The book

I met the Devil at the park today,
He had the greatest bicycle.
He didn't have much to say
And he melted my popsicle.
¯¯¯¯

I wrote a novel. I often call it a book, just because I had it made into a book by a guy who makes books. It remains to this day the object I've been the most impressed by and attached to. I remember one day, in kindergarten (am I the only one to pronounce this word the german way? I just love it. Kindergarten), we took sheets of paper and a sheet of cardboard, folded them and stapled them together. Later, I went home, and I drew pictures and dictated a story to my father so he could write it down. I was proud. I had made a book, and I knew I wanted to make books. Nowadays, my vision of making books isn't so much making them. I prefer to write them, seeing how words have always easily come by. French, which is a very hard language to master, has always been easy to me. As was english. Now, I can't picture myself finding any peace in any other thing than writing. People are messed up. Work is boring. Having to figure out what to do with my life is stressful. Writing is always the same. Relatively easy. Always soothing.

Aren't books the greatest objects in the world? Not only do they fill a bookshelf nicely, but they also have contents. They have purposes. They have meanings. You can place your entire life in a book. In a large enough room, you can store all the knowledge in the world. On a simple shelf, you can experiences of a range of emotions that most people won't ever experience, because of their narrow-mindedness. Books are tools as well as works of art.

My book was awesome. I carried it with me for a week before giving it away. I had to show it to every aquaintance I met. To every rare friend. To former teachers, even. Even to people I genuinely despise. That book was my holy grail. It was imperfect. I wrote it, revised it and printed it so fast that I left millions of errors in it, errors that I later corrected and now am ashamed of. It was imperfect, but I guess I couldn't love something perfect. How could I believe in something perfect? It's illogical. Perfection is illogical, irrational. And I'm logical and rational. Therefore, in a way, I wanted...no, I needed my book to be imperfect in order to achieve the near-perfection, to get the almost perfect reaction. I still debate with myself whether it was a good thing to give the book away. But I had to. In return, I received a double-hug. You know, that hug when someone is supposed to let go, starts to let go, then hug even tighter for 2 or 3 seconds. My favorite memory, my near-perfect memory. That near-perfect moment. That near-perfect reaction. All of that, because of an imperfect book, which still remains my greatest accomplishment, the greatest object I've ever held. My holy grail.

I've started to write the sequel, and when I'll be done, I'll print it again, revised and ready, and I'll take it to the little old guy who turned the original novel into the greatest book ever made, and I'll make this one into my book. This one won't be hers. Not this time. It will be mine, hoping it will mean as much to me as the first one did. Hoping its near-perfection won't annoy the hell out of me.

You have no idea how much books mean to me.