English

I adore the English language. I am fluent in no others, so, let's face it, I am not equipped to argue its comparative values. I mean Italian seems delightful. French is fabulously twisty. Japanese is full of satisfying emphasis. I find Portuguese so friendly! And Lakota positively dances. But I don't really know them.

But I do know about English! And I adore it!

Not only is it practical for my purposes, and agonizing, and essential.

But it is my favorite toy in the whole world.

I used to draw pictures, but the hell with pictures I finally decided. There is no tool in the world that I love like English. I can do anything with it. And sure, I get sad sometimes that not very many people get very excited about what I can do with English, but more recently I have decided I don't care as much as I thought. I can twirl English through the stars and the grass. I can force laughter out of human bodies. I can paint all the trees in the world in a single sweeping stroke.

Think of them now. Three trillion trees. Cause that's exactly how many there are. All of them. Dancing in a light breeze. One singular forest of all the trees. Seven elephants shuffle ponderously through. A leaf falls. It hits a caterpillar on the head. He looks up. "Look at all these trees!" He thinks.

Oh I love English.

All the stories. All the terrible jokes. All that truth!

I love truth. Most of the time. Sometimes it is very, very difficult. Sometimes I don't like it at all!  But I love the English of it.

But there is one thing, one tiny thing about English I despise. And I'm sorry to be so picky, but I must speak. I must speak in my beloved English.

Read.

There is nothing I hate in English more than the word "read".

"Wait." You wonder. "Read like pronounced in the river plant "reed", like we are doing it in the present tense, or 'Read' like the color red, like we have already done it in the past tense?"

Absolutely, fucking, exactly.