Love Cancer

Today's divorce rate is around 1 in 2 couples, meaning at a married-couple dinner party, the couple next to you only has a 50% chance of staying together. Marriage is defined as:

1. the social institution under which a man and a woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.
2. the state, relationship or condition of being married.
3. a formal agreement between two companies or enterprises to combine operations, resources, for mutual benefit.

The three definitions are formal definitions given by www.dictionary.com. The first one is almost identical to number two, and they're probably the most "conventional" of definitions. However, number two chooses a very interesting word. Condition. That word completely inverts the entire meaning. It makes it agree with my theory that marriage has evolved into something much more complicated than "oh hey, we love each other, let's go get rings, promise to love each other in peace and in war, make the girl in the happy relationship's closest friends wear terribly hideous identical dresses (formally called bridesmaid dresses), and throw a big party where we get gifts for being happy together." 

Marriage has mutated into something people can use solely for their own benefit (look at Carrie and Big from Sex and the City. They got married so she can have rights on the new apartment. love?). Marriage has become a form of cancer. A cell starts feeding off one person's feelings for another. That person then spreads the cancer by asking them on a date. On that first date, the cancer sees if the other person will fight it off or succumb to it. If they succumb, the cancer invades. That stage is called love. The cells start reproducing and reproducing. Once they get to the point where they can't take over any more cells, the person with disease is faced with a remedy, a potential cure-all, a panacea if you will. This, is the wedding. Think of it as a surgery. But, there's a catch. There's only a 50% chance of survival. The 50% that survive, are the ones who had a lot of cancer. The others are the ones who reproduced too quickly, and didn't have enough love cancer to survive the surgery, assuming that the survivors had so much love cancer that the marriage surgery couldn't remove it all.

Secret Worlds

Have you ever had one of your favorite articles of clothing disappear and then you magically find it months later? It doesn't even have to be one of your favorite pieces of clothing, it can be legitimately anything. A sock that is simply just irreplaceable disappeared in winter of 2007. It's black and furry and has ducks on them. It couldn't have been any other sock, it had to be my black furry duck sock. It's not so much common. And I know nobody stole it because whoever comes to my house knows me quite well and knows that if they ever thought about even borrowing it, I would go ape-shit. Also- what can you do with one sock? With ducks on it? Other than make a sock monkey but I dread to think someone cut it and stuck a needle through it. A year ago or so a black cropped hooded sweatshirt went missing. Around three months later, it was found (to my surprise) in the laundry basket. It obviously doesn't take three months to wash a tiny black hoodie, which led me to this. 

I've thought very long about it, and came to the conclusion that the only reasonable explanation is the fact that there is a secret world in everybody's closet, drawers, purse, wallet, pockets, suitcase and laundry basket. Or there are clothes-hoarding fairies and gnomes. But I chose that the first one is much more reassuring because clothes-hoarding fairy gnomes never have to give you anything back. But with the secret world, there are rules for disappearance and surprise arrival/appearance. 

Some of these rules include:

• Clothes will always and only disappear when you need them most or want to lend them to a friend o when you want to donate them to Salvation Army. For example, I cleaned out my bin of sweatshirts and sweatpants and had a good 20 articles of clothing I wanted to donate. I put them aside in another bin, and the whole bin just went POOF. 
• Whatever went missing will never reappear when you're thinking about it or when you can wear it. The bin of sweats I wanted to donate appeared in June, clearly one of the few times needy people don't need heavy clothes. 
• Never try to find this world. Or you yourself will probably end up getting trapped in it and you won't reappear until people stop looking for you. And chances are, that won't be for awhile.

Cliches Becoming Cliche

With writing, I've always been told to avoid cliches, which is hard if you want your readers to connect with what you're talking about. Cliches have become the foundation of both writing and movies, whether you're avoiding them or using them. Even life has found its way to be cliche. For example, recently my dad was telling a story of how Tiger Woods hot some sort of knee injury, got surgery, and started playing in yet another huge and important tournament. From here, I could already guess the rest of the story. The competition was neck and neck, and everything came down to just one hole. ::Suspenseful music inserted here:: Of course, it was tied after that one hole. Then it went into triple overtime, obviously, filled with tight competition, close shots, and the crowd bathing in their suspense-induced sweat. Then, of course, Tiger wins, even after the doctor predicted his surgery would hold him back forever. Don't get me wrong, the story is interesting, however, it's getting old.

But living in this world aren't you bound to write at least one cliche? And with them so abundant, don't they contradict themselves? Everything has turned cliche. Including cliches themselves. They have officially taken over everything.