn't suffer you.

Went laser tagging. My heart is still pounding, and my legs still hurt. My legs are on fire. It rained all the way there and back. So it goes. Went to the pizza place again. I think that I need a break.

Pained Regards,

Caleb

P.S. phlegmatic - self-posessed, calm

A general note: after doing this for a few days, (this is post seven, it would seem), I've decided to change the way things are done a bit. I figure that for my own ease, and for consistency's sake, I'll post the day after, and will begin to use the past tense. It is, after all, stronger. Also, I won't be flopping down on my bed at midnight, pulling Elizabeth (my laptop) in front of me, cracking my fingers, and pounding away until goodness knows when.

Fire and Water

My eyes itch with sleep, or is that the pollen? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I feel like slinking into hibernation. I would if time stopped passing. Mom always says "don't wish time away, because one day you'll want more." I don't disagree, I just want to sleep forever, with someone. I fear for the day that I get what I want. I won't know what to do. Not out of shock or awe, just general ignorance. There are many proverbs that dictate the difference between wants and needs, but I don't remember listening.

Today was a day for swimming in the creek, or freezing as it were. After a week of chilly weather it can only be expected. In my mind now I slow down the moments before jump off of the dock. (Well, all except for those few choice words I said - those can be skipped over.) I can feel my feet padding along the dry boards, thinking to myself just how dry I was, that is, not completely owing to the slight heat. Duhmp, duhmp, duhmp, I'm running now. Spring with a squeak to get me over the branches on the shore, and I'm not in the air long enough for falling to register, as when you're on a rope swing, or the lead up leaves you scared of the deed. Shit, it was cold. That's the first thought after resurfacing. Oddly enough, it wasn't breathing that bothered me, it was getting out. Then, from the water, I shout to my buddies, and one by one they succumb, hating me instantly when they hit the creek with a splash.

Some time after the water came fire, a nice touch. I like to watch the flame's burlesque show, how it slowly strips the log, leaving nothing but hot smoldering embers in the basin of the rusty pit. I'd like to say that I joined in the conversation over cold pretzel dogs, but the dance and my own thoughts held me captive. It's not like anything important was said. Apparently, none of us have important things to say. Sometimes I believe that I would talk more if it meant something, but much of the time it seems that it doesn't. I open my mouth to speak, and I say something I believe witty, something that people will remember me by, but somehow my banter isn't meant for such circles. It's fine, the flames were captivating, and I had stuff running through my mind.

Thoughtful Regards,

Caleb

P.S. suspire - to utter with long, sighing breaths

Cologne

The week of rough mornings is batting a thousand. The dirty clothing, which I thew on this morning after finding out with a certain jolt that I hadn't started the dryer the previous night, smelled like old cologne. To its credit, it had been sprayed with cologne weeks ago, much to my professional discredit. I can still smell it on me now, early Friday morning. It was a welcome change. It made me feel like a man, instead of just a kid. That's a hard concept to wrap my brain around, my being a man, though I know it to be all too true.

Summer is here for a day or so. Today was meant for just sitting in the heat and sweating after the fifty degree weather, and I was very happy to oblige. After bumming around in my nice clothing, some friends and I went to that new pizza place, barbecue chicken this time. If you're in the area, I implore you to go - one slice, one soda, one ice cream: three dollars. It's the best in town, and I'd hate to see it go now that I've conversed with the kindly owner.

Please be advised: jumping in freezing water because you were hot an hour or so prior isn't a good idea. The creek was a sort of hazel green. When I remember it now, its up past the shore, swollen with rain. It asks me nicely to splash, then it calls me mean names. It pushes me in. That is how the story will be told. I've learned as of late that the most refreshing things are foolhardy at times.

Borders for mom. I swear, the woman buys books to make herself cry. I bought a Creative Non-Fiction and Short Story periodicals for myself, along with another collection of what Garrison Keillor calls "Good Poems." The usual diner was after borders. Now, bed.

Regards,

Caleb

P.S. fifth column - a group of insurgents, traitors, or spies