ORGANIC MANIC

Does spending an extra 60 cents on every head of organic lettuce ease your mind? Or $8 for organic oranges? Oh, peas! This organic shift is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

People who spray pesticides on farms seem to be coming down with irritating illnesses, like rashes, repertory infections, oh- and cancer. Terrible! No wonder the organic label helps squash fears of pesticide poisoning, unhealthy hormones and creepy carcinogens. And have you heard that hormones injected in non-organic meat is causing girls to sprout prematurely? Girls are going into menopause at 13 because of this stuff, right?

Before Whole Foods propaganda throws you into an organic panic, read this:

A report from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (along with several others) discovered that there is no evidence of organic food being more nutritious. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether the amounts of pesticides in conventionally grown fruit and vegetables are high enough to be a health hazard. Nail in the coffin- It’s not very good for your beloved environment, either!

THE BEET 4 BEET RUNDOWN

Time to rethink those “conventional” carrots. They may not be as evil as your overpriced organic food market wants you to believe.

Organic food costs 10% - 40% more than conventionally grown food. Reduced use of preservatives means the food goes gross at record rates. There are no proven health benefits, and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaugh states that in order for organic farming to feed the world’s population, cropland would have to be expanded dramatically and ecosystems would be destroyed in the process.

Okay, so what does this mean??

Should I spend my hard earned cash on organic grass in the off chance that it might prevent health problems? My verdict is this: When I can afford to splurge on food that doesn’t cause cancer, hormone imbalances, and growth defects, I’ll consider it. In the meantime, I’ll Trade my Joes in for a Reasonable Ralph’s. I’ll settle for half price at Whole Foods. And I’ll take produce pesticide prevention into my own hands by scrubbing my plumbs ‘til they bleed.

If my baby can't do this by the time s/he's 4 months old, it's going up for adoption.

THE HULU HOOP

With so many new shows, how can you decide what to watch? Mad Men or Brothers & Sisters? Modern Family or Glee? Some cozy old favorites will have to take a back seat to the shiny new shows.

WHAT SHOWS ARE YOU WATCHING LIVE, AND WHICH ONES ARE DOWNGRADED TO HULU/DVR?

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

I survived my first week of what may become a grueling new job. Woo! The boss was out of the office for most of the week, leaving me with a lot of work to do, but a lot of freedom to make mistakes without feeling too stoooopid. Even a resident mouse took advantage of his absence and did a quick lap around the office. I just have to get used to work phone calls coming in at 6:30 am, texts in the middle of the night. No big deal, right? Just ask the bags under my eyes.

Hollywood would reject my resume had I gone to Chattahoochee Valley Community College, but I'm convinced I'd be able to do my job just as well with their education. If I could adjust my grad school curriculum to more accurately reflect the job skills needed for the positions we realistically get, I would add important classes in:

Conference Calls

Call Rolling

Dish Washing

Scheduling

Email Forwarding

Sounds like a trade school infomercial!

WHY DO WE SPEND SO MUCH ON EDUCATION WHEN WE CAN LEARN HOW TO DO COFFEE RUNS IN HIGH SCHOOL?

I have to put all of this in perspective. There is a silver lining here. Yea though, I didn't expect my master's degree to set me back as far as it has, I currently have a pretty cool job. After a week, I've met some wonderful new people, learned a thing or two, and I even got a paycheck for my day of training! I really can't complain. I'll simply confess, as a child I looked down on housewives, thinking they were lazy people who chose not to explore their

full potential. Now I look at them and say, "lucky bi-otch!"

FIRST DAY JITTERS

Starting a new job is like the first day of school. Remember those early fall nightmares that accompanied the first day? Every year of grade school began with a nightmare that I got majorly lost in a huge public school maze, missed all my classes, then got severely punished for being a scrawny idiot in stupid clothes.

Like Celine Dion, “it’s all coming back to me now.”

I have major first day jitters. Is my alarm clock going to be

THE CLOCK

SCRAMBLED EGGS

Last week, after a very interesting interview for this job, I returned home to find a very mature woman giving birth on The Learning Channel. Statistics kept popping up about all the risks associated with having babies late in life. Watching a poor, age-spotted, grey haired woman giving birth with informative blips about the likelihood of birth defects really rattled me. Here I am, fighting tooth-and-nail for jobs I’m scared of, when maybe I should redirect this attention to finding domestic stability. Suddenly, the window is closing. The clock is ticking. The heat is on.

At this rate, I’ll have crusty geriatric eggs by the time I’m married. Incessant lap top use is probably frying my ovaries. I don’t want to give birth to a Benjamin Button!

SHOULD CAREER TAKE A BACK SEAT TO FAMILY?

CONSOLATION BABY

It’s very possible that I‘ll wet my pants at work. Maybe I’ll be promoted. Maybe I’ll be fired. I’ll definitely get humiliated a few times along the way. But at least I now have a consolation prize. When/if this job falls through, I am going to buy myself a ring if I have to, and convince a strapping young man to give me the babies I’m almost too old to have.

Until then, I’ve got to figure out how to dress for this job.

WHAT WOULD YOU WEAR ON YOUR FIRST DAY OF A NEW JOB?

BRIGHT LIGHTS, WIG CITY

Comedian Chris Rock is outing black women everywhere! Why Chris, why?

Women put more money into decorating their heads than they do into decorating their homes. 50% of Americans over age 25 dye their hair. Hair is a multi BILLION dollar industry. Imagine if we put this type of money and effort into freeing Tibet or saving Darfur!

No, never mind. That wouldn't be fun.

MEN LIKE BOOBS, NOT BOBS

Chris Rock argues that men don't care about women's hair. I disagree. Men may not sit around and talk about the amount of bounce in a girl's curls, but they notice these things. I can run errands with my hair in a pony tail and it's like I'm invisible. Go out later in the exact same outfit with a well-done 'do, and the male reaction is completely different. 'Splain that, Mr. Rock! Just 'cause it's more fun to talk about rear buns than hair buns, doesn't mean guys don't notice.

CHARM & CHOP

I know you city girls are familiar with the ol' bait and switch! You clip, cut, curl and dye. You straighten and lengthen, perm and press. Then once you find a guy and seal the deal, you chop off all your stressful strands. New wives seem to think of it as a liberating right of passage. For men, it's a sign that the honeymoon is officially over.

Hate to tell you this, but guys are on to us! Before long guys are going to start writing 'no chop' clauses into prenups. No worries, though. A woman can be totally bald one day and she can sport red ringlets the next.

Extensions and wigs and weaves, oh, my!

ARE YOU GOING TO SEE CHRIS ROCK'S NEW DOC, GOOD HAIR?

GOT A GIG

After months of unemployment, I finally got a job! Though I'm very excited about the position, I hear my predecessors didn't fair too well. They came and went very quickly. I guess that means I should enjoy this little victory while it lasts! Champagne, anyone?!

WORSE THAN WHITAKER

I was making light of things yesterday, but my condition turned south really quickly. Think Whoopi in Color Purple. Maybe a little worse. My eye is swollen shut, and it looks like I'll have to make my first uninsured Dr. appointment. Where do you go without insurance? How do you pay? I'm new at this! It's like losing your virginity or stepping to the dark side. I'll even have the accompanying regret and confusion common in such situations.

KEEPING AN EYE OUT

I know health care reform is one of those dead issues that no one cares about anymore. Especially for those who have insurance. That’s cool. It’s just that the $69 I’m getting from Unemployment won’t cover a viable insurance plan.

Imagine my delight when I woke up this morning with a swollen eye. I self medicated with some Target brand eye drops and an ice cube.

Well, now I look like Forest Whitaker! The thing’s nearly swollen shut. It is NOT SEXY.

I don’t know what, exactly Obama’s 1,000-page health care plan includes, but it’s gotta be better than the coverage I’m currently not getting. If having an eyeball in jeopardy isn’t bad enough, I can’t imagine what would happen with a more serious problem.

IS A FEAR OF CHANGE CAUSING US TO LOSE SIGHT OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

In researching my cat’s respiratory illness, I learned that penicillin for fish can be purchased over-the-counter at the pet store. Fish! FISH get better health care than me! Well, I for one, won’t stand for it! I’m going to march into that PetCo, demand Fishicillin, and swim out of there in a bubble of dignity.

IF YOU SEE A ONE EYED CHICK WITH GILLS, PLEASE DON’T LAUGH AT ME. IT HURTS.

CAN'T LICK FOOD STAMPS

Simply getting called in for interviews is progress.

I felt pretty good last week as I made my way downtown for a 7PM interview at a non-profit. As I pulled up to the LA tenement, though, my heart started to sink. Months of unemployment and desperation finally pushed me through the doors of what seemed to be a deserted crack den. Post-It notes guided me through the eerily vacant, dimly lit hallways to a creepy cove of closed doors. Though another Post-It note instructed me to read while I waited, I got the chilling suspicion that I’d been lured to this place by a plot only Law & Order: SVU could cook up.

I contemplated running for my life. Yet, while there was a good chance I’d be decapitated if I stayed for the ‘interview,’ the threat of having my cat eat my emaciated carcass wasn’t a promising alternative. I really needed this job.

Finally, a cheerful lady guided me into her office for what I thought was a great interview. Sure, I was lacking a few prerequisites: I’ve never taught at an inner city school; Don’t have experience creating curriculums; Never had to restrain troubled youth while simultaneously delivering a teenager’s baby. But I know how to do everything else they asked for, and I gave some phenomenal answers. I left the woman’s office feeling pretty confident!

That all changed when I got in the rickety old elevator, the doors closed and all the lights went out. Perhaps SCREAMING profanity in terror is what cost me the job? I'll never know for sure. I'm just lucky I escaped that haunted halfway house in one piece.

At least I found out I’m eligible for a whopping $69/week through unemployment. Ow, ow! Hollywood, here I come!

THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN

A recent poll conducted by researchers at City Girl Survival Guide indicates that 44% of you are totally indecisive when it comes to the name change topic. 27% are pro name change, 4% against, and 1% for hyphenation.

Further research revealed that none of you care whether or not your man splits the cost of birth control. Thank you for voting. I’m glad we examined the matter.