We’re going to share our try-hard (what we’re trying hard to do) and we want to you to do the same!

It can be something noble. Something ridiculous. Something that should be easy, but somehow isn’t.

Here’s what’s on our Try-Hard Lists:

Yael is trying hard to take care of her elbow, because tennis elbow likes sequels, apparently. She’s also trying to get her guy Kevin off to visit his parents, which, as it turns out, is not as easy as it sounds!

Carrie is trying hard to land a new gig in elder care, which is ALSO not as easy as it sounds! 🤷‍♀️

Now it’s your turn. What’s your try-hard of the week?

Tell us in the comments. We’re rooting for you!

Now he’s heading to the Land of Lincoln to start the next chapter. We talk theater, college, figuring out what you want from life, and why keeping lots of doors open is a good plan.

Also, I added a bell 🔔 to the episode to signal transitions between topics.

I loved this conversation, and I think you’ll love Graham.

Graham at his high school graduation

Out to lunch with his mom and girlfriend Mads

Mads’ Rico-reminiscent cat Wicket

Hanging with the Property Brothers

With interior design icon David Phoenix

With Melissa McCarthy on Little Big Shots

In his school’s production of Metamorphoses

Taking in Chicago one architectural masterpiece at a time

Dave and I celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary next week, so I thought I’d share the secrets of our marital success.

Secret number one:
I don’t actually consider our marriage successful. It’s successful adjacent. We’re happy adjacent. Relationships don’t get letter grades. It’s pass/fail. And we’re passing.

Secret number two:
We don’t have a wedding album. We have wedding pictures shoved in a closet somewhere, but no actual album. Because wedding albums are cursed. They’re basically kindling for your divorce party.

Secret number three:
Follow the wisdom of Dan Savage. He says every relationship has a price of admission, something about your partner that you just have to accept.

I pay a price in patience. Because Dave and I have very different metronome speeds. Mine is presto. 168 to 200 beats per minute. Dave’s is 40 to 60 BPM. Largo. Which is Italian for “Slow AF.”

Today I said, “I’m going to Trader Joe’s. Need anything?” He said, “Let me think.”

And while he thought, I thought: Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
At roughly 180 BPM.

But I swallowed the fuck-yous, waited a full ten polite seconds, and said: “Just text me.” That’s marriage.

Dan Savage also says there’s no such thing as the one. There’s the .64 you round up to the one. You gotta round the fuck up.

I think about that every time Dave returns my car with one-eighth of a gallon of gas.

Twenty-six years in, we’re still passing.

Thank you, Dan Savage, for saving my successful adjacent marriage.

Wedding, 2000.
One of the few surviving photographs
from our non-existent wedding album.

Honeymoon in Moab, Utah, 2000.
Also not in an album.

The week we got married, TIME asked, “Who Needs a Husband?”
Apparently, this bitch did.

More photographic evidence!

After a brief hiatus, Try-Hard Valley is back! Carrie and Yael sit down for a proper catch-up.

Carrie talks about what happened after her hysterectomy, including the bizarre anesthesia-induced hallucination that somehow turned into an entire puppet show starring a robotic Ross Perot. (Yes, really.)

Meanwhile, Yael has been traveling in the August heat, schvitzing her way through Fresno and Las Vegas.

We’re back, baby! Hopefully with fewer assignments from deceased presidential candidates.

the cast relaxes before their big performance

Yalie and Shir-zee in Vegas, Baby!

Carrie doing her homework at Livermore’s Shanti Winery

the star of the show

proof Carrie did not hallucinate “Fresno” the mini-series

Carrie’s CONTENT ADVISORY

proof Fresno’s underground gardens also actually exist

the Ross Perobot has a word with the crowd

Most of us spend our lives chasing the next milestone.

Get into the right school. Land the right job. Make partner. Get promoted. Build the career.

We’re taught to think life is a straight line.

Then we talked to Chad.

On our latest episode of Try Hard Valley, Chad told a story that looks nothing like a straight line.

As a junior tennis player growing up in Southern California, he wasn’t just good. He was elite.

He competed alongside players whose names would eventually become tennis royalty: Pete Sampras, Lindsay Davenport, and Tracy Austin. He climbed the rankings, trained relentlessly, and ultimately earned a spot in the U.S. Open, where he played in the first round of one of the sport’s biggest stages.

For many athletes, that’s the dream.

For Chad, it was only Act One.

Like many high achievers, he followed the script that society rewards. He went to Harvard Law School, built a successful legal career, and spent more than a decade practicing law.

On paper, he had won again.

But life has a funny way of asking new questions once you’ve answered the old ones.

What if success isn’t enough?

What if the thing you loved at seventeen still matters at forty?

What if your greatest contribution isn’t the thing that impresses people at dinner parties?

Eventually Chad found his way back to tennis.

Today, he coaches elite junior players and works with HEAD Racquet Sports in the Bay Area. He’s helping develop the next generation of athletes while staying connected to the game that shaped him from the beginning.

It’s easy to look at that path and call it a career change.

We think it’s something bigger.

It’s a second act.

One of the reasons we started Try Hard Valley is because we’re fascinated by people who keep evolving. People who refuse to believe that a single decision at age 22 should define the next 50 years of their lives.

The truth is that most of us aren’t looking for a complete reinvention.

We’re looking for permission.

Permission to start over.

Permission to try something new.

Permission to reconnect with something we loved years ago.

Permission to become a different version of ourselves.

Chad’s story reminds us that life’s chapters don’t have to make sense to anyone else. Sometimes the thing that looks like a detour is actually the path.

And sometimes your second act isn’t about finding something new.

It’s about finding your way back to something you loved all along.

🎾 In this episode of Try Hard Valley, Chad shares:

• What it was like competing alongside future tennis legends

• Playing in the U.S. Open

• The transition from elite athlete to Harvard Law student

• Why he left law after a decade

• What drew him back to tennis

• Lessons from coaching today’s top junior players

If you’re wondering what’s next in your own career, passion project, or second act, we think you’ll love this conversation.

Chad’s résumé is almost comically stacked. He grew up playing junior tennis alongside Pete Sampras and Lindsay Davenport, won NCAA championships at USC, attended Harvard Law School, helped rewrite part of NAFTA while working at FedEx, and somehow found his way back to the sport he loves as a coach and Head Tennis representative.

More importantly, he’s a genuinely humble, thoughtful guy who believes in working hard without making a big fuss about it, which is pretty much the definition of a try-hard.

In this episode:

🎾 Growing up in Southern California’s legendary junior tennis scene

🎾 Playing alongside future world Number Ones

🎾 Why he chose USC over Harvard as an undergraduate

🎾 Life at Harvard Law School

🎾 Working on international trade and NAFTA

🎾 Why he left law to return to tennis

🎾 The rise of pickleball (and why tennis isn’t going anywhere)

🎾 What he’s trying hard to accomplish today

Plus:
🍝 Yael says “pasta” in the most Canadian way imaginable.

🎓 She casually drops the H-bomb (Harvard).

📜 Chad casually mentions rewriting part of NAFTA like it’s no bigger deal than returning a library book.

As always, thanks for listening, subscribing, sharing the show, and cheering us on. Every download makes our little try-hard hearts happy.

🎧 Happy listening!

Chad, Roxie Hart*, Yael

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) is Awesome!

Carrie’s next gig

*Possibly not the dog’s real name. Carrie just guessed.

“People don't care how much you know
until they know how much you care.”

That philosophy has shaped the culture Andrew Hamel
has built at Pleasanton’s Prodigy Fitness.

They chat about:

• Growing up together and staying close despite living in different countries

• Cooking catastrophes (including fire alarms and garlic powder gone wrong)

• Competitive tennis, the Maccabiah Games (aka “the Jew Olympics”), and why playing doubles with your sibling isn’t always a great idea

• Pickleball rivalries

• Anxiety, perfectionism, and the challenge of letting things go

• What Shiera is trying hard to do these days… and why stepping outside your comfort zone matters

It’s occasionally chaotic and it ends with a medley of sister songs. How could it not?

Yaley, Shirzeeze, and Mama Stuart in Whistler, BC

Along the way, they discuss Adriatic cruise ports, the male loneliness epidemic, aging out of tech, aging into senior living, parasocial relationships, podcast success, and Carrie’s ongoing campaign to get Randy Johnson to return her Instagram messages.

Livermore Comedy Kingmaker. Side-Eye Specialist.
Heckler Vanquisher. Brian Maggi.

Then Carrie sits down with comedian and producer Brian Maggi, who shares how a former tech worker with a Craigslist sound system built a thriving network of comedy shows throughout the Tri-Valley. They also swap stories about memorable shows, one unforgettable heckler, and the business of making people laugh.

Plus: Yael’s sales tip of the week, Milo the internet-famous Shih Tzu, and the surprisingly complicated challenge of existing at the intersection of FOMO and JOMO.

Milo. Former royal guard dog of Imperial China.
Currently: a deposed monarch with excellent grooming
and zero military responsibilities.

Then Carrie sits down with one of her favorite writers and longest-running intellectual crushes, author and perfume critic Tania Sanchez.

Tania. Sacramento. Extended Stay America.
Canned vodka mule. The glamour is subtle.

Tania shares the unlikely story of how a finance writer from New York became one of the world’s best-known perfume critics, fell in love with fellow perfume writer Luca Turin, and spent the next two decades packing and unpacking.

Along the way, the conversation wanders through:
• The challenges of caring for aging parents
• Life as an American living in England
• Perimenopause and the indignities of middle age
• The enduring weirdness of high school
• Why the British keep asking, "Are you all right?"
• The mysterious power of scent

As always, the episode is ultimately about what we're all trying hard to do right now, and why that's often more interesting than what we've already accomplished.

Subscribe to Tania’s Substack! And to her husband Luca Turin’s Substack as well!

That’s the brilliant and hilarious perfume guide
Tania wrote with her husband Luca Turin.
Is it available on Amazon? You ask.
Why, yes, it is. I answer.
Buy it here!

The Devil wears Guerlain's Samsara.
Perfume legends Tania Sanchez and Luca Turin
discuss the alchemy of great scent in Vogue.

Two try-hards. One hotel room selfie. Several teeth.

This great book, The Emperor of Scent,
is about Tania’s husband Luca Turin.

Tania has been married to Luca for 19 years.
Ergo, she is The Empress of Scent in our book!

Tania’s many fans and the
Redditors of r/fragrance agree wholeheartedly!

Meanwhile, my uterus is going through a full-blown troubled teen phase despite being, like me, 52 years old. It keeps producing fibroids and polyps and cysts… oh my. I’m hoping to evict it via hysterectomy soon because I am more than ready to say “toodle-ooh-terus” to that pesky (and prolapsed) reproductive organ o’ mine.

In the meantime, I’ve subbed in walking, elliptical-ing, swimming, weight lifting, Pilates, and HIIT classes for running. Fine. Great. Healthy. Whatever. But none of those activities scratch the same dopamine-producing itch that running does.

So I’m attempting to gradually get back into running in a manner that will not further compromise my bedeviled right leg or my rebellious soon-to-be-former uterus.

What follows is an account of today’s morning run, featuring quotes from favorite running books, along with the roses and thorns from each mile.

Mile 1: “To get better at anything in life, you have to put in the work when you’re tired, or in pain, or just flat out don’t want to, and trust that, by doing so day after day, you’ll slowly improve.”
— Nicholas Thompson, The Running Ground

Rose: Ezra Furman’s “Tip of a Match” comes on and suddenly I remember why it’s been my favorite running song for the past decade.

The tide is strong
There’s nothing wrong
With being swept out to sea
But I will not admit defeat
I will not admit defeat
I will… NOT

There’s the lovely and talented Erza Furman rocking out. In pearls.

Thorn: I am wearing winter woolies in late May because I always dress for the first .5 seconds of any run. Three steps later, I’m peeling off layers like a kindergartener forced into snow gear. I’m still fully clothed, however. You will not catch me running around naked at Bay to Breakers, in an off-Broadway revival of Hair, or anywhere else.

Mile 2: “The only bad run is the one you didn’t do.”
— Martinus Evans, Slow AF Run Club

Rose: Listening to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.”

Are we gonna let the elevator bring us down?
Oh no, let’s go.

Thorn: I keep wondering whether this leg brace I’m wearing is actually helping or if it’s just the placebo effect. Then I think: who cares? An effect’s an effect. In effect.

Mile 3: “If you believe you are fragile, the biochemistry of your body unquestionably obeys and manifests it.”
— Deena Kastor, Let Your Mind Run

Rose: I heed the Call of the Clover at Amaral Park and find a four-leaf clover.

Say hello to my little friend.

Thorn: I run past a senior living community that shall remain nameless because it competes with the senior living community where I now work… which shall also remain nameless. I silently heckle the rival facility, mentally flip it the bird, and think about my current favorite quote from Glengarry Glen Ross: “It takes brass balls to sell real estate.”

Mile 4: “Suffering is an extraordinary teacher.”
— Ryan Hall, Run the Mile You’re In

Rose: I find MORE four-leaf clovers near Mohr Elementary School.

More at Mohr? SCORE.

Thorn: My smartwatch scolds me for excessive audio exposure. Apparently my motivational music is destroying my hearing. I lower the volume. My eyesight is already so compromised, I need magnifying glasses to read my own thoughts.

I have the honor to be Your Obedient Servant, blinged-out Apple Watch.

Mile 4.44: “If there is any true value in running as a sport, it is that it is a great leveler. Runners don’t gear up, armoring ourselves like football players; we strip down to the minimum and empty our hands and become what we are at our most natural, and thus we are reduced to what we all have in common: legs, lungs, heart, and mind. We are all out there on the same course, heading the same way, whatever our speed, a brother/sisterhood of chafed thighs and aching feet.”
— Peter Sagal, The Incomplete Book of Running

Rose: Orloff Park is bustling. Kids swarm the playgrounds. Neighbors walk their dogs. The yoga crowd is namaste-ing their hearts out on the basketball court while holding Reverse Warrior Pose like their lives depend on it.

Thorn: Seeing so many people out on a weekday reminds me it’s Memorial Day, which immediately takes me back to the Marine Corps Marathon’s Blue Mile: no cheering spectators, just an unrelenting line of signs bearing the names, faces, and birth and death years of fallen soldiers. Some were heartbreakingly young. Some held the tiny children they left behind.

It remains the saddest, most unforgettable mile I’ve ever run.

War: what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

Running: what is it good for? Possibly something.

Follow me on Strava.

Today I ran 4.44 miles — my lucky number three times plus a decimal point. For flair. It was not pretty. I was slow AF. I took a concerning number of stretch breaks. I repeatedly succumbed to the Call of the Clover. I wore a leg brace and occasionally a frown.

But I did it anyway. Do I feel like a million bucks? Absolutely not. But I do feel slightly better than I did before I started. That’ll do.

Thank you for your service, fallen soldiers.

And thanks, too, to the writers, musicians, and weird little bursts of stubbornness that helped carry me to today’s hypothetical finish line.

• There’s something growing in Carrie’s uterus (NOT the Messiah)

• Yael explains her two names situation (again… for your/Carrie’s edification)

• Airplane turbulence coping mechanisms

• Carrie invents a new “Melan-Choli-Day™” and realizes the podcast is an attempt to communicate with her dead mom

• Audio that intermittently sounds like a hostage tape recorded inside an air fryer

• The wildly talented cast and director of TEAM Theater’s production of Mean Girls

Featuring:
🎭 Amanda Boyan
🎭 Abhishek Natraj
🎭 Jake Perry
🎭 Ollie Mironov
🎭 Kaelyn Cruz

If you’ve ever:

• missed your mom

• fought with a creative partner

• overthought literally everything

…welcome to the liminal space we call home.

Also:
Please support your local try-hard theater teens. They are out there memorizing lines, surviving algebra tests, AND learning tap dance choreo. Not too shabby!

Get tickets to Mean Girls before they sell out!

Starring Ollie Mironov as Damian
and Kaelyn Cruz as Janice

Director Extraordinaire Amanda Boyan

Abhishek Natraj (Aaron)

Jake Perry (also Damian, there are two casts)

Producer/TEAM Theatre Founder Salim Razawi

TEAM Theatre Choreographer Vivaan Rai
recently won a Sara Bareilles award.
That’s a big deal! Learn more here!

Mommy, look! And listen!

This song Intermittently gets stuck in Carrie’s head.

This week’s episode comes to you from Wailuku, Hawaii, specifically from the home of my delightful friend Sherri Ann Dante, and even more specifically from the sweet spot just after happy hour.

We also debut brand-new theme intro and outro music by my friend Beanpole, whose album All My Kin deserves your ears immediately.

Then things get complicated.

Our first-ever remote interview with my beloved cohost Yael Stuart was technically successful but sonically catastrophic. Rather than cut her from the episode, I made a bold artistic decision: I re-voiced her as a brand-new character.

Please welcome The Artful Yael — part Yael Stuart, part Artful Dodger. Also, part pickleball, park pickpocket.

Also in this episode:

• Why Sheri Ann left Livermore for Maui

• Outrigger canoeing at dawn in choppy water

• Hawaiian paddling commands Carrie did not understand

• An escape room where we were gently guided through our “escape”

• Volunteering with sea turtles and whales

• The downsides of paradise (bulldozers)

• The upside of paradise (everything else)

• A brief mention of plutonium hand warmers

• A stern warning from Charles Dickens regarding improv ticket sales
  

Come for the travel tales. Stay for the tequila-fueled chaos.

Also, check out these pics, notes, and Ram Dass quotes!

Sheri Ann finding a four-leaf clover
at Maui’s lovely Ali’i Kula Lavender Farm.
Go there! It’s beautiful. (And VERY clover-y!)

We got lucky indeed. Beanpole recorded our catchy new intro and outro.
Check out this Rolling Stone review of Beanpole’s fabulous All My Kin.

Buy the digital album for ten measly dollars on Bandcamp.
Also available on Amazon Music for $9.49.
But if you’re a vinyl junkie who is made of money,
you can buy it on eBay for $124.99.

New mashup alert!
That’s Yael Stuart, one half of The Artful Yael.

That’s the other half of The Artful Yael.
CONSIDER YOURSELF warned!

Buy tix now, lest ye anger vengeful Dickensian ghosts!

That’s my pal Sheri Ann standing next to Maui Mayor Richard T. Bissen, Junior.
A Volunteer of the Year, she is!

Sheri’s house is decked out with many gorgeous pics by Livermore photographer extraordinaire Kim Grandfield!
Please be a guest on the podcast, Kim!

Doing jazz hands of relief after we narrowly escaped Maui Mystery Escape Room.

I came here to run the Maui Marathon, my supposed seventh. That plan felt apart somewhere between training and my attempt (aka failure) at the Livermore Half Marathon, when my right leg went kerflooey (official medical term).

26.2 miles was suddenly looking way too ambitious, so I downgraded to the half marathon here on the island.

At the expo, race officials happily reassigned me and handed over my bib and complimentary t-shirt. The event also includes a 10K and 5K, and everyone wears color-coded bibs. I, however, was still issued a white marathon bib, while quietly drifting among the blue-bibbed half marathoners, which frankly felt like stolen valor.

I also came to Maui to visit Hanuman Maui, a Ram Dass–centered sanctuary that, like Mama’s Fish House, requires booking well in advance.

Since both events landed on the same day (4/26/26), I decided to mark the occasion by assigning myself a Ram Dass quote for each mile of the race.

If you’re unfamiliar with Ram Dass’ origin story, the highlights are as follows:

Born Richard Alpert to a nice Jewish family in Boston, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford in 1957 and went on to teach at Harvard. There, he met clinical psychologist Timothy Leary, and together they enthusiastically explored psychedelic research until Harvard decided it was less “innovative pedagogy” and more “giving LSD to undergrads.”

After being dismissed, Alpert traveled to India, met Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji), and was given the name Ram Dass, meaning “servant of God.”

He went on to write a small library’s worth of books, including Be Here Now, and became one of the most iconic counterculture spiritual teachers of the 20th century: equal parts wisdom, mischief, and cosmic side-eye.

In 2004, he had a stroke while on Maui and remained here until his death in 2019.

Ram Dass was not only a profound teacher, but also famously funny and irreverent, which explains his enduring appeal to comedians, including Duncan Trussell, Natasha Leggero, Pete Holmes, and the late Gary Shandling, among others.

I’ve been reading his work and listening to his teachings for years. What follows is a mile-by-mile account of my Maui Half Marathon, featuring 13 of my favorite Ram Dass quotes, along with roses (the highs) and thorns (the… everything else).

Mile 1: “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”

Rose: Someone is holding a sign that reads: “No one likes a quick finisher.” An outrageously horny sentiment for 5:30 AM. I laugh anyway.

Thorn: I manage to run roughly half a mile before my right leg starts reenacting the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. Full structural failure. Immediate catastrophe. I hear Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy screaming through the dawn:
I’m walkin’ here.

Mile 2: “Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”

Rose: A woman power-walks with such purpose, elegance, and panache that I adopt her as my personal pacer. I snap a blurry photo that does nothing for her musculature, which deserves museum lighting. Her physique has me questioning my placement on the Kinsey scale. Ram Dass was openly bisexual. Am I as well? This woman’s calf muscles are gently nudging me toward the Q in LGBTQIA. I’m Questioning. And I’m proud.

Thorn: We enter Lahaina, still recovering from the devastating 2023 wildfires. Silver lining: the town’s resilience and rebuilding spirit make it a legit embodiment of this mile’s quote.

Mile 3: “Turn your melodrama into a mellow drama.”

Rose: Gorgeous views of lush upcountry Maui, resplendent in fifty shades of green and glowing from recent record rainfall. I visited Ireland last year, and this feels like the Emerald Isle: Tropical Edition. Erin go aloha.

Thorn: My shoelaces are staging their own melodrama. They come untied for what feels like the 87th time. I stop, kneel, and finally administer double knots to both shoes (Mizuno Wave Riders, for the gearheads).

Mile 4: “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”

Rose: The hottest man I have ever seen—a Hawaiian police officer—is directing traffic. And my heart. And a few other organs. I wonder if he moonlights as a stripper who arrives at bachelorette parties in uniform. My placement on the Kinsey scale, which had been drifting toward the bisexual belt, suddenly snaps back toward Straightsville, South Dakota.

Thorn: I ask the hottest man on earth if I may take his photo. He says no, which somehow makes him hotter. Two women who witness my rejection suggest I take a rogue candid on the return leg of this out-and-back. Their support, and shared consensus regarding this officer’s extreme hotness, restores my faith in sisterhood.

Mile 5: “As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can’t see how it is.”

Rose: I meet a friendly runner from Colorado who tells me running at sea level feels effortless compared to training back home. She didn’t even realize she’d been altitude-training this whole time. Some people are accidentally elite.

Thorn: My newly diagnosed prolapsed uterus makes its presence known. And felt. It seems ready to leave the entire pelvic ecosystem, retire to Maui, and start a small coffee stand in Paia. It feels like it may simply resign and fall out of me. Yikes on bikes.

Mile 6: “Everything in life is a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!”

Rose: A man runs by in a shirt declaring THE POWER OF JESUS in what appears to be an 8,000-point font. This reminds me how much I love Jesus Christ Superstar. I queue it up on my phone. Thank you, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Thorn: My phone, newly tasked with delivering salvation-adjacent show tunes, is now slick with sweat and sunblock. I’m one accidental tap away from calling 911. Or buying crypto.

Mile 7: “A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”

Rose: The temperature rises like 50 degrees in five minutes. I envy every surfer I see and fight the urge to abandon the race entirely and join them in the cool Pacific. Cowabunga, dudes.

Thorn: I take a selfie by the ocean, look at it, and realize I’ve been wearing two pairs of sunglasses this whole time. “How dumb is that?” I ask the universe. “Very,” it replies.

Zoom in on the top-right corner
and get a load of this two-pairs-of-sunglasses wearin’ bitch. Idiot.

Mile 8: “Don’t take yourself too personally.”

Rose: The SPF 50 sunblock I shellacked onto my exposed skin appears to be performing its duties with professionalism and aplomb. I thank it for its service.

I also pass the Hot Cop from Mile 4 (remember him?) and snap a candid photo. He catches me and flashes a 5,000-watt smile that says: I’m too sexy to object to your obvious objectification of me. My spiritual deterioration continues apace.

Maui’s finest. This pic doesn’t do him justice.
Too much pavement, not enough Hot Cop.

Thorn: This mile’s quote is confounding me. Taking myself, and everyone else, too personally is not just a habit. It is a craft. A calling. A lifestyle. Fuck you, Ram Dass.

Mile 9: “You are joy, wisdom, peace, compassion, and love.”

Rose: Groovily grooving to the Grammy-garnering masterpiece that is Control by Janet Jackson, which I recently rediscovered. This is a story about control. My slow AF pace suggests otherwise.

Thorn: This mile’s quote inspires immediate philosophical backlash. If I am joy, wisdom, peace, compassion, and love, then surely I am also misery, stupidity, war, indifference, and hate, as evidenced by the previous mile’s “Fuck you, Ram Dass.”

Mile 10: “Creativity springs from the yearning to be the fullness of who you are.”

Rose: A gaggle of Taiko drummers lines the roadside, entertaining the people, including this people. I salute you, percussion prodigies.

Thorn: A carful of twenty-something gal pals lounge in a convertible, holding a sign that reads: “Do you want us to call you an UBER?” I stop, make eye contact with the driver, and say, “Yes. Please do.” (I genuinely wish they would.) They laugh. I turn and continue my slog to the finish line.

Mile 11: “When you know how to listen, everyone is the guru.”

Rose: They’re handing out bags of ice at this hydration station. I pour some over my head and use the rest to cool my iPhone, which has just flashed this warning: Temperature: iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it. The timing of this acquisition of ice feels like divine intervention.

Thorn: We have officially left the scenic portion of the course, unless you consider dueling Starbucks locations on opposite sides of the street to be scenic.

Mile 12: “Don’t think about the past. Just be here now.”

Rose: A kindly Hawaiian local at the hydration station calls out, “Almost there, Sista!” An even kindlier woman sprays me with a water gun. Good Samaritans, both.

Thorn: My still-overheating iPhone has no chill. It is taking its own sweet time to return from the dead.

Mile 13: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Rose: My iPhone has risen. Phew. I celebrate by listening to “Ice Ice Baby” as a tribute to the healing properties of ice. Then, naturally, “Under Pressure,” because Vanilla Ice absolutely stole it from David Bowie and Queen.

Thorn: I devolve into a heap of tears as I shamble through the final mile. Partly because a toxic mixture of sweat and sunblock is stinging my eyes. But also: location, location, location.

The finish line is at The Westin Maui Resort & Spa, Ka’anapali. I stayed there in 1997, my first trip to Hawaii, and my first trip with my newly minted boyfriend, Dave Gilbert. We’re still together nearly thirty years later. On that trip, we met up with my family of origin, including my now long-dead mom.

That Westin was my first home (of sorts) in the Aloha State. And somehow, Ram Dass just helped walk me back there. Mahalo, Guru.

Meet Mini and Lily, who also welcomed me home.

WOW. That is one bushy bushy blonde hairdo on that chick.
Who does her hair? The fucking Beach Boys?

This is Hanuman. He told me to tell you Ram Dass approves of this Substack post, despite—or maybe thanks to?—the author’s flagrant potty mouth.
Namaste.

This week’s episode has it all:
🎭 A dramatic reading from The Music Man (you’re welcome)
⚕️ A candid convo about a prolapsed uterus
🧘‍♀️ Pelvic floor mantras you didn’t know you needed
✈️ European travel plans, e-bikes, and scary cycling stories
📚 A heartfelt reunion with a beloved high school teacher

⚠️ Content note: We talk openly about women’s reproductive organs.
Consider yourself warned.

💜 This episode is dedicated to Diane Heinitz.

Plus: an important correction, a passionate plug for local improv, and a questionable life choice involving skipping a major baseball event.

It’s messy. It’s honest. It’s a lot. But hey, at least we tried. And honestly? That counts.

Care Bear and Er Bear
For the record, Carrie prefers to think of Eric as
”The Mary Poppins of Lovably Quirky Students”
But if the weirdo shoe fits…

This is Diane Heinitz.
Here is her obituary.
She was funny, kind, and unforgettable.

Carrie’s uterus is even more adorbz than this one.

Class Clown (Foothill High School, Class of 1992) Scary Eagle’s
favorite yearbook inscription

that Flight of the Conchords scene Carrie references

Here’s Dan Savage elaborating on this.

Support this improvised soap opera
featuring try-hards of the Tri-Valley!
Click here to buy tickets.

But if you’re in Seattle,
go to this Number 51 Retirement Event on May 2nd.

Then tell Carrie all about it
so she can live vicariously through you.

Go Mariners! We’ll get ‘em next year!

Learn more about this term and its origin story here.

We talk about:

• Alcohol, stress, and coping mechanisms

• Rebuilding your life from the inside out (brain, body, purpose)

• Kevin and Yael’s second date, featuring light spanking

• Why Kevin loves the Miami Dolphins and the New York Mets

• Spherical mascots

Plus:

• The fine art of screlting (scream-belting)

• Listener feedback (yes, Christina, we heard you)

• A bold, music-free experiment for the “human voices only” fans

• Graveyard walks

• A reminder that this is still our podcast (plural, possessive)

• Presidential and Prime Ministerial fitness tests

They say “try hard” like it’s an insult. We say… good.

lovebirds Yael and Kevin: people who do their best
and will judge your pickleball and/or pitching form

“lie hard” Elizabeth Holmes sitting under her favorite quote

Buzz Lightyear Swalwell, Halloween, 2022
should’ve given him a copy of Dan Savage’s Campsite Rule 🔥 🏕️
in lieu of the four-leafer 🍀

1. Michigan wins the national championship.

2. My husband gets laid off.

So naturally, we process it the only way we know how:
By singing a 19th-century fight song, letting the cat in, and unpacking a corporate layoff that affected roughly 30,000 people. Ya know… like… normal podcast stuff.

This episode has everything:

• A passionate defense of The Victors as the greatest fight song of all time

• A surprisingly upbeat take on getting laid off (baby bird… pushed from nest… etc.)

• A marriage recalibrating in real time as one deeply troubled spouse becomes the “primary breadwinner” (pray for us)

• A deeply honest—and slightly concerning—amount of time spent with an AI named Claude

Also, if you’ve ever:

• Stayed too long at a job because it felt safe

• Been really good at interviewing but suspiciously bad at getting hired

• Or watched someone you love slowly become eight employees in one increasingly stressed-out body

…this one might hit.

It’s about burnout.
It’s about identity.
It’s about what happens when the thing you couldn’t leave… leaves you.

🎧 Listen if you like:
existential career pivots, long marriages with strong opinions, and light emotional chaos set to a college fight song

Vanellope Von Schweetz, our emotional support cat
now with laser eyes

• Start things off by singing this song from Newsies

• Demand answers from my mysterious Japanese audience (respectfully)

• Attempt to become “swims before work girl” (thwarted by Big Goggle)

• Pitch a new podcast: Ear Candy with Randy and Andy

• Reflect on bombing at a winery and then… doubling down

• Come to a life-changing realization: I am not a strawberry. I am a Kalamata olive.

Also featured:

• My friend and future co-host Yael Stewart (aggressive Canadian, athletic Jew, condo collector)

• An annual tax fight that may or may not end in hypothetical murder/suicide

• The origin story of our friendship

• Hot hip talk

  

  I’m a Kalamata olive.

  You’re a Kalamata olive.
  
  

That’s Yael (two syllables) on the left and me, Carrie, on the right. That’s the whiskey sour we shared when we celebrated our two-year friendiversary at Super Mensch in San Francisco in the foreground.

• Listener feedback from Episode One

• Corrections from the international Top 10 List Standards Board (aka John from Scotland)

• Updates on the ongoing Randy Johnson cinematic universe

• A brief rant about this year’s Oscars ceremony

• And, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day…

My Top 10 Irish and Irish-Adjacent Crushes.

Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

The list includes poets, presidents, musicians, soap commercial heartthrobs, and one extremely skinny Irish bus driver from 1995 who accidentally pioneered body positivity by telling me, “You’re not fat. You’re cuddly.”

Along the way, we’ll also discuss:

• The emotional manipulations of soft-boy poet William Butler Yeats

• The haunting voice of Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries

• The delightful Bernese Mountain Dog-loving Irish

  President Michael D. Higgins

• The enduring wit of Oscar Wilde

• The vocal gravitas of Liam Neeson

Plus a childhood origin story involving Stevie Wonder, Sesame Street, and the mysterious supernatural ability I call The Call of the Clover—my lifelong talent for finding four-leaf clovers.

Some crushes on the list are alive.
Some are dead.
One may or may not still be driving a bus somewhere in the United Kingdom.

Such is life in Try-Hard Valley.

Press play and join me.

And if you enjoy the episode, tell a friend, leave a comment, or send feedback for the next one—because as I keep saying…

This is our podcast. 🍀

Along the way, we’ll cover:

• Why “try-hard” should be a compliment, not an insult
• The strange comfort of parasocial relationships with podcast hosts—and their dearly departed pets
• Tri-Valley grocery stores that are objectively superior to LA’s Gelson’s (fight me)
• Carole King’s feral fraternal twin (C’est moi!)
• An accidental throuple featuring Anthropic’s Claude as the unicorn
• John Madden and the man I called Swole Dilbert
• A 30+ year crush on a Hall of Fame pitcher that has frankly gone on long enough

Try-Hard Valley is a show about messy, sincere, occasionally uncomfortable effort—the kind that powers suburban ambition, personal reinvention, and the weird little obsessions that make life interesting.