Ali Wentworth - Go Ask Ali: Half-Baked Advice (and Free Lemonade)

Some of these stories are fact and some peppered with fiction. If you buy me a Magnolia Bakery icebox cakeI will tell you which is which.

To my daughters, Elliott and Harper

Who were born wiser than me...

I am not a truthsayer, therapist, or advice columnist. Im not even particularly sage. But I do know a thing or two about a thing or two. And I have lived those things or two (or three) and consequently fallen on my face, been hurt, been humiliated, and occasionally been enlightened.

And for whatever reason, people tend to come to me for advice. (Probably because I act like I know more than I do or am married to a Rhodes Scholar.) Sometimes its helpful; often it falls on deaf ears. The most frequent response is Stop, youre so annoying. (Even my kids sometimes say this.) But because Im cheaper than a shrink and make the best chocolate chip cookie dough in the Western Hemisphere, they tend to come back for more. Sure, everybody has their own official guide to living an ethical life. You can abide by the Ten Commandments, the Torah, the Koran, Deepak Chopra, whatever works for you. But nowhere in those aforementioned doctrines will they advise you on whether or not to teach your teenage daughter how to put in a tampon. Believe me, Ive checked them all.

I have always found shared personal experience to be a valuable learning tool. And a very effective way to navigate life. I learn more about parenting and marriage from my girlfriends than from Google, my gynecologist, or Pope Francis. I know that Jesus suffered and there are tales to tell about that, but I like a more firsthand approach. And how to deal with extramarital affairswell, the Dalai Lama wont return my texts. But I have women friends with real experience who can share some pretty daunting cautionary tales. And I have a few doozies based on my own exposure to life that I like to pass along.

Now, dont get me wrong here, Im not trying to start a cult or replace Megyn Kelly on daytime TV, I just think that there is a much bigger impact when someone you know shares his or her experience. No doubt thats why the mom circles are so strongits the shared information. We do become a village raising our kids. It also humanizes us to be able to express our own fears, anxieties, and ignorance.

Think about the volcanic reaction to recent allegations of sexual predators. Of which, clearly, there are many and in every industry and faction of the workforce. A person speaks out and reveals a personal story and then, in a domino effect, more people speak out and it brings to light an epidemic.

Let me put the brakes on here for a second so that your expectations arent too high about what youre about to read. Or listen to. Or just put on the shelf because the jacket is pretty and you need something to put under the photo of your cat. This is basically a humor book and sexual predators are only in the introduction to make a point. There is nothing religious, political, or ideological in the following pages. There might be one Republican joke, I cant remember.

Instead, Im offering you the sum total of what Ive figured out over the years. Things I know for sure, things Ive learned the hard way, and the answers to questions others have posed to me over the years (yes, thats the half-baked advice part, but as I mentioned before, I am known for my baking skills... ). Call it my sense and sensibility... or the mixed-up life of Ali Wentworth. But if you dont find at least one revelatory nugget, then I promise, I will come to your house and do your laundry. Within the tristate radius. Schedule permitting. And not including Jewish holidays. If I cant make it, Ill send my husband.

And if I can give you one piece of advice? You should buy this book for everyone you know. Or have ever met.

Personally, I think that if a woman hasnt met the right man by the time shes twenty-four, she may be lucky!

Deborah Kerr

When I arrived at Lizs apartment, her fianc, Danny, told me she had been locked in the bathroom for more than two hours. I assumed she had a blemish she was gouging with tweezers and a bottle of witch hazel or was shaving her entire body. She is Armenian and hair is her nemesis.

Shes been crying and totally freaking out, he said, sounding somewhat concerned.

Im sure its just nerves or a hygiene issue. I gently knocked on the bathroom door.

Hey, Liz! Im here! Herpes flare-up? Listen, the limo is downstairs. Do you want me to take anything down? Do you have your veil on?

The only noise from the bathroom was a running faucet and a few thumps. I believe the first thump was a white satin Jimmy Choo pump being thrown against the shower wall. The second might have been her head.

I waited downstairs in the black Cadillac limousine for what seemed like hours. Just me, the driver with no personality who smelled like pepperoni, and a blasting air conditioner that had my legs looking like something youd find at a morgue. At last the car door opened and a large, disgruntled lace pastry shoved herself in. The driver started the ignition and we began our journey up Third Avenue.

What the hell am I doing! Liz wailed.

Youre getting married. Youre just nervous.

Well, I knew it wasnt nerves. This was the state of a woman en route to a hanging, not her wedding. Not dead man walking, but rather dead woman being driven in a fancy car.

I dont want to do this, I dont... I dont... I dont want to do this!

Liz, listen, do you want me to get you a pill? Do you have your Lexapro with you? Or Xanax? What about those pills you take when you fly?

Im making a big mistake, she shrieked as she grabbed the handle of the car door.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... dont try to open that. Thats a really expensive dress and youre going to get blood all over it. Now take a deep breath.

Liz took a deep breath and stared out the car window, anxious and distraught, the way I assumed O. J. Simpson felt in the white Bronco.

You dont have to do this, I whispered.

Yes, I do, she whimpered back. There are three hundred people coming.

Thats not a reason to get married.

Its costing my dad sixty dollars a plate!

Well, that is definitely the best reason to get married.

We drove the rest of the way up Madison Avenue in silence. Occasionally Liz would blow her nose or reapply lip gloss. After hours of weeping her face was a piece of modern art, a Franz Kline with mascara smeared across one side of her cheek, eyeliner dripping down toward her ears. I thought to myself, If I ever feel even one percent of the agony shes feeling, I have to promise myself not to go through with the marriage. And I will open the car door and roll onto the highway going sixty miles an hour if need be. But then I wont get any wedding cake. So Id grab the cake, eat the top two tiers and perhaps a bread basket, then hurl myself out of the moving limo.

Years later, the expedition to my own wedding could not have been more different. I was not just serene, I was determined. I was chomping at the bit to marry this man I had instantaneously fallen in love with. And as the car made its way through the streets of Manhattan to the Greek Orthodox cathedral where I was to be legally and spiritually bound, I remembered my journey all those years before with Liz. It had been so torturous. A few years earlier when I had recognized similar feelings of trepidation during an engagement, I had had the wherewithal to end it. Thanks to a gutsy gut. Not an easy feat, but in the end, everyone benefited. We are all married with children and enviable Instagrams now.

In the meantime, Liz got divorced. Not a shock to anyone. Except to Danny. But a stable of Russian hookers and a steady supply of Ecstasy no doubt got him through it.