Monthly Blog - October 2024

Another busy month!

I’ve been so inspired to write! Not just by having all these ideas for my uni assignments, but I’ve been getting back into all my writing projects in general. The only thing I’ve not been writing are these blogs, but that’s okay. These are for writing when I’m not inspired, just to keep writing something. I still want to write these, though.

So at the start of the month, my mum and our friend visited Birmingham for the weekend. I met them at Moor Street Station, and when mum left the station the first thing she saw was the selfridges building, to which she exclaimed “What the fuck is that?” She’d also had an incident on the train where she’d dropped her tote bag in the quiet carriage and all her cans of gin spilled out. She then struggled to retrieve her train gin due to being doubled over laughing.

I got them to their hotel and let them settle in, then met Franc and his mums for dinner in Chinatown and drinks at the gay village. I think they had a good time. The food absolutely fucked.

On the Saturday we had a shop at the big Primark and lunch at the Shrek café. I had green waffles, which tasted pretty nice actually. Mum wouldn’t get her month-old granddaughter a Shrek onesie, the monster! Then we went to Digbeth and tracked down the giant Jamesons Whiskey mural I kept seeing from the train. It’s my mum’s favourite drink, so we got photos of her in front of it. The Irish pub with the mural was also selling “authentic Irish pizza”, whatever that is. We didn’t try it. Then we went to the Red Brick Market for a bit, but mum was kinda tired by then. 

The Sunday was spent at Franc’s bookshop, which Mum absolutely loved. She got a book for my nephew, but when she got home he only wanted to read it with his Grandad. 

Nearer the end of the month, I went back home for the first time. I managed to meet up with four generations of my family: parents, brother, niece & nephew, and grandparents. My niece was a little grumpy, as usual, and not that familiar with my parents’ house. Nephew, on the other hand, was really happy to see me and had missed me this past month. He even said I was his best friend! He also likes hanging out in my room, which Dad has been using as a storeroom for some of my brother’s old toys. Apparently, at some point, when Nephew and Dad were in my room, Dad mentioned one day this could be Nephew’s room. Nephew then stood up, looked around at everything in wonder, and breathed: “my stuff…” He wishes. I did decide to introduce him to my old Thomas the Tank Engine trains, which I still have in a box. He loves them even more than the shitty plastic ones he gets from his Thomas magazine. 

I got the bus to my grandparents’ on the Sunday, because I missed them and thought they’d like a bit of company. They're good fun. I found it particularly amusing when my Grandma went to answer the phone and my Grandad took the opportunity to get a word in and talk about his childhood.

When I got back to Birmingham, near the end of the month, the trans group I go to organised a Halloween party. It was a great opportunity for my yearly wearing of my cockroach costume. People seemed to like it. It’s such a ridiculous costume, I love it so much.

That night, some of my friends organised a film night at my place. Unfortunately, the projector wouldn’t project so we just sat around eating and drinking. Then the projector connected to some guy’s youtube account so we watched Dracula flow on that. Sorry, random guy.

What I read

Collected Poems – Derek Mahon

This was too many poems. I’d been meaning to read more Derek Mahon since studying “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford” in my undergrad. This was enough Derek Mahon for me. I remember enjoying the earlier poems in this collection the most, and having to sit with quite a few and think through the lines. However, this was a few months ago now and I’d be hard-pressed to recall any poems.

Compound Fracture – Andrew Joseph White

Spoilers ahead! I’m giving a warning for this since it’s pretty new.

I loved this! I mean, it was a bit YA in places, but that’s definitely a personal gripe that doesn’t really detract from the quality of the book, since it’s a YA. I’m just a little old. But I loved how hard it went, the places it went, and the characters. You really end up feeling for most of them. I’d have liked to have lingered on Noah’s reveal about his dad at the end. Again, spoilers, but I’d have liked to know more about his home life and his relationship with his dad. There was some interesting stuff hinted at there. The plot twist with Saint was like a hug when you’ve been crying, y’know? It was so healing.

I just… I don’t even know what to say about this. Compound Fracture was an explosion of a book and I couldn’t put it down.

I am Legend – Richard Matheson

The things it did well, it did really well. I was fascinated about anything to do with vampires and horror. I especially liked the lore behind the vampire disease and the protagonist slowly figuring everything out through research. The part with the dog was heartbreaking too. But it’s just ruined by being written by a guy in the 50s. The main character is constantly horny from looking at sexy female vampires, and he just guilts and torments over it so much. Dude, just jack off. There’s no humans left on the planet so who cares? Especially since he has to keep resisting the urge to (trigger warning!!) rape comatose vampire woman and/or commit necrophilia, the justification being that there's no one left to judge him. There’s a bit later on where he meets a woman and is glad he didn’t meet her earlier otherwise he’d have raped her. Honestly, if I wasn’t nearly finished with the book I’d have stopped reading there. I didn’t mind the ending in concept and thought it was very thematic and fitting, but the pacing was fumbled ever so slightly. Or maybe I just rushed through the end to be done with it...

There are more Beautiful Things than Beyonce – Morgan Parker

A very explosive piece that looks at race, gender and all sorts through the lens of pop culture. I laughed, I teared up, I devoured this collection in an hour and emerged for air changed.

If all the World and Love were Young – Stephen Sexton

This poetry collection explores Sexton’s childhood and the death of his mother from cancer, and it does so through the lens of Super Mario. Each poem is named after a level. I’ve never actually played Super Mario, so I didn’t get all the references, but I liked the references to his life amongst the video game talk. It was a collection that built up this knot of tension in me, reading and waiting for the inevitable.

This was a collection I read for uni, and has inspired me to use video games as a base for a poem exploring various themes. I picked Minecraft and loneliness, adulthood and new beginnings.