From the Desk of Dr Toni Lodge #017

Hello - happy Thursday!

Believe me, I know the blog is a day late, but I thought I’d wait a moment and milk the news you hopefully saw this morning… If you haven’t seen it because you only care about real news, I WROTE A BOOK!!

I actually need that to sink in for a moment. I wrote a whole book. Like the entire fucking thing is all me. Every part of it has come from my brain and through my fingertips into this text. I honestly can’t believe it!

But all of the sappy stuff aside for a moment, it’s very exciting! I touched on this a little bit in today’s podcast, but I started brainstorming and coming up with a concept for this book this time last year! So for 12 months this book has been rattling around my brain, and every time something happened that sparked a memory I’d jot it down to retell it in the book. There are stories that didn’t make the cut, stories that I’ve remembered since and kicked myself that they didn’t even get a chance to be in there, and of course, stories that did make the cut that will now forever live in some form inside those pages.

The most special part of the book to me is the version of my Mum that has been saved inside the text, this person who now only exists in my memories will live on - and you will all get to experience her the way I did.

Though, of course, because it’s me, there is a fantastic balance of happy, sad and ridiculous to keep you busy for an afternoon or 5 weeks (if you want to read it at all, lol)

As a bit of an insight: There’s a part of the book where I offer TV shows or books or movies to check out for a laugh or cry or smile, and one of them included a (now removed) spoiler for a TV show. The TV show came out many years ago and as someone who loves the show, I didn’t find the spoiler to be too much. My editor, however, did not agree. They claimed that we can’t have a spoiler in a book when you can’t ‘warn’ someone a spoiler is coming. Fair enough! The TV show is about 10 years old now, so I figure anyone who wants to know what happens should fucking know by now - but I understood! As an avid TV enthusiast, I fucking get it. I hate it when TV is spoiled for me, so the spoiler was removed.

(TW) About two years ago, one of my best friends died tragically and suddenly in a car accident. She was in Perth, and it was at the beginning of COVID and I wasn’t able to be at her funeral.

It was heartbreaking and awful and such a horrible hard time, but I was able to watch her funeral over Zoom. My friend was a huge, massive, gigantic fan of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, and she passed away about a week before the grand final where they declare the winner.

The final aired, and I was just so depressed about everything that I saved the finale for a pick-me-up for after her funeral, I thought ‘one more drink with my bestie gal - I’ll make an Espresso Martini and watch the finale.’

Then during her funeral, her husband gave an incredibly moving speech, finishing with ‘..and I hope you’re really happy that (DRAG RACE WINNER) won the finale last night.’

I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t tell where my tears of grief ended and the tears of laughter at such a ridiculous spoiler began.

Have you had a TV show you loved spoiled? Was it somewhere you least expected it?! WAS IT AS GOOD AS MINE?!

Anyway - the book has been an amazing experience that I wouldn’t have had without the TARPers loving the pod sick and supporting us and me, so thankyou! I’m really, really, REALLY excited for you to read it. If you’re interested in taking a look (no pressure, but a shameless plug!) you can do so here.

Love you! And thankyou from the bottom of my butt.

Dr (Author) Toni Felicia Louise Lodge xoxox