We're All Gonna Make It

About ten days after our dog, Vinny died, I got a text from the podcast producers I was working with telling me they wanted to schedule a check-in call. But as I type this, I feel like I must have texted them first saying I was ready for the check-in call. (One I had certainly missed.) They knew about Vinny, they’d seen him on my lap during several calls we’d had previously in the year, and they were being super sensitive and kind about everything.

For legal reasons, I can’t say which production company it was that I was shooting a podcast pilot with, tentatively called We’re All Gonna Make It. But I can tell you that it was (is) a really really cool female driven company and any time I got the chance to talk to the people that had been appointed to work with me, or record some trial stuff, I loved every second of it. It reminded me of brainstorming sketch ideas with my Second City friends back in my Chicago days— a feeling I didn’t know I missed until I got a little taste of it again.

A Zoom invite was sent and for once in my life, I checked out the details of the call a day or two before it actually began and I noticed only one person was scheduled to be on with me, rather than a handful of people like every other time before. Naturally, my anxiety knew this couldn’t be good. But, there was nothing I could do about it but wait for the call. Ha ha jk. Like the crazy strung out asshole I am, I immediately texted my podcast contact, we’ll call her Anna, “Am I being fired? Or not hired? Bc I am super anxious right now with everything going on and I’m just not sure I can handle waiting two more days to know why it’s only you and I scheduled for the call.”

(I basically said something along those needy lines, more or less.)

Luckily, Anna texted back right away, God bless her, and asked if I wanted to speak sooner.

“Yes.” I responded the moment her words hit my screen. “Yes, I do.”

Long story short, my anxiety was right. AREN’T I ALWAYS, it growled, in a low, all knowing growl (the worst kind of growl, in my opinion.) See, this is why you must always listen to me and we must never leave the house, my precious girl, it whispered as it stroked my hair methodically, comforting me of course. (Yes, I’m still talking about my anxiety.)

So anyway, I wasn’t actually being fired (because I was only contracted to shoot a pilot) but I wasn’t being hired, either. What I had shot for/with them, simply didn’t hit.

“It just didn’t work, huh?” I said, very much agreeing with Anna. “I felt this way too, but I’m just not sure why.”

Truth be told, (the only way I always be telling it) since I’d watched the pilot of my proposed-podcast, I’d felt very unsettled about it, as well. Something was off about it. I’d had great co-hosts, fun prompts and topics, but something was missing and I could feel it. I just wasn’t sure what that was exactly. However as a listener, I was pretty sure there was nothing about it that would entice me to come back and listen again. Anxiety and dread were already setting in when I thought about filming more episodes. Little “setbacks” that I could normally hurdle over for projects I was truly excited about, nearly buried me in worry. Would I film episodes whilst on my book tour? (Simple answer: yes, people did it all the time.) But the questions in my head shouted back: HOW? WHERE? WHEN? HOW? IMPOSSIBLE! NO WAY! TOO MUCH.

In short, I was like totally happy the super cool podcast production company didn’t want me because I didn’t want them. OK? (I’m kidding, I was bummed. So bummed.) I knew my episodes weren’t great, but I also knew that was because of me, not them.

“That’s showbiz, baby,” I said to Anna, as we were about to hang up, “I knew the terms of all this and I didn’t make the cut. My number wasn’t called.”

I continued to make cliched Hollywood jokes, or what I assumed were cliched Hollywood jokes as someone who has never lived in or near Hollywood, before I offered her one more podcast idea… “what if …. what if it’s like a podcast where we talk to pet mediums? Because I’m about to call one to see if I can reach my dead dogs and maybe that could be fun? What do you think?”

I don’t remember what Anna responded exactly, but I know it was nice and probably included a sympathetic giggle, maybe even a head toss along with it. She’d “keep the line open”, or it least this is what I’ve always imagined she said. I liked Anna. I liked everyone I met from that company.

Shortly after I hung up and dramatically tossed all of my podcast notes in the trash, I took a call from a pet medium where I sobbed and hiccuped as a stranger on the other end told me stories about my dead dog and the final messages he had for me.

“He’d fulfilled his purpose,” the pet medium promised me, “it’s what dogs are sent to do and they all know this.”

She made it sound so simple, so matter of fact. God, it pissed me off. Even from death that little fucker was still pissing me off. Oh, Vincent Carlito. How I miss that naughty fucker. I miss him so much.

And now this has gotten windy, I’m sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve just written for the sake of writing and not for some deadline I was already late on and belittling myself about. If that last line isn’t me shouting, LOOK AT ME, I’M A REAL WRITER!, I’m not sure what is. *But not a real editor, apologies for any grammatical errors. I’ll get better about slowing down. Maybe!

So my almost-podcast, We’re All Gonna Make It, is not in fact, making it. But we are, my friends. We are still making it. Hells yes we are.

If you choose to come back (or open up my emails again) I hope to write more about making it… ie manifesting, baby! I have so many creepy manifesting journals (and a lot has come true! a lot has not…) But I get so into that shit, believe it or not. I don’t know how one could survive in this day and age without some woo woo and whimsy. I also want to chat about parenting, comedy, grief, writing, social media, the hellscape of politics, or perhaps just weird fiction, Idk. I’m a mixed bag. I plan nothing and share everything. :P

I’m going to leave you with a super basic parenting tip I recently heard (you probably already know it) but holy shit it’s so simple yet so perfect and I say it to Chris or think it to myself several times a day now. Ready for this mind blowing piece of advice? “Don’t make a happy baby happier.”

My girls are no longer babies, but it still applies. I can’t tell you how many times I have messed up a perfectly nice play session by trying to “enhance it” or “make it better,” when all I had to do was stay the hell out of it and let them be.

That’s it. Thanks for being here.

We’re all gonna make it,

Tay

(Is that closing line lame? or fun? never mind don’t answer that yet.)