Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Oooooh! Brad and Angelina are back in love. Aaaaaaah! The Kardashians are trading happiness for fame. Eeeeeeeeeh! Kelly looks amazing! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Tabloids are my porn. I read my People tucked inside a New Yorker, and if someone finds an In Touch in my room, I get all defensive: “Oh, um, that’s not mine. My friend must have left it here.”

You see, I was an English major and now I'm an English teacher, so I've got a rep to protect- that I read about Elizabeth Bennet, not Elizabeth Hurley.

But, celebrity gossip is this weird addiction that I wish I could stop. It’s not because I feel like I should be keeping up with things more important than the Kardashians; it’s because now when I watch a movie or I listen to a song, I can’t separate it from the artist. I can’t just rock out in my car to "Toxic;" I find myself worrying about Britney’s mental stability. While watching He’s Just Not That Into You, I can’t separate Jennifer Aniston’s character’s plight to find a husband from Jennifer’s own plight. And, ever since Oprah, Tom Cruise is 100% ruined for me.

Oh, why Tom Cruise did you have to turn out so creepy? Why can’t it just be the way it was back in the 80’s when you were quietly hot and rugged:

But, I guess celebrities are people; we just make them out to be more than they really are.

We also do that with the word nowadays; we make more out of it than it actually is.

People are writing nowadays as three words, like this: now a days, but it’s really just one word.

But, before you simply correct yourself and write nowadays as one word, hear me out. I feel the same way about the word nowadays as I feel about John Mayer.

First of all, I am totally sick of reading about him in the tabloids. And not only has his recent Playboy interview confirmed him as a narcissistic dumbass, but was "Waiting for the World to Change" really even that great of a song? Honestly, I'd be fine without him or his music.
Similarly, I could do without nowadays.

First of all, it makes our writing sound a little folksy.

And second of all, it’s unnecessary. For example, let’s take away the nowadays away from this sentence:

Nowadays, John Mayer seems to love the sound of his own voice.

It leaves us with this:

John Mayer seems to love the sound of his own voice.

And since the sentence is in the present tense, we know that we are talking about nowadays, so we can just eliminate it, right?

And, speaking of eliminating things we don’t need: would you like to add anything to the list?