La Dulce Vida - Da Soul Hip Blog Queen

Updating this journal is becoming increasingly difficult now that it is more of an effort to find a computer with Broadband connection than to think of something to write. So, maybe I should do like 50Cent and withdraw with my dignity in place...
Hopefully Dani, Malaika and I find a house soon with big enough a garden to keep a couple of cows, and then I can sort out an internet connection and give this diary the attention it deserves.

Meanwhile, I have now finished and handed in my dissertation, which means that the levels of self-destruction are back to normal, and it's time to refer to the list of priorities again:



I got a temporary job as a secretary at a hospital, which I'm very pleased about, because now I don't need to start queueing at the Job Centre and have Tracy Towerhouse as my nextdoor neighbour. Shrimp must be very proud of her Mummy, who's so good at sorting things out.
Another good thing about the job is the location - in the case that I was too late with my priority number 3, and don't get any ante-natal training. Although it is in the Social Work department... but that may become handy, too.

And that reminds me that I need to find Babyfather, because I've now lost contact with Cuz T as well. My last message was undelivered and Dani said I should probably just accept that I won't hear from him again.
Which meant I started my Detective Project this morning. I phoned the police, where a lady told me that he probably doesn't want to be in contact with me and that these things happen and that I should get used to it. I started crying, because these things happen as well, so she referred me to the Custody Department. Unlike you, the officer there was less interested in my life story than in Babyfather's personal details, and I was happy I had his real name (things you probably took for granted) and that I remembered his birthday because we're both Capricorns and the baby will be too. As it turned out, Babyfather has been taken into police custody in July.

A-HA!

*frantically looks around to find anyone that could be 'told-you-so'ed.*

And then there is the Data Information Act and all that rubbish, so the officer told me to contact prisons to find out if they're accommodating my 'boyfriend', which is why I'm here at the university probably for the last time this year (but not ever, if I get accepted to do my PhD); printing out contact information for all prisons in the Midlands, because I'm assuming he's not been sent to Guantanamo.

The descriptions on the prison websites make me laugh (which probably makes me a very nihilistic and bad person, who should be in prison herself):

"Type of Accommocation: Cells".

I do hope that Babyfather is taking full advantage of the special features that the prisons offer; in particular the accredited "Coping with Dyslexia" skills course.

Best Friend says I am very, very mean.

I had the first meeting with my supervisor yesterday. She thinks the proposal is good, but too ambitious for an MA. She asked if I’d consider doing a PhD.

I had thought the solution to my quarter life crisis was NOT a PhD, but now I’m wondering, whether I’m just fighting my destiny. Would I be a lot more coherent individual and would my life have more purpose to it, if I was an academic?

I asked her what she did when she first graduated.

She told me she went travelling and ended up in Pakistan, where inspired by what she saw, she wrote a book. It happened to be so good that it earned her a post in the Department of Sociology, and she’s been Dr Brown since.

I can’t say I felt hugely encouraged after that story. Rather, it made me feel ever more mortal. This is the conclusion I came to, when I contemplated on the meeting and my life choices on my way back home. The first graph is what I call the marriagability curve. It shows the correlation between high education and chances for a relationship. (I call it ‘marriage’, but I’m willing to be flexible with the concept.) Needless to say, this curve only concerns women.


As I haven't differentiated the data according to age, in reality 'No degrees' would perform a lot better, as this group is the most likely group to include a number of non-marriagable under 18-year-olds (or 14 if you're in Texas or Mexico or wherever). The table below describes the ‘single black man’ market:


We could sum it up by suggesting that there is some discrepancy between the supply and demand (and before you ask, yes it excludes Nigerian engineering students). LOL would be a lot better at this, as he excels in economics and statistics. Which takes me from Dr Brown to bobby brown ^[*].

Am I fighting my destiny, i.e. LOL, who in the end, and apart from Joshua (whose teeth I didn’t like), is still the most eligible candidate I have met for a relationship? (That doesn’t necessarily speak for LOL, when you know about the other candidates) Are rationality and healthy self-esteem getting between me and eternal happiness with the man I love? The biggest dilemmas in my life can be expressed in two acronyms:

P.H.D.
L.O.L.

And while waiting for a revelation, I’ve been watching Bobby Brown videos on You Tube.

Now wasn’t it enough that I was born in the wrong country, but that I was born in the wrong decade as well! If all the fundamental errors were made before my birth by whoever created me (because I'm now thinking it wasn't God), can I really be blamed for finding multiple (life) choice questions so difficult?

^[*]
Inspired by Whitney Houston’s ex husband, ‘Bobby Brown’ refers to any man that you cannot live without but you can’t really live with either. Look for similar concepts: ‘Ike Turner’.

I've got until tomorrow to re-write my dissertation proposal. My first idea, which was to look at the 2001 census data and draw some demographic conclusions about the mixed race category without any reference to identity or anything else too biographical, was received with some concerns at the dissertation meeting last week.

So my new topic – hold your breath – is Inter-racial Parenting, or in plain English, White Baby Mamas. I’ve done some reading now, and the topic has started to interest me more than it did when I first came up with it. Maybe I’ll do a comparative study between England and Finland, although that would mean I’d have to visit the latter in the next six months, but maybe I can survive it.
Some members of the public have voiced their doubts.
“What about the black fathers? Why don’t you do a research on them?”
Well, if you show me a way of finding a representative sample of black males with mixed race children, contacting them and getting them together for some qualitative interviewing to discuss parenting issues – I’ll be happy to research baby fathers, but if the above was possible, I doubt we would have the issue of mixed race children in single parent households in the first place. (I just remembered how for my undergraduate research I was going to interview a Cuban man, who just couldn't understand that this project really existed rather than being my clever plan to have sex with him. As result, there was a gender bias in my empirical work, since the university couldn't provide me with a member of the police and a social worker.)
“Are there many mixed race couples in Finland?”
“No. But there are quite a few white mothers with mixed race children.”
“I see.”

So, in six months time you should all be able to read about my revolutionary findings (it feels like Christmas, doesn’t it). Well, at least someone is excited. My former next door neighbour when I used to live in the eastern part of Helsinki known as Mogadishu, thinks it’s a brilliant idea. I’ve known Julia for over ten years now. We first came into contact when I started babysitting for her daughter. What followed was several dark evenings shared, with red wine, DVDs and high brow discussions about development issues (and men. The bastards!).

At the end of this month it is the birthday of her son, Mitu, who turns three. I remember his birth, because I wasn't around. I went to Finland in Easter 2004 hoping to see him, but he refused to be born until he had driven his mother so frustrated she probably would have thrown him up, if he hadn’t finally emerged the normal way. But that’s just the way Mitu is. When I got to meet him a year later, he stared at me suspiciously for about three months until deciding that I wasn’t a danger. In fact, he then took liking to me and even though I broke his trust one night when I was holding his fighting body so that his mother could insert a suppository into his butt, we’re still good friends.
Charmingly, Mitu thinks that 'Dulce' is a generic noun for a beautiful woman and according to his mother, whenever he sees a tanned model or actress in TV he points to the screen and says ‘Dul!’. I’m telling you, he is the only man who has ever mistaken Mona Lisa for me.

But then he also has a rather embarrassing habit of trying to get to play with my boobs, so that these days whenever I visit Julia, I wear a top that doesn’t have a zip. Dani says that the boob obsession that little boys have is just a comfort thing. I know a few big boys in need of a lot of comforting.

Anyway, my boy Mitu is turning three now. Julia is skiving her responsibilities (talk about inter-racial parenting!) and refuses to prepare party bags for 27 screaming kids. He is allowed to have an ‘auntie party’ instead. She must know that next time he’ll happily agree with having an ‘auntie party’ is when he turns 17, and then she won’t be invited.
“So which auntie do you want to invite?”
“Dul!”
Aaaah, I have rarely been a VIP in a party (club nights when you have to pay £20 extra to sit in a restrained area don’t count), so I’m very sad that I can’t attend the occasion. Although I’m not sure if I want to be considered as a Very Important Auntie ???
The way I remember it, aunties are old, they smell perfume, wear high heels, carry handbags, they don’t have children of their own, they just talk and talk about boring things but they let you do things that your mum would never let you do if you tell them that mum always lets you do it.

What have I become?!

"I was asking myself the same question!"...And here Mitu ‘Mrs Matilda’ shows why having a father figure around is important for a child's development.