Alright, here’s what’s going on.
In September, I was laid off from Audible. I worked for two months at a job in Pis(singmylife)away, New Jersey1, having only a Chipotle and a Party City to its name, and decided to leave the day my boss touched my goddamn hair.
I then took a job for a local events planner, primarily big, technicolor Indian weddings. I should have known it was too good to be true: an event planner I cold-called on LinkedIn immediately set me up for a meeting with her boss, and after a quick Zoom call I was offered a job that had not existed. They were impressed enough with my ambition that they created a role for me, sent over an offer letter and some freelancer tax paperwork. I left the hair job on a Friday. She had wanted me to start Monday. I asked for Tuesday. I then spent that eight hours on Tuesday on the phone with her, filling out vendor contracts, updating production lists, finding edible drink wafers to emboss with the couple’s logo.
I loved it. I loved working (ew) and working hard, barely a free moment to piss, after sitting on my ass doing nothing of import at the last job and in the laissez-faire-ly-sedentary weeks before that came along.
At 40,000 a year with no benefits, I assumed that was the catch.
It wasn’t.
She talked a big game about me bringing in new clients in the corporate space, bringing in fellow Jews planning their kids’ bat/r mitzvahs, and bought me a ticket to Miami to run a $200,000 wedding. A refundable ticket. But that was my ask: you see, on top of all of this shit going on, my grandmother, my last living grandparent, is in hospice and I really shouldn’t be far from home. And if the worst happened, I’d need to leave Coral Gables and get home. I love my grandmother, and there is no job or opportunity worth another dagger of guiltgrief that I wasn’t there to send her off with my love.
After a week of dropped phone calls across Cancun (her, at a wedding, not me, working my ass off in between crying shifts in sweatstank pajamas) and my “What? WHATS?” as WhatsApp calls dropped left and right, bringing in a literal dog-themed speeddating event and everything…my flight to Miami was refunded. Not because of my grandmother thank god, but the far more sinister thing, the thing of this woman’s upcoming weddings slate being clear enough that she didn’t need me anymore and unceremoniously let me go via e-mail, 8pm on Sunday while I was watching the Oscars. I was issued no warning, no specific adjustment I could make in my work. To those I told, it is *ever so* clear that this woman uses me for a few weeks of cheap labor. To me, it is a sign that even at 40,000 annually I am a failure of the highest and mightiest and I can’t do anything right and this is why no one loves me.
So I’m fucked.
If you’d like to become a paid subscriber for ANY amount, send me a Venmo @taragiancaspro or a direct message or a reply here and I can add you as a paid yearly subscriber on my end. I am interviewing, applying, networking, I promise. But in many ways, this Substack is all I have right now.
Oh, how the never-that-mighty have fallen.
In GOOD news, I was invited to discuss the Felicia Day cinematic feat(?) Bring It On Again on the teen movie podcast This Ends at Prom. Thank you Harmony and
for having me!I went off on some random person on Twitter who decided to attack, for no reason, ITALIAN COOKIES?! This was the most joy I have felt in weeks, writing this:
Thanks to Thom Bennett (@curbyrdog on Instagram) for contributing a perfectly Irish playlist - happy belated Saint Patrick’s Day I guess? Honestly, my grandfather died on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1982, so my family usually attends a bereavement mass in his name and that’s about it. Also, despite my Irish first name, I ain’t Irish…I keep dating ‘em, though. I think I pinched Matt and he didn’t wear green? Hey! I did celebrate!
And a lil jig for y’all:
Thank you to
for this kind comment:And now…
To read:
I drafted a brief newsletter of some of the silly scenes and memes and Vines I quote, that feel essential to my sense of humor and shit I’m chuckling about to myself while washing the dishes:
“I was also fascinated by the ranks of women in early Hollywood who wrote and directed films. For a long time, Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter. The argument about silent film being global doesn’t really do it for me either. My working theory has been that women and other marginalized folks had an easier time breaking into films in the 1910s and 20s because the moneymen gatekeepers hadn’t been installed yet. Most people don’t realize that film back then was a speculative medium, sort of like TikTok today. Critics thought it was low-brow drivel that wouldn’t last. No one in the “legitimate theater,” as they snobbishly called it, wanted to be seen in the flickers. It’s like Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Why were there so many more women in the industry then? Because people didn’t know what it was and didn’t ascribe traditional notions of prestige, money, and success to it yet.”
I highly recommend this interview between
and, who wrote a book about Asian actress Anna May Wong:“Cashless businesses are banned in Philadelphia. How do concert and sport venues get around it? The Fillmore is the latest venue to go ‘cashless.’ Venues across the city have been doing it for years.” Thank you to
for bringing this to my attention via your newsletter!There is no universe in which I would vote for antivax nepoghoul Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but this
assessment of his potential running mates was deeply informative:A piece by my online pal Victoria Audley on grief. Boy, did I need it.
I was SO OBSESSED with this investigative report by
on the zodiac placements of Chris “CT” Tamburello, the castle daddy of The Traitors, and how they dictated his gameplay that I sent Frankie my entire birth chart.To watch:
I have Israeli relatives and they will be very pissed to see this but uh… 👀 Thank you to
for sharing this:I’m sorry but lmao:
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This is for Hattie and for Jason, sent by Sam:
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This is literally just Simone:
And a bonus, this is p much Simone and her father:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
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Various and sundry:
I adore Carrie Coon. I got to perform in a play with her once and it made all of the checks my parents wrote to the Broadway Bound acting school as a child worth it (to me, they may disagree, but to me):
I designed this hat years ago and if you too get Carrie-d away, you can buy it here.
For Mark:
It do be like that sometimes.
Love you bitches,
TG
The town is called Piscataway. It writes itself.
Tara Giancaspro: Thank you for your kind words my way.
First, we join you in being happy your grandmother is around.
VERY, VERY sorry for what happened with the $40,000.00 job. Good grief! What a string of events and what INSENSITIVITY!
Goodness. People do things simply because THEY CAN.
I cannot help but observe: I LOVE your two cuddling cats. I absolutely LOVE them!
And I feel for the chick stuck in the teacup grip. But I feel sure that the photographer extricated her after she had a chance to memorialized the chick's hapless attempt through the cup-loop. That is a HILARIOUS picture, precisely because we KNOW she was extricated.
Thank you for sharing.
I'm so sorry about the job. That sucks so much, and I hope the next thing is coming our way and is a thousand times better than that one was. Also, while I love living in CA and I never ever want to live in NJ again, I really do miss Italian cookies. I feel like I took them for granted when I lived there. Oh, the regret.