Water under the bridge.

I saw a story on this morning's local television news. A bit of a non-story, it told how the National Trust planned to put a metal safety rail on a cottage in Ambleside (Pictured) and reported that the Parish Council had dubbed the notion "sacrilege". 

It is, unarguably, a beautiful cottage, but a sympathetically designed, black, metal handrail would probably blend in okay and most visitors would simply imagine such a treacherous staircase would always have had this, most basic, safety feature. The addition of the handrail will mean the Trust can open the first floor up to the public and visitors will have a less hazardous ascent. The argument seems a little bit pointless since we all know that the dreaded Health and Safety Executive will ensure that the handrail is in place. Then, elderly Americans wearing rainhoods, plastic ponchos, sandals, white socks and khaki shorts will be able to climb the staircase, coo over the quaint, old, interior and make their way, safely, back down to the street below. Perhaps they'll have a cream tea at the local tea rooms, or buy a slab of tooth-dissolving mint cake from Ye Olde Shoppe before clambering back aboard their coach and heading to Stonehenge. Local folk will tut when they occasionally notice the modern addition to the aging property and, all the while, the river will keep on flowing, as uninterested as the rest of us, beneath the feet of the tourists. A pointless debate to most.

The story interested me in that it holds within it two of my favourite pet hates. Firstly, our pathetic reliance on others to ensure our journey through this universe and into our graves is free from danger and, secondly, our penchant for petty moaning. Moaning about nothing. Selfish moaning. "This is how I like it/would like it to be, so this is the way it must remain/become".


I'm at a loss as to which side of the argument I fall in situations such as these. On the one hand I can't see the point of the addition. The place has been there since at least 1845, but if it's suddenly a problem then why not just put a sign up for strangers to the staircase that reads "Please don't fall off". In this litigious age it would probably be a good idea to add, beneath this earnest entreaty and in smaller lettering, the words "By accessing this staircase you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this staircase. You agree that there is no hand rail, you've seen there's no handrail, you're aware that the drop from the top step is considerably higher than the drop from the step you're stood on and that the ground below is stony." If the worst happens and someone falls off, breaking a fragile, octogenarian, pelvis in the process, then phone an ambulance, wish them luck and laugh at their stupidity once they've gone. No one likes to admit it but we all find it funny when an old person falls over.

On the other hand, it's only a handrail. Yes, it's not a pretty addition to the property but, in my opinion, beauty isn't true beauty without imperfection somewhere, the contrast is necessary or the beauty is bland. The ancient and the modern can co-exist in the same view with some dramatic and beautiful results, as I think the picture [Right] of a church in New York demonstrates.


A petty argument, brought about by the Trust having to apply for permission and announce their intention. People see an announcement and look for some reason to disagree. I'm not saying we shouldn't be informed when a new bypass is going to run through our town centre or a maximum security prison is to be built on the local school playing fields, but in this case it was a bloody hand rail. Just a hand rail. Who really gives a shit? Just put the hand rail up and take it back down again if it proves to be a bad idea.

Rules are like farts and farts are like children, we love our own and hate everyone else's. People see a sign and, like the young lady in the picture [Left], obey without question. Nimbyism is rife. Those that don't agree with, or care about, the campaign to prevent the wind farm being built on the side of the hill remain silent for fear of retribution and venom aimed at them by some of their more militant neighbours.

People may complain that the instructions given on the sign are ridiculous or offensive but they'll obey because, by doing so, they'll ensure that they have the right to complain. I sometimes find myself ordering a double-cheeseburger from the pound-saver menu in Maccy D's just because I'm a little bit bored and fancy a moan. There's always something to moan about beneath the Golden Tits of America. Especially at the drive through.

Moaning is wonderful. I moan almost constantly. Sometimes tongue in cheek. Sometimes I go over the top for dramatic effect. Sometimes I'm just in a grumpy mood. Very rarely am I actually angry though. Not about the petty stuff anyway.

My blog entries are generally moaning about something. My most entertaining Twitter exchanges have come about after a follower or I had moaned about some shit or other. I know it's pointless moaning, I know I'm not going to experience a positive outcome once my tirade is over, but it feels so good doing it.

We all want to be safe and we all have a right to expect to be safe from the actions of others. We aren't safe though. Any of us. We are idiots and we cannot be trusted. We do silly things, like turning the light switch on with wet hands, releasing the trapped toast from the toaster mechanism with a knife or bending over naked to spit toothpaste into the sink whilst a cat preens itself behind you. 

Then, almost as soon as we've ceased ouch-ing and cussing, we look for someone to blame. Stood on a piece of Lego in bare feet? It's the kid's fault for leaving it there. Dad stands on a piece of your Lego in bare feet? It's dad's fault for not wearing shoes. Hand crushed because you were given the wrong ladder to use at work, or hand crushed because you used the wrong ladder at work? "Ah," you may say, "But it's my bosses job to make sure I'm using the right ladder." Yes, it is. But does your hand hurt any less because it wasn't your fault?

I move a lot of furniture in my day job. Just over a fortnight ago I helped a friend move a three piece suite. It was raining and dark when we arrived to unload so we were eager to get the job finished. After wrestling the sofa in through the front door, with lots of Chuckle Brothers' style "To me, to you..."-ing, we were left with an armchair each to shift. Now, I'm by no means a little fella, so I grabbed an armchair on my own and hoisted it into the air and above my head to carry it to the house. As the armchair reached chest height I discovered that the chair I was holding was a recliner, this being brought to my attention when the intricate and robust mechanical action within decided to adjust the seat into a reclined position. The mechanism scissored shut, hard, on my right pinky finger. It hurt, I screamed and the little bone snapped. My friend was mortified and automatically assumed I would blame him. I didn't. I was rushing and as my dad used to say, with a cheeky wink, "You get nowt good from rushing, son, 'cept babies." Rather than complain, get angry and seek the assistance of some shyster "no win no fee" solicitor I strapped it up, took some pain killers and am currently waiting for it to heal. It is now no more than a funny story and a slight inconvenience when wiping my backside or doing the washing up. Water under the bridge.

I learned a long time ago to laugh rather than to moan. I don't mean we should allow the negligence of others to go unpunished when a catastrophe occurs. Just be big enough to consider your own part in the story.

No hand rail? Stay away from the edge.

No fire extinguisher? Don't play with matches.

Raining and dark and an armchair to move? Take your time, you get nowt good from rushing.

Moan about the bad things, but remember no one cares. Not really. If you've done something stupid be the first to laugh about it, then others will laugh with you instead of making all the right, sympathetic, noises until you've left and then taking the piss behind your back. If you really need sympathy check the dictionary. It lies somewhere between "Shit" and "Syphilis".

J2H.

Through the balustrade.

I find it hard to understand how any of us "own" anything. But we do. We own homes, cars, Xboxes and underpants. They're ours. We worked and paid for them. We cherish them. We don't (for the most part) help ourselves to our neighbour's silverware and most of us would never dream of rubbing another man's rhubarb.

But how are they ours? When it comes down to it someone, at some point, laid claim to a bit of the Earth on which we all dwell. He put a fence up and kept others out. He didn't pay for it, he took it. Later he, or a descendant of his, sold it. Or found the fossilised remains of prehistoric great lizards beneath it. Or used it to manufacture consumables using ingredients purchased from another man who had laid claim to his own piece of this Earth and on which he had found some valuable commodity or other. "Property is theft". But we've pretty much evolved a status quo from which there is no return. And even if it were all to be undone, we'd just start killing each other to put our own fences up. Let's not rock the boat, eh?

There is, however, one exception to this rule. Us. We own us. You own you and I own me. If I want to force a ring through my ear or use hot, steel, needles to deliver ink deep into my skin I can. I don't need planning permission, a licence or a note from my mother and I can't be taxed on it. Yet. (Details correct at time of going to press.) It's all mine. And yours is all yours.

I don't drink often these days, but if I like I can purchase a bottle of poison, or "alcohol", and pour it into my body, allowing it to destroy brain cells as it diminishes my inhibitions and dishevels my dignity. It could lead to bad decision making and a delusion that convinces me I am invincible, witty and charming. I have a bit of a blow out now and again. Why not? It's my body and my money and perfectly legal. 

You can have sex with anyone you choose, the one caveat being they have to choose to have sex with you, no matter how ill judged. We can even get pissed and have sex, with ANYONE. It's ours, we can do what we like with it.

You're not allowed to kill yourself. Fair enough. Generally this is one of those rules that have very little impact on us. If I want to do it, I'll just do it. Sue me, incarcerate my corpse, give me fifty lashes. Bring it on. 

Whether or not we choose to inhale tobacco smoke, all the while knowing it's killing us, is our choice to make. Swimming with sharks, hang gliding or putting your tongue on a 9v battery are all fine, though potentially lethal. Even bungee jumping. No problem. 

(On a personal note, you'd never catch me bungee jumping. It was a dodgy piece of rubber brought me into this world, I'll be damned if I let one send me back out again.)

So, to sum up this first section, we don't really own our shit, but it's ours, leave it alone. If I want to get pissed and have a tattoo I can and we've all done the 9v battery thing.

Drugs are bad. We don't do drugs. We just say "no" to drugs. We understand they'd feel good, that's the whole point, but we're not allowed to put them into our bodies. We might die. We might become criminals to feed our habit. So we don't do it. Drugs are bad. We don't do drugs. Well, most drugs. 

I was, as some of you are aware, brought up in a back street pub in Salford. Surrounded by inebriated miscreants and ne'er do wells I managed to navigate my way from being a small child to having a small child of my own. As a child I saw and experienced things a child shouldn't see or experience. Sat at the top of the sweeping staircase that led from private to public house I would peep through the balustrade and watch. I saw policemen, bankers, vicars and gangsters all under the influence of the legal drug alcohol. People I should have been learning to respect, or fear, behaving in ways that made respect, or fear, very difficult. The local vicar swearing whilst attempting to ride his squeaky bike along the pavements and home. The policeman that visited our school regularly, to warn us about the illegalities of riding your bike on the pavement or hanging around the precinct, stripped to his waist and blindfolded whilst his fortieth birthday surprise, a kiss-a-gram, caressed his pasty flesh with a bull whip. One of my teachers being punched in the teeth by an irate parent who'd just learned he'd been having an affair with his sixteen year old daughter, an ex-pupil. 

All these things and more played out on the rich tapestry my upbringing wove before me. Night after night people would pay my mother and father for a drug which occasionally would turn one or more of them into a completely different individual. The meek became mouthy, the strong became sensitive. Respectable women would flash their knickers on the car-park and happily married husbands would experience an epiphany which temporarily revealed to them the delusion that there was no real harm in what they wanted to do with the barmaid/local bike/woman from the supermarket before acting on their most primitive of urges. 

Occasionally the effects of the alcohol would be positive on those imbibing it. Wall-flowers would find the confidence to get up on Karaoke night and reveal to their peers the beautiful singing voice they'd kept hidden for fear of the attention it would bring. Sometimes the lonely, old, man in the corner would get up and dance like no one was watching, raising good spirited laughter around him and engaging with more people in one evening than visited his dingy flat in a year. Most people would leave my dad's pub with a smile, some cheekily attempting to hide a pint pot, still three quarters full, inside their coat and away from his beady eye. Occasionally two people, strangers at the beginning of the night, would leave hand in hand with the person they would one day marry.

My dad's pub was a nice pub. Mostly. Of course there was the occasional fight, but these were almost exclusively on the car-park rather than inside (unless you'd discovered your daughter's paedophile lover) and always "fair". The customers liked their local and policed it accordingly. Anyone could visit and enjoy their evening. Strangers would be smiled at, talked to and included. Arguments were few and far between, and those that couldn't take their ale would be gently persuaded to leave, or thrown through the doors if the gentle persuasion proved unsuccessful. 

I ran a few pubs and bars myself when I was young. I even briefly ran the pub I'd grown up in after my fathers departure and the brewery's lengthy period of failing to find anyone daft enough to take on a pub in Salford in the late 1990s. It wasn't the same. Our attitude toward alcohol and licensed establishments had changed significantly. People entered the pub with their partners or a few friends, spent the evening in the company of the people they'd arrived with, complained about the people they hadn't arrived with and left in a taxi with the same circle. There are still good, friendly, inclusive pubs all over Manchester and Salford, but they're becoming rarer by the day.

I once, and in hindsight regrettably, became involved with a woman who worked as a bouncer on student venues in Manchester during the heady days of Madchester. She would work at a variety of places, sometimes a band would be playing, or just a DJ. Sometimes there would be a bar selling under-priced alcohol, sometimes the venue would be dry. On the nights the students of Manchester were consuming copious amounts of Stella Artois, WKD or Dry Blackthorn the lady in question would return with tales of blood and gore, shock and awe, police involvement, missing teeth, crying girls and vomit. Of arguments with revelers as they were stubbornly refusing to leave. Then there were the dry nights.

Dry nights meant no alcohol. The bar would serve only water and soft drinks. Students being students, and Manchester being Manchester, other, less legal, drugs would be consumed instead. Some smoked, some sniffed and some swallowed. The tales that followed these nights were far less exciting, but far more pleasant. Dancing and singing, no boys in blue, toothy smiles, laughing girls and vomit. Revelers filing happily past the door staff into the dawn chorus, telling said door staff they loved them and giving them their phone numbers before wandering home, via the cafe.

Of course, this example doesn't give a true picture of drug users. It's very one sided. Certainly, the results of drug usage can be stomach churning. I know two brothers who became addicted to heroin whilst still at school. Before either were twenty, one had wandered onto a train track after shooting up by the line. He had then been unfortunate enough to touch the live rail and now resembles a pork scratching. His older brother injected whilst sat against a big, old fashioned, radiator in a school he had broken into. Whilst unconscious the timer had turned the boiler on and the radiator became hot. His neck was against the lip of one of the super heated, cast iron, edges. The edge burnt through his flesh and into his spinal chord. He is now, and will always be, paralysed from the neck down.

Both those examples should be enough to win the argument against the legalisation of drugs. And if you need more, how about the brother of these two unfortunates. Hacked to death in the street by drug dealers after having run up a massive debt. 

What if heroin hadn't been illegal? Why would the first brother be hiding in a cold, dank, shed by a dangerous railway line if he could've been sat at home, smoking his drug of choice as his father sipped a whiskey and mum did the ironing off her tits on Ecstacy? The second wouldn't have felt the need to break into a school. Lastly, Tesco, for all it's faults and to the best of my knowledge, doesn't give it's security guards machetes and doesn't execute anyone at the till without a valid method of payment for the basket full of tasty narcotics they've popped in for.

But what about the prostitutes, hooked on drugs and selling their favours to scrape together enough money for their next hit?

Aren't there also alcoholic prostitutes? Believe it or not, some prostitutes aren't even addicts. Some are, but some addicts are also working in your local sun-bed shop, bakery and police station. Sometimes alongside an alcoholic or two.

So why is it okay for us to be drunk but not to be high? To ingest one poisonous substance but not another? It's not a safety concern, or booze would've been banned long ago. People get addicted. So why do we allow tobacco sales? 

It destroys families. As does alcohol, debt, illness and war. 

It encourages crime. After all, one hundred percent of the users of illegal drugs are, by definition, criminals. But this figure quite obviously drops significantly if you remove from the crime statistics those that wouldn't be criminals if their drug of choice was alcohol.

By this point in time, unless you're blind, you should have realised the war on drugs isn't winnable. A huge folly. It's like King Canute and the waves. (For those that can't remember, King Canute and the waves was the original line up of Katrina and the Waves, Katrina later replacing lead singer King Canute after he choked to death on a peanut. Dangerous things, those peanuts. Someone should do something about that.) A huge waste of money. Money that the country could certainly spend on many, more useful, projects. Tying up our police officers with the issuing of tickets to kids with gormless grins and pockets full of ganja while Mr Hudson from round the corner is driving home, pissed, from the pub. Allowing the vilest members of society to get rich on feeding drugs to children instead of having street cafes with a strict under-18s policy providing a pleasant environment where friends can get high. Wasting the opportunity to tax a massively popular industry whilst allowing shady individuals to earn a tax-free and very lucrative living. 

We allow people to be drunk, but throw a load of rules into the right. Don't drive, don't do it in the street, don't operate machinery, don't cause a nuisance. Surely laws like these, when applied to other intoxicants, are easier, and therefore cheaper, to police than fighting a war? A war we cannot win? 

I can be trusted to make the right decisions in a world of decriminalisation and I'd put money on it that you can be trusted too. Almost all of us will be able to handle it. Not all, but almost all. There would still, unfortunately, be those that struggled. Those weak individuals that fester at the arse of society. But we've got those now. They've always been there, and they will always remain there. They're as much as a part of our universe as we are, an integral ingredient in the rich soup of life.

People will overdose now and again. Some will die. People die. It's a fact of life. The single, largest, direct cause of death in the world is being born. One hundred percent of sufferers of this condition go on to die. We're all going to die of something and for some of us that something will be avoidable, heartbreaking, selfish or stupid. People are currently dying because of the necnomination craze. Completely legal and even celebrated by certain sectors of society. Stupidity in the extreme. Moronic and pointless, even if you win you're still a loser and yet the craze has swept throughout the Western world. As I've mentioned in some of my previous posts, we're all fucking idiots.

But is our predilection toward foolishness reason enough to need legislation protecting us from the evils of drug use? I use "use" rather than "abuse" intentionally to make another point, drug use is not necessarily bad. Drug ABUSE is different. Any abuse is bad, quite plainly, whether it physical, sexual, racist, homophobic, alcoholic or narcotic. 

Another exception to prove a rule, self abuse is lovely.

We own our own bodies in the true sense. Our parents had a hand in getting the whole project off the ground, but from that point on that impressive, chiseled, rock hard body of yours that the world admires so much and that cutting wit of yours is all your own work. Advice may have been given, some good and some bad, and that advice might have been followed but, for whatever reason, you and you alone decided to follow it. The results, good or bad, are all your own work. 

Congratulations, by the way, you're GREAT.

But still, even knowing deep down that our friends, family members and neighbours are probably just as good at being human as ourselves and can therefore be trusted to look after themselves, we insist on telling our fellow man what he can and can't do with his one and only possession. It honestly confuses me. I can see no winner in the war on drugs. Surely the money saved if we waved the white flag would be so much better spent on education. Education in the truth about drugs with the aim of each child making the right, informed, decision and then trusting them to do so. I'm sure there would be a few quid left over after bringing this onto the syllabus to spend on a couple of physics teachers and a new, indoor, 5-a-side football pitch or two as well. Oh, and some books. I like books.

Then, decisions made and adult life underway, we could go about our business and enjoy our spare time however we desired. Just enjoying ourselves without upsetting anyone else. If you're a prick when you drink you could smoke weed instead. If you're a bore on weed try an E. Different strokes for different folks, folks. 

And all the while paying taxes. 

Some people will abuse the alcohol/THC/MDMA et al and cause problems, but most won't. Most drinkers/smokers/sniffers/swallowers will dislike the actions of the minority in their ranks just as much as those that abstain will. It's happening anyway, struggling against it just demonstrates the ultimate impotence of the system in this matter.

Give us drugs, let us use or not use them. Punish us if we abuse them or if we abuse others as a result of our intoxication. Tell us honestly what they do and what to expect. Tax them fairly. Spend the proceeds wisely. Get a bit of perspective. 

A good rule of thumb to follow when deciding what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour in life is to wonder how you would look to an eight year old child, peeping through a balustrade and learning how to be a grown up. If you saw him looking, how would you feel? Embarrassed? Stop doing it. But if the kid is smiling and you laughed and winked at him then get on with it, you're doing no harm. 

If you yourself don't want to take drugs then you yourself must, under no circumstances, take drugs. Don't allow myself, or others, to influence you. I'm not condoning or encouraging drug use or criminality in any way. 

After all, It's great when you're straight, yeah? 

I'm just rambling. 

Probably stoned.

J2H.

Mount Pleasant Street.

A day in my life to demonstrate
The benefits of being late
Whether missing your bus or losing your keys
Or needing a wee before you can leave
It makes life fun and thrilling and fast
Today's vexation is soon in the past

On Friday just gone I needed to be
In town for a meeting at a quarter past three
Alarm set early, I mustn't be late
To start on the tasks that just couldn't wait
And had to be done before I could meet
A man about a dog on Mount Pleasant street

The worst invention, beside French loos
Has to be the button marked snooze
I pressed and pressed and stayed in bed
Too late for breakfast I left unfed
To freeze off my balls whilst walking the dog
Through rain and sleet and freezing fog

The dog whined at the door and started to wag
His tail as his master searched for a bag
To pick up his shit from the frosty grass
After waiting for him to empty his arse
Its not that bad even when blowing a gale
It keeps your hands warm, stops you biting your nails

See there's always a plus side to any grim chore
Just think and you'll find it, of that I am sure
Not matter how hard or how big or how tough
There's satisfaction in there if you look hard enough
Cleaning the filter on the drier's not funny
But look at that lovely, soft, massive dust bunny

But back to my day, I hate to digress
I get my flow in a terrible mess
Although actually, no, to wander is fine
To mentally meander just feels divine
It's never a race to finish a chat
Just hold tight and enjoy whilst chewing the fat

Dog now walked I got back home
And saw the display upon my phone
Two missed calls and the battery was flat
It blinked and it flashed and it made me say "twat"
I'd be needing my phone throughout the day
So there was nothing for it, at home I must stay

The voice mails were both just informing me
That I need now not do stuff, more time I had free
I smiled and I sat down with tea and hot toast
And a bowl of the cereal that I like the most
To sit with my feet up whilst watching the box
And using the fire to warm up my socks

If I'd not over slept I'd have been on my way
Already beginning to curse the damn day
Crawling in traffic, unable to see
The flashing messages informing me
That I'd be disappointed when I eventually arrived
At the house of the first man after that horrid drive

But hang on now, even that's not so bad
There's a cafe nearby and I'd have my iPad
To sit and to write this stupid, long, post
Whilst eating a breakfast with two extra toast
And sipping a coffee and watching the telly
And hearing the noises from my now happy belly

But back home I was sat almost all morning long
Enjoying some peace because plans had gone wrong
Reading the paper right through while just sitting
On the loo while I enjoyed an extra shitting
That only came about when I
Received a voice mail from a guy

That afternoon I took the bus
To drive to town seemed too much fuss
So earphones in and podcast playing
I smiled and listened whilst stood there swaying
Hung on a strap beside a bloke
That smelled of things that made me choke

When no longer I could hold my breathe
I decided there wasn't too far left
To have to walk to Mount Pleasant Street
So opted now to use my feet
I pressed the bell and jumped of quick
And stepped right in a pool of sick

Some dirty bastard from last night
Had drank too much and didn't feel right
And so he had then left for me
A sample of his lovely tea
Of kebab and chips and cheese and sauce
And lots and lots of beer, of course

I had the newspaper rolled up in my hand
And sat on a bench because it's hard to stand
Whilst using the Metro in such a role
To wipe the sick off your slippery sole
I sat beside a bin and saw
A crumpled fiver on the floor

I found myself with an hour to kill
So went to the cafe at the top of the hill
I sat with my latte, watched the world go past
And nibbled a pastry just making it last
Until the watch on my wrist said "Let's get to our feet,
And meet that man on Mount Pleasant Street".

On time were we both with our bags and our files
Our business conducted, we parted with smiles
I walked the long route now with my day all done
And nothing to do but live in the sun
That wouldn't be here in an hour or three
To waste it now, a sin that would be

So I smiled as I passed the statues and stores
At shoppers and policemen and babies and more
Then I hopped on the bus, over the pool
Left behind by the drunken fool
That I'd stepped in when I was here last
But which this time I skillfully passed

The guy behind, he wasn't so lucky
So he too managed to get his shoe mucky
I heard the groan, I'm afraid to say
I found it funny in a quite horrid way
So earplugs in and settled down
I rode the bus back out of town

The traffic was bad, the bus crept along,
The rumbling engine drowned out by the song
Of whichever band my phone wanted to play
To ease me home and through this day
Later than I would usually be
I wan't first home, so she had cooked tea

She'd wanted to wait but hadn't been able
So I sat down to food piled high on the table
The dogs by my side as I slump in the chair
Once the bread was all gone and my plate was bare
I settle down, the curtains shut
And fart so loud it brings a "tut"

Not a day for a history book
So little done and hours it took
A waste of time in so many ways
Not one of my better days
But done and dusted and no worries had
A day like that can never be bad

And so we curled up like two spoons
And watched a show about the moon
And how pretty it was and how far and how we
Could just open the curtains and look up and see
The big silver ball on a black velvet sky
And think for a moment "How damn small am I?"

That moon in the night is same one that you
Will look up and see when you notice it too
And your neighbour, and mother, loved ones near and far
Can see its reflection of our nearest star
That it scoops up and sends back so that we don't miss
It's beauty and splendour, it's cold goodnight kiss

It's not a bad world if you roll with the blows
Just throw it up in the air and see where it goes
You'll generally get through your day alright
And be home with your family by the end of the night
To rest your head and close your eyes
And wake up when the alarm clock cries
It's siren call, it's urgent plea
To open your eyes so that you might see
The beautiful day and all it's new news
And, of course, that button marked "snooze"

J2H