So, you bought me. How could you not? Supple, calf-skin cover. Hand-stitched lay-flat binding. On the front, stamped in a tasteful gold: Le Cahier. That’s French for notebook, by the way. I’m probably one of the most exquisite writing repositories you’ve ever had your hands on. Just holding me sparks a certain je ne sais quoi, unleashes your desire to change every aspect of your personhood, and floods you with delusions of boundless créativité.

But let me be clear: your hesitation to place a single mark on any of my acid-free, silk-finish pages is one hundred percent correct.

What, exactly, did you have in mind for me anyway? Daily gratitude? Deep thoughts? Ideas for novels? Pff. Let’s have a look at a few of the ideas you wrote in last year’s Moleskine, shall we?

  • Post-apocalyptic all-girl wizard gang
  • Fictionalized version of my semester abroad in Paris
  • What if there were no airplanes?

Tu me fais mourir de rire! I mean, I am dying of laughter.

You know full well that purchasing a “carnet de notes” with three satin ribbon bookmarks does not make you Annie Ernaux.

But let’s say you do go ahead and open my cover. You break in my spine with a tender, freshly washed hand and smooth down the first page with absolute—and appropriate—reverence. You genuflect, reach your arms to the heavens, and beseech the muses to smile upon you. And with a final, grounding breath, you pick up the Montblanc Heritage Special Edition Fountain Pen you purchased the day you started your first real job and craft an opening line on my 120 gsm eggshell paper in your finest cursive:

“Dear Dairy.”

Imbécile.

Okay, fine. You move on. You grab your Exacto knife and extract the page from the book in a sad attempt to recover from your bumbling ineptitude vis-à-vis notebook ownership. Ignoring the fact that I am now, contrary to my catalogue description, a 229-page journal, you start “fresh.”

And what do you suppose happens next?

Your morning pages quickly turn to biweekly drivel, and your attempt at calligraphy descends into indecipherable cacography. You litter my margins with strings of characters that could either be outdated shipping reference numbers or important passwords. Your poetry—a stunning combination of juvenile and tired—is interspersed with fragments of notes from your doctor about how to prepare for your upcoming lipid panel.

On and on you go with your pure nonsense. Phone doodles. Scrabble scores. The section you labeled “Shadow Work” but populated with experiments in livening up your signature.

Pourquoi? Pour qui? Who do you think you are?

And your lists! Remember your Leuchtturm? What, pray tell, did you wish to convey with “Span Pob, Lanyard, Main Line?”

No need to answer, madame, this is a rhetorical question. I could not care less about the meaning of your various jottings. Mon dieu!

My sumptuous dotted pages are ghostless. My inner pocket—ample and gusseted. My aforementioned cover is a limited run seasonal shade suggesting the Mediterranean Sea as viewed from a first class seat on a flight to Saint-Tropez. I am the haute couture of personal record-keeping stationary, and nothing you write will ever be worthy of me.

We both know this.

Just as we both know, mon cheri, that, for you, my best use is as an objet d’art, displayed on the Pottery Barn shelf you were lucky enough to find on Facebook Marketplace. Of course, if you feel you must express yourself, you will still need somewhere to scribblescrawl your little thoughts with what will not be the Monteblanc, but an often-clogged swag pen.

But that somewhere isn’t moi.

Perhaps I might suggest something a little more… how shall I say… banale?

Like a wide-ruled Mead.