Mr Darby and the Child of Destiny

In two days time I head back to Exeter. Since handing in the dissertation, I’ve being doing anything I can that isn’t drama related. Unfortunately, such a notion isn’t really that possible. When you study a subject in detail, you’re let behind the curtain, so that its very presence permeates into reality. Potential PhD topics drift past me all the time, and you can’t ignore them, because one of them will be what I will devote three years of my life to.

However, distracted I have been, spending most of the time with Chivers and Cumella. It’s quite nice being back with the Worcester gang; something that hasn’t occurred since we were at college. Cumella spent a year in Canada after his degree in Leeds, I’ve been in Exeter and Chivers graduated from Bournmouth. Fainer is currently in Australia, so I wont see him till November and Harty is back in Worcester working (yes one of us has a proper job). However, the main purpose of this entry is to mention an individual who has had a remarkable affect on my life. A man named Chivers.

Many people don’t believe that exists, but trust me he does.

Remarkable things have happened to him, and fortunately I myself have been witness to them. Others I hear from him and others, and I can only imagine what he gets up to. I wont list all his triumphs here, because it would take too long, and I forget a few of them, however recent highlights include getting his hair caught in a lathe drill and scalping himself and nearly having his head caved in my his 10 month old nephew. However, Chivers is currently job hunting, so I thought I’d help. Having spent the day helping him on his portfolio, we embarked upon a road trip to an interview with me navigating.

Now it is worth noting that Chivers hasn’t got a good track record with interviews. For one interview he turned up a week early to the surprise of his potential employers who were not prepared at all. For another he simply misheard a question, believing it to be “What sound does a car make?” rather than “What makes the sound in a car?” He of course answered, “Brum Brum?”. He didn’t get the job.

After 20 minutes I was surprised to see Chivers had finished his interview, so we nipped off to visit the grand-parents. Now an odd coincidence is that my Nan lives just round the corner from Chiver’s, right in the north of Birmingham. So we managed to visit both of them. We then had lunch at the Pie Factory, which was fantastic as usual.

Today, an important event occurred. I met the new Chivers, the prodigal son aka the child of destiny. Well his nephew and god son to be precise. I have never met such an expressive baby, transfixed by Cumella and my scarf, it was an absolute joy to hang out with him, and was truly one of the highlights of the entire summer.

Had a night out with Team Red which was great, and went round to Zozo’s last week and watched the Summer School dvd with Mani and Bobbi. I still don’t know yet whether I will don the red activities shirt again. Maybe if I have a good team again.

Back to my own family now, and as usual my brother isn’t home. However, he’s not round his girlfriends but at university. Yes my little brother has started university. A few days before he moved in properly I got up at 5 in the morning and drove him down to Plymouth. He was asleep in the car leaving me with Mr Moyles for a few hours. Because the campus is in the city the police closed some of the roads temporarily so new students could park. This left us a window of two hours to unpack. Now me and my brother are very different, we get along but we are very different. I try and be optimistic, and he’s a miserable bastard. He’s not that bad really, he just moans a lot. However the moving in went pretty smooth and he sounds like he’s having an ok time.

My sister is back in Edinburgh in her new house with her big room, I ought to ring her. My cousin has started high-school and is settling in fine, and I am here, prepping for the PhD. I spent this morning organising finances and trying to find tutoring jobs, I got sent a load of stuff for teaching which has awakened my nostalgia for my undergraduate studies, so hopefully that will last me 3 years. I still don’t know what I want to do for the PhD, to tell you the truth there have been times over the last few weeks, when I’ve thought about not doing it. It’s not the challenge of 3 years, because that will go by in a blink of an eye, but my subject matter. Performative Walking? What the hell does that mean?

That question will be my starting point.

Unbottling.

The dissertation is in. The MA is finished. Now I all I need to know is whether I will get the thumbs up or the thumbs down.

I'm currently living back up North now. At the moment, my brother is about to leave for his holiday, and it's all a bit frantic. Yesterday, Holly and I took him to Merry Hill, a shopping centre near Birmingham that we visited as children. As children we nicknamed it 'Merry Hell' due to the fact that each tier is akin to that of those in Dante's Inferno. Holly and I didn't need anything in particular, but we exercised our duties as older siblings to help our little brother. Before the journey itself began, both Holly and I had visited the dentist. Mine was just an annual checkup, but Holly had a filling which left one side of her face completely numb, so that when she spoke it looked like she was trying to be some sort of ventriloquist. Sat in the car I tried to extract myself from my hoody, and my sister sensing my difficulty decided to help pull the hoody off me; what resulted was that my arm bent in a way it was not supposed to, causing my entire shoulder to lock and trap a sizeable amount of nerves.

My brother has gone now. Complete silence. Ten days in Turkey. He'll be fine. If they get to the airport on time.

These last few weeks have been pretty surreal for me. Frantically writing, reading, re-writing and now nothing. The year has flown by quicker than I thought. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm currently sorting things for next year with the PhD. I still need to arrange an appointment with my supervisor. I'm teaching as well next year, which both excites and terrifies me. I'm not too fussed about being placed in front of a group of people and discussing things, its just that for a drama student, there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Some subjects I am a bit rusty on, but others I don't know anything about at all. Oh well, I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

I still need to find a job for next year, I have this wonderfully romantic notion that I will be able to tutor and such, but if that falls through I'll need something, in order to eat. And I need to eat, these past few weeks have caused me to lose weight, which is something I can't afford to do.

My house though is sorted. I'm living with 4 PhD students of various fields and backgrounds who seem like a pleasant bunch. I am yet to sign a contract, but that is due to the fact that we've only just found a 5th housemate.

Next week, it'll be a year since grandad left. I'm not usually accustommed to talking about these things on a blog, and also our family bottles everything up, but I was asked once what my favorite memories of him were, and as soon as I said them, I instantaneously felt better, like a great weight was lifted. Some things can be bottled up, but not emotions. For a person who has spent nearly 10 years on and off the stage, I'm still pretty awful when it comes to this.

Grandad.

I remember, that he was the only person I've met who could do the 'double-take' in real life. When greeting me, he'd always emphatically shake my hand, smiling 'Hiya KJ!'. He could turn a room full of strangers into his best friends with a smile and a wink. Even till his lasting days, he had an energy that was felt by all he met. He had a cheeky face that could get him away with murder, a mouth that released a musical laughter that became infectious to all who heard it. He'd play the piano with my sister, like some figure in England's music hall tradition of the past. He had a collection of cuddly toys that would sing songs. He'd sign all our birthday cards with W/R (Wolverhampton Road, the school in which he was educated and was very proud of this fact). When he visited me in Wales with Nan, they'd always stop off and visit the red kite centre. He loved it because he was seeing birds that were never seen in the city, the air was better for him and made him younger. One of the last things we did together was go for a walk in the fields behind my house. I can't remember what we spoke about, but I remember having to point out rabbit burrows and such for him to walk around. Mum had to pick us up because he couldn't walk back. I've only just remembered this walk, I don't know why I hadn't before. The last place he visited was Aberystwyth, a place that was important to both of us.

There is another reason why Grandad has weighed on my conscience. A few weeks before the submission date of the dissertation, Exeter University's Drama Department lost one of it's staff. My teacher who I did not know well, having only known her not even a year, but I looked forward to working with her for the next 3 years at Exeter. It is because of her that I saw Bertolt Brecht in a new light, as well as painting and performance. The most important piece of information she imparted on me was that no reading is pointless, every book you read will have a use at some point.

Danke Birgit.

Holly and I are going to see Nan next week, to see how her garden is doing.