Farm life looks great on TV. In real life, it is hard, cold/wet or hot/boiling.

So my bedroom window is the highest spot for wind from the SIERRAS to Hanford, 60 miles west. There is a building in Visalia that is a little windbreak—only it is on the other side of the street. My window and the wind from the Sierras. I looked it up on GoogleMap.

So I’m all whiney because it’s cooooold. Waa waa waa.

But I have a roof over my head, a bed, heat, an electric blanket and electricity. When I walk the dogs, I cannot tell you how many homeless people I pass in the alley, huddled up in doorways, sleeping on cardboard with trashbags as cover. They don’t have a dryer to toss their leggings and jeans and sock into, so they can warm up before braving the elements for the hour I go out with the dogs.

Poor me.

I put little dabs of nail polish on the insides of her sneaks. When they both touched, she had them on her right feet.
I wish Mike’s cure was as easy as two dabs of nail polish.
I can see I have a long and winding road ahead of me us.

I just hope I’m up to it. I can’t seem to hit the right tone–either I’m treating him like a five year old or I’m mad at him for–well, for being a five year old. He has his moments—they are just with other people.
Today, he told me he couldn’t get the dogs to quit barking. Oh, PLEASE. Tell them to be quiet. Give them a cookie. Just don’t wait for me to come home to take care of it…after you spend 20 minutes complaining. He told me the other night that he never wanted dogs at all. Well, Dude, there are a lot of things in life I never wanted.
Be calm and carry on.

I took the dogs out around 0600…the big ones go across the street, up the alley, down to the train tracks, up past the car dealership and then back to my house. Rocket likes to go down our alley, bark at the guard dogs until they get tired of barking, across the street to the train tracks and then up our street to our house. But as we are passing the barber shop, I see glass all over the sidewalk. I mean ALL OVER. The shop on the corner had its door kicked in. Glass all over inside and out. I picked up Rocket so she wouldn’t walk in the glass and called 911. First thing I said was “This is a non-emergency call” and then I told the operator who, what and where. She told me a car would be out but to go on inside; no need to stand out in the rain. (Small town).

So I’m upstairs, washing dishes when I get the call from Officer Todd. He wants to talk to me to finish up his report. I told him I’d just run down and let him in. (I am security concious enough that I keep the street level door locked.) Officer Todd has been here a lot lately and laughed and said “Miss Chloe, don’t you be running down those stairs.”

I told him that for a rainy night, the alley was sure loud around midnight. Usually on a rainy night, the alley is empty and quiet. Guys will stand under the veranda to smoke and talk trash. Last night, I could hear several people (more than two) talking sort of loud. Not loud enough to hear what they were saying, but loud enough to hear. Not fighting. Not arguing. I didn’t hear any glass breaking or a car engine but the talking around midnight was loud enough to wake me.

There was six thousand dollars worth of stuff missing.  Todd said they’d check the Monday sale tomorrow (all that NWT stuff has to come from somewhere!) The shops downstairs have alarms and I’m thinking that maybe I need to get a wrought iron security door for my entry and put up some razor wire on the roof.

I hate the idea of locking myself up like I’m in a war zone but needs must, I guess.

When we vry first moved here, I was a little lax about keeping the door locked and more than once had a stranger walk all the way upstairs. I finally changed out the door (it did look like a storefront–sorta) and put a notice on the door saying this was a private residence/no admittance. Even so, I still will get people knocking at the door, looking for the firehouse (next block) or the Blue Moon (other next block) or the legal office (on the corner with the really big law office looking signs). I’ve even had people knock knock knock on the door and ask if this was the cleaners (two doors down—you know, the door that has a big CLEANERS sign in the window.)  People are funny.

But NOT inside my house.

• Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
• Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling…it took me a while to get interested enough in these to actually READ them, but I did. WHY are they banned? (I know…pretend witchcraft. Very subversive.)
• Forever by Judy Blume
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
• My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
• Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine…I’ve read a bunch of these….and in third grade, this was all some kids would willingly read.
• A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Sex by Madonna…as a singer, she is sure no writer.
• Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel…those women worked too darn hard. I would have died. I was so overwhelemed with all the travel and trouble it was to continue living, I didn’t much notice all the sex, so it was a SURPRISE to me when I discovered that THAT was why they were banned. What about all the basket weaving and flint knapping and walking, walking, walking and hunting?
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak…not one of my favorites…but really? Banned because of a penis? Oh, please.
• The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
• Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
• The Goats by Brock Cole
• Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
• Blubber by Judy Blume
• Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
• Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
• We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
• Final Exit by Derek Humphry
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• The Pigman by Paul Zindel
• Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
• Deenie by Judy Blume
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
• The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
• Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
• A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
• Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
• Cujo by Stephen King
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
• The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
• Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
• Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
• What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
• Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
• Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
• Fade by Robert Cormier
• Guess What? by Mem Fox
• The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
• The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney…how the heck did THIS get banned?
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding…I read this one in high school and the pig part STILL gives me the creeps.
• Native Son by Richard Wright
• Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
• Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
• Jack by A.M. Homes
• Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya….I’ve read this along with my class and I just don’t like it. It’s not worth banning, though.
• Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
• Carrie by Stephen King
• Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
• On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
• Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
• Family Secrets by Norma Klein
• Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
• The Dead Zone by Stephen King…I can’t read anything by Stephen King anymore; not since Thinner. Too scary.
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
• Private Parts by Howard Stern…a total waste of time to read OR to ban
• Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford….how did that get on this list?
• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
• Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
• Sex Education by Jenny Davis
• The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
• Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
• Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

I would bet there are dozens of banned book lists. I probably have read every single one of them. When I lived in Utah, I made it my personal business to read every single fiction book they had at the big library. I wasn’t shocked by a single one…although there were times when I thought, “Damn! I could write a better book than this!”….and tha was before I had lived my life. I have a lot more material now!

Go here

Cambria is a doll and knitter who is just amazing. She knits and designs (Something I cannot do. Ever.) I can’t even sew on request. Stomps all the fun out of it.

She has two small boys and lives in the unGodly cold Eastern seaboard. I lived in Utah for ten years and it is long on very cold (0 degrees) and never a day goes by that I don’t wonder WHY anyone wants to live where it is so cold. I live in Central California and it is plenty cold enough for me right here. (It got down to 29 this week. Freeeezing!)

She has a blog, is on facebook and has an etsy store.

I’ve lived an interesting life. I don’t spin stories about protesting the war in Vietnam or going to Woodstock. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not–and believe me, I know exactly who I am.

I worked in a prison and it is the kind of job where I needed to keep an eye on things that looked hinky, with inmates, free staff and officers. Just SOP. I’m sure that most people are aware of odd incidents during  the workday–it’s just that in my line of work, odd incidents could get you stabbed. (Actually, odd incidents have gotten both of my shoulders torn up and several long jagged scars from flailing shanks.It only takes a couple of assaults to make a person keep their eyes open.)

We had a secretary in my department who just acted odd. You couldn’t use her shredder (the only department shredder). Couldn’t use the outside phone line. Stay off her fax machine. Leave the copy machine alone. Her office was always locked. We spent a lot of time knocking and waiting at her door. After a while, she got caught smuggling in cell phones and drugs, which is why she needed so much privacy. And all her privacy was a little off.

I’d share this weirdness with a former friend a person I’ve known since childhood and because she is just a works at a random high school in a random position, decided that I was thriving on drama. With no life and death training or experience, she got it in her head that my co-workers and I thrive on drama, which she found find it unnecessary and unpleasant.

Well heck, I find people stabbing each other over I don’t know what unpleasant, too. I don’t like watching people being beat to death. I don’t like the daily battle and the housekeeping fighting stabbing either. My main job was to make it home alive at the end of my shift. I’m not too sure what her main job is. She complains about teachers coming in late or needing extra books or deciding not to use XYZ test book (which she promptly rats out to the admin because I guess she is the curriculum monitor.) 

I find it interesting that even though she doesn’t have a regular class six times a day/homework/lesson plans—she has help to check in and shelve books and when students are in the library, she has a teacher in charge of the class–I’m not sure what all her job stress is coming from. It seems to me that she is busy getting her co-workers underlings in trouble, but no real reason.

She only taught for a few years before her present position and she acts as if she is the only person who has gotten a MA degree while holding down a job. I got a MA in Spanish while pregnant with my first child and an MA in Math before my second child was out of diapers. Yep, it was hard. Not impossible nor did it make me a super person. It sure as heck didn’t give me the right to rat out my fellow teachers.

My parents both died in the last ten years. I took care of my mother for the last eight years of her life. My son was was ill and spent the years between 15 and 25 in and out of the hospital. I was ill. I have chronic cluster headaches (There are 43 of us in the US who have what I have.) It’s a little scary and besides mentioning that my head hurts, I don’t feel the need to give this particular person all the gruesome details, only because she will twist the truth into some kind of lie or if she’s never heard of it, the natural step would be that I’m lying.  When I was diagnosed with lymphoma, she called me a liar. But since I went to an oncologist at UCSF and not a soldier/sailor/tinker/spy, I sort of believe my doctor’s opinion. She of course, called me a liar.

I’ve been called into Internal Affairs more than once and been questioned about stuff that sometimes I know nothing about. Sometimes I know a little bit about it and sometimes I know the entire story from my own perspective. Then there is the gray area where I’m just connecting the dots and am pretty sure I know exactly what happened but not because I KNOW what happened but because I know human nature. Give me A and C, a dash of E and G and knowing what I know, I can figure out B, D and F and usually be right.

And believe me, working with Level 4 felons has given me a front row seat into human nature.

And it is not always a pretty sight.

I have seen both the most honorable of men and the ugliest side of greed and liars and people who simply like to be unreasonable because, well, what are you going to do about it? I’ve been the target of lies and bitchslapped and worse, by people I thought I knew, people who had some control over my life. I’ve had professional and personal confidences tossed into my face (“top that!”) when I had no idea I was in a race.

I have gotten myself into trouble more than once because I give honest answers. I won’t keep stupid secrets. If I have a conversation with A about B and it is something B would like to know (“Your husband told me he loved you” “Miller said he thought you were doing a good job” “Steve said he was thinking about moving you to pre-release”), it doesn’t occur to me that I should have taped the conversation. It doesn’t occur to me that B will cross examine A, asking for a virtual trial transcript, when A was simply making a chance comment.

I knew a former friend person who finds dishonesty insulting, stating that it implies that she is not important enough to respect, but her view of dishonestly is so broad that it just exhausts me, trying to tiptoe around her anger. I never know what is going to set her off.

I have had her cross examine me about random comments (What did you say? What did he say? Then what was said?) Hell, I don’t know. I tell her that most of life is simply background noise; I’m not writing down every comment or every response. Most of the noise that goes on is the same thing, over and over (the definition of prison AND life) Despite the fact that I have been divorced, for her to think that it is as simple as changing paper towel brands is disrespectful to ME. That I could feel disrespect is something I am sure has never crossed her mind. I can easily dismiss her because I KNOW she doesn’t have a clue about what she’s talking.

Guys who live in the prison must be exhausted attempting to keep track of every offhand comment and response, for fear of offending somebody, especially when they are surrounded by people who is just WAITING to be pissed off. It must be tiring to always think that others have an agenda and that that agenda is always ALWAYS always critical of them. I know it wears me out. I know it wears my warden out, because he will patiently listen to the looney tune crazycake stuff until he’s had it and then just cut it off; not to whip up some drama but to simply get in and out of this foolish drama.

I can handle greed (take a look at the two barns I have filled to the rafters with furniture and the two chairs I am so coveting, even as I write).

I can understand sloth (it does a bed good to air out, so it isn’t really important to make it up every day, especially if the door is shut and the dogs can’t be laying on the sheets). And it’s ecologically correct to soak dishes and do just one batch.

I understand thinking unkind thoughts about people who get on my very last nerve. (And I am frequently and purposefully unkind, but in a cruel and clever way.)

I frequently am thoughtless (although I am good about thanking people for kind things they do for me). I have a terrible temper but I rarely will just lash out in anger, only because there be dragons. I lived in a house where my parents frequently laid out traps for me, just daring me to mis-step and when I did, they were ruthless in flaying me, but they didn’t manage to beat the humanity out of me. I work with stone killers and worse and they don’t scare me. What they do and say? It’s not personal. It just comes from fear.

But I have little patience for people who deliberately make mean comments for the sole purpose of eventually saying “How. Dare. You.” and ending with “FUCK.YOU.” Nothing like someone standing in front of me, betraying all the trust that I’ve put in them, or deliberately hurting me because what they are scared about something else.

That is personal, even though it comes from fear, it’s personal and meant to not only hurt me, it’s meant to stay in my head, so I can hear it on an endless loop. Jackson used to write me these long, cathartic letters for years. As he spiraled further into the mental illness that eventually took his life, he had a need to write ever uglier, hideous letters, filled with “how dare you’s” and “someday, everyone will know what your really are like.” You know, I hope that one day everyone DOES know. Because at least I’m honest about myself. I don’t drag up the past or alter my importance in life. If someone hurts me, I try to concentrate on the present hurt and not drag up crap from fifty years ago.

So I can’t say that my time in prison has been wasted. I have learned far more than I’ve taught but it hasn’t always been something I could have lived without. I would just have soon remained ignorant of the uglier side of human nature. I do my best to be a decent person and face up to my foibles and frailties.

So stone me. Get in line.
I’m human.

This photo is taken from the LANDING, halfway down.

They are REALLY that steep. 28 steps, if you are counting. There is a floor between the shops on the street level and our place, so it’s about 2 1/2 stories up. The original plan was that the stairs would keep me young, what with trotting up and down with groceries, general appointments, taking the dogs out four times a day. Some days, it is a longer trek than on others.

Two weeks ago Friday, I got up and went to look for my husband. It was early, so I thought maybe he was in the library. I know he hadn’t left the house, only because we NEVER any of us leave without telling ME or leaving a note. So I looked twice and couldn’t find him. When I returned to my bedroom, all three dogs were on the bed, looking at the floor with a look of alarm on their little doggy faces.

They were staring at Mike, who was unconscious and unresponsive on the floor, stone cold. His little feet were blue, which always just drives a spike in my worry-o-meter. I have no idea how long he was there but I do know that it takes under five minutes for the ambulance, fire truck and cops to get there. (We live literally a block from all three stations and are ten blocks from the hospital). They zipped him off the to hospital and ran every kind of test on him and watched him all weekend. There was not one thing wrong with him, according to his tests. Obviously, there WAS something wrong because it is very seldom I find him in a heap on my bedroom floor.

He was released Monday last; we stopped to see our primary doctor and came home. He was walking up the steps—all 28 of them, chatting with Ben while I collected the UFO’s in my car—you know, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates inside the car, waiting for an accident to turn them into missiles headed straight for your head. It’s one of those never-ending three minutes pickup chores I can fill my entire day with. I couldn’t have been more than three minutes behind him.

When I opened the door, I hear this hideous roaring from my son, who is right at the last step. My husband had fallen down from the very top of the stairs to the front door. He was bleeding from his head, purple, unconscious, unresponsive, convulsive. Blood everywhere. Later, when I scrubbed the steps I realized he had hit every brass tread.

I ran next door to the hair salon to call 911. Two of the gals there ran over to see if they could help. As usual, my street is promptly filled up with fire trucks, police cars, an ambulance and about a dozen first responders. They get Mike stabilized and tell me they are going to AIRLIFT him to Fresno.  I handed Mike’s info* to the EMT with a chart and off they go, lights, siren and all. I called one of the guys to drive me, because I am totally in any condition to drive or find Fresno.

Mike was sent to the Community Medical Center-Fresno, which is the best we have between Bakersfield and Sacramento. This hospital is in the middle of old downtown Fresno and was so busy it looked like a riot in a war zone during shelling. It was just wild…and I was in the big middle of LA when the Rodney King riots happened. TO even GET into the big Disneyland line to get INTO the ER, I had to leave my handbag in my car and could have my cell phone, car keys and some cash. All that had to go through a security search and then I walked thru a metal detector. Then another Disneyland line to get a pass to go deeper into the ER. It was an absolute maze, with security literally at every corner. I’ve never seen it so tight….and I worked at a maximum security prison!

Mike was way back in the back in Trauma I and stayed thee for almost 24 hours. I was sitting on a little step stool, tucked into the corner. He was alert but had several big goose eggs on his hard head, a 10 inch gash on his head (that where all the blood was from). He’d gouged a chunk out of his shoulder (We had no need of plastic surgery but that was who was on duty…so it won’t be a ragged scar) and broke 4 ribs (these were previously the only unbroken ribs he owned) but as far as broken ribs, he lucked out. They all broke about a quarter of the way in from the ends of the ribs, where they protect your organs.

I think in the next week, they ran every test they had a machine for on him. He didn’t have a stroke. Heart is just fine. Their best guess is that his blood sugar dropped and he simply fainted.

He’s home now and getting better every day. But I know this is going to be a long and winding road but at least we have a road to go

*I keep a printout of all the medications we of us take, plus a copy of our insurance card in a ziplock I keep under the mat at the bottom of the stairs. I hand that to the EMT so most of the paperwork is done in the first few minutes of arrival at the ER. VERY HANDY. When Mike finally was admitted to the hospital, the first two visitors were the financial person and the social worker. First questions? “Do you have insurance?”

I worked in a maximum security prison for 15 years and there isn’t much I haven’t seen, read, witnessed or heard. Charles Manson? Every day and I can tell you, he is not the worst, which is sort of scary in and of itself.

I got hit by a truck in the fog. Didn’t kill me.

Got hit by a Cadillac in a hurry and went thru the windshield. Didn’t kill me.

I’ve been in two riots (by accident. They just sort of happened).

Been pepper sprayed more than once (again, just sort of happened).

Spent HOURS locked up by myself with murderers/kidnappers/mother rapers and father fuckers and father rapers and mother fuckers (song from the 60′s). Didn’t much scare me.

You know what did scare me? The father of my children, who, rest in peace, is dead now. He disappeared one day….went to work, got into his car at recess and disappeared. Three years later, we  saw him at his brothers funeral for about five minutes. Ben had gone done the hill to pay his respects and Jack jumped down his throat. Ben came back, got into the car and said “Drive”. We had just gotten Rocket and I don’t think Lisi even looked up. We both just trusted that Ben knew what he was talking about.

For years, I worried that he would show up in town and manage to get Lisi to go with him. I mean, he’s her FATHER. Ben and I finally got her to agree to never GO with him, but she could meet him as long as Ben was with her.

Eventually, we found that he had passed away. We went down to the coroners office in LA and picked up his belongings, several years after his death. We didn’t know and I just accidentally stumbled on him on the internet.

He wasn’t like that when I met him. He wasn’t like that when I chose him to father my children. He was funny and silly and dear….and he would pretend to be a Saharan lizard running in the hot sand.

But he had spent two tours of duty in Vietnam. He was a door gunner when he was 17,18 and 19. There were a lot f good men lost in that war and we still are losing them, every day. He was terribly damaged and at the end, I was afraid of him. I didn’t know him anymore and he scared the heck out of me.

And he doesn’t deserve that.

http://ahref=

I was at the Regional Medical Center in Fresno and was walking past a car with a bumper sticker from one of the local schools.  The driver was apace with me so I asked him if he knew Mrs. B. His little face got that non-anon look on it. Yeaaah, he knew Mrs. B and then he did a spot on face of her face. When I taught high school, I found it so funny how the kids could pick up on a teacher’s facial expressions and mimic them perfectly. High school kids are very much like kinders….just a little more edited.

Oh, I had gone to school with Mrs. B.

Known her for about a hundred years. And the face she wears is the face she has been working on for the last 45 or 50 years.  She has practiced every squinch, every smile, every frown, every look millions upon millions of times. There is a reason why our faces fall into our typical expressions….good, bad, snippy or sour. They are the well worn pages of our lives.

Except for one really awful year about 39 years ago, Mrs. B has always had a happy face on. Her mother has one. So does her sister. All their happy moments are carved upon their features.

I don’t know how some people can dismiss the bad stuff in their lives and focus on the good, but Mrs. B has managed. She has had her fair share of awfulness but has managed to keep it off her face. Sure, she is wrinkled–who isn’t?–but when you look at her, it’s the good stuff you see. She taught kinder for years and I have to say, if kinder is a good match for you, as it was for me, your day is filled with joy.

I think if more people were just happy in 1/3 of their lives, no one would need plastic surgery. Moisturizer, yes. Surgery, no

Each verse is like a story

Watch you smile while you are sleeping
Far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Well, every moment spent with you
Is a moment I treasure

(Chorus)
I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing

Lying close to you
Feeling your heart beating
And I’m wondering what you’re dreaming
Wondering if it’s me you’re seeing
Then I kiss your eyes and thank God we’re together
And I just wanna stay with you
In this moment forever, forever and ever

(Chorus)
I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing

(Bridge)

I don’t wanna miss one smile
I don’t wanna miss one kiss
Well, I just wanna be with you
Right here with you, just like this
I just wanna hold you close
Feel your heart so close to mine
And stay here in this moment
For all the rest of time

(Chorus)
Don’t wanna close my eyes
Don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
‘Cause I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing

(Chorus)
I don’t wanna close my eyes
I don’t wanna fall asleep
‘Cause I’d miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing
‘Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I’d still miss you, babe
And I don’t wanna miss a thing

(Chorus)
Don’t wanna close my eyes
Don’t wanna fall asleep, yeah
I don’t wanna miss a thing