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.

Shrimp really isn't a very troublesome lodger. Doesn't cause me any feelings of sickness, actual sickness, cravings, heartburn, bleeding gums or anything else that I've read about in the dozen or so booklets I've collected from the hospital, Boots and Dani's bookshelf.

We are a fairly functional team, really. Don't think I'll be running the marathon this year, though, but jogging around leafy Edgbaston is fine, although I look and feel like I have a beer belly.

Except that there's one little inconvenience and it involves frequent trips to the nearest wash room. I don't know what Shrimp is drinking, but it's testing the endurance of my bladder. It usually gets worse when I'm out, somewhere very far from any public toilets. When I'm running - that's when the fun begins. The first 20 minutes are fine, but the last 20 minutes become 10 minutes as I'm racing back home, as I’m not entirely comfortable about making number twos in a bush, even in leafy Edgbaston.

So yesterday, when I was running up the hill spending more energy trying to keep our dinner inside me than actually progressing anywhere, a slim young woman passed me running, looking so light she was ready to take off any minute, I started singing:


I used to be like you
Now I need to poo
Whenever I run
You think it's fun
It's such a shame
Shrimp is to blame


Do not worry. I'm fairly confident that my research skills are better than my lyrical talent.


PS. I made it.
PPS. On time.
PPPS. What a relief!

I couldn't possibly be any more unproductive today, which is the main motive behind this miserable blog post.

Today I lost 'it'. That last piece of my ripped and torn sanity, the edges of which I was clinging to is now lost possibly for ever. If you see it wandering around by itself, please let me know. (Also, if you see a fairly short man, who's light-skinned / mixed-race, in his mid twenties; left-handed and a Capricorn, drives a potentially stolen, definitely uninsured, Vauxhall and looks like is missing a Baby mother - please contact the author.)

I lost my keys last week, but there's nothing new there and besides Dani found them underneath the kitchen table.

I lost my optimism when I checked my bank balance, which I don't do very often for this very reason: I'm so depressed. I'm going to have to live on what I heard Dani's friend spent ten-fold at Mailbox last Saturday. Until the end of September, that is. And beyond.

I would get a job now (one that actually pays, rather than helps the community, for a change); but I'm determined to get my stupid dissertation done so that Shrimp doesn't have to spend the next twenty-five or so years hearing how I almost got an academic literary award for my research, but then morning sickness got on the way and...

But that would not happen, because I LOST MY BLOODY MEMORY STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course I took a back-up copy - about three weeks ago!

And that's when I became a very bad mother (see, it is possible to become a bad mother, before one becomes a mother). Until today, I haven't had a drop of alcohol (since I found out about Shrimp, not since I turned 18), I've exercised, I've been splashing expensive anti-stretch mark oil on my belly, I've got my five a day, my folic acid, stayed away from fizzy drinks, mayonnaise, sea food, caffeine, reflexologies, martial arts, cats (hate them anyway), insect repellent, soft cheese, goat milk, peanuts, and shot anyone who's lit a cigarette within a square mile, but today, today - I bought a can of sugar free Red Bull!

So there you go. A mother who never quite graduated and her hyper active child. The other option was to jump down from a Tower House. It's so hard to decide, sometimes.

Dani, Malaika and I form a dormant household together, where our existence (punctuated by eating, sleeping and bath times) is rather biological. I am working hard on my literature review most of the time. 'Quiet' is too loud a word to describe life at the moment, but this is a nice change from the stressful pre-holiday weeks.

Of course they were not as peaceful as I then claimed, but I have promised myself that Shrimp (the one inside me) will never find out that the days when I found out about him/her didn't happen to be the most jovial time of my adult life, and that she/he can thank the weakness of my character for continuing his/her unfortunate life. Shrimp deserves his/her privacy - although I reserve the right to post his / her nude pictures here, at least as long as he/she inhabits my inner organs. In other words, no evidence (apart from Shrimp him/herself) will be given of the early weeks of June 2007.

Thanks for everyone wishing me good luck - I think this must be one of the few situations in life when people congratulate you for fucking up big time.

Now I need to find out about my council house options - I have never been this close to my wish to live in a tower being granted! Obviously it's great that I will have finished my Master's degree by January, but I can't help lamenting over the fact that my economic capital is as non-existent as my cultural capital is abundant.

All the latter is good for is making me bitter when someone called Tracy puffs a cigarette in front my (and her!) kid (kids!) but I can't even make a spiteful comment because I'm too busy observing the used needle on the floor and because I'm scared of pikeys, anyway. (This is my blog. I can write what I want.)