Ali Wentworth, Actress/Author, GO ASK ALI and ALI IN WONDERLAND
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:22]I'm here today with Allie Wentworth.
[0:23]Allie is the author of the memoir and essay collections Allie in Wonderland and other
[0:28]tall tales, happily, Allie after and other fairly true tales, and go ask Allie half-baked
[0:32]advice and free lemonade.
[0:34]As an actress, Allie starred in films, Jerry McGuire, office space, the real blonde, and
[0:38]it's complicated, and in TV shows like Nightcap, which she wrote and starred in, and
[0:42]sketch comedy show in Living Color.
[0:44]A native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Barge, she currently lives in New York
[0:47]City with her husband, George Cefanopoulos, and their two daughters.
[0:51]So welcome, Allie, thanks so much for being on Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:54]So happy to be here.
[0:56]So you mentioned in one of your books that you have the best recipe ever for chocolate
[1:00]chip cookies.
[1:01]Before we do anything else, I have to know because I'm obsessed with baking chocolate chip
[1:06]cookies and eating them.
[1:07]Well, here's the thing.
[1:08]I haven't told anybody the recipe.
[1:10]And so my bestie, Mershba Hargite, who is obsessed with it, I won't give her the recipe
[1:15]because I don't want her to make it and then not need me.
[1:19]I like the need.
[1:20]And I also give it as Christmas presents, I give like eight frozen rolls.
[1:24]So if I gave you the recipe, I feel like it would hurt a lot of my female relationships.
[1:29]Yeah.
[1:30]So maybe I shouldn't start our relationship in this way.
[1:32]Well, no, I think that it's so good, I will.
[1:36]I will.
[1:37]Is there a secret ingredient or is it just the ratio of everything that makes the ratio
[1:41]of everything?
[1:42]Which I think is very important.
[1:44]I use more butter than more people and I use sea salt.
[1:47]There's a few things.
[1:48]Okay.
[1:49]A few tweaks.
[1:50]Yeah.
[1:51]I won't take such a role.
[1:52]I'll taste it and I'll get you addicted because there will be a lot that I only
[1:56]like.
[1:57]It's like a, it's like a meth addict.
[1:59]Yeah.
[2:00]Yeah.
[2:01]It's a similar thing.
[2:02]It's not hard to get me addicted to the chickpeas.
[2:03]No, I have my friends that are really, they get angry at me because they say they,
[2:07]I've given them 10 pounds, but I say you have no self-discipline.
[2:11]Yeah.
[2:12]Just because I give you the cookie dough doesn't mean you have to give this to you now.
[2:15]Don't eat it.
[2:16]Yeah.
[2:17]Exactly.
[2:18]You try and not do stressful work.
[2:19]You don't go for that in the freezer.
[2:20]Yes.
[2:21]But just if you need it there.
[2:22]Yes.
[2:23]Exactly.
[2:24]All right.
[2:25]Good to know.
[2:26]You have some really great one liners like don't underestimate the power of the gut when
[2:31]you were talking about marriages.
[2:33]Do not hire a hot babysitter.
[2:35]That's just a good one.
[2:36]That is to me a no brainer, but yet it happens all the time.
[2:39]Yeah.
[2:40]You don't discriminate.
[2:41]You know, they could be great babysitters.
[2:43]They could be great babe.
[2:44]But why, I mean, if you're on a diet, why do you go to a bakery?
[2:47]I think you're the one giving the cookie dough.
[2:48]Yeah.
[2:49]That's right.
[2:50]I'm plundered to myself.
[2:51]I love the knife.
[2:52]No.
[2:53]Particularly after you've given birth as I assume you have four times.
[2:57]Yeah.
[2:58]Three times.
[2:59]I have twins.
[3:00]Three times.
[3:01]You don't need that in your visual is my feeling.
[3:04]And the corollary, perhaps, is you never look as good naked as you think you do.
[3:09]That's true.
[3:10]I don't care what kind of lighting you have.
[3:13]So you started your career as an actress and still do acting.
[3:17]How did you morph into also being a writer of these fantastic funny books?
[3:22]I mean, I was writing what I lived in LA and I was acting.
[3:25]I was not the girl that would go to the gym.
[3:27]Like a lot of actresses that I was sort of growing up with in LA, they were when they weren't
[3:32]working, they were going to the gym or they were sort of physically fine-tuning themselves.
[3:37]I wasn't.
[3:38]But I was bored because work is sparse.
[3:41]So I started writing screenplays.
[3:43]And so that kept me busy.
[3:45]And I was actually making a living, doing that.
[3:49]And then when I married George Stephanopoulos and I moved to New York, I thought, well,
[3:55]how do I create a career where I'm not in Los Angeles where most of the shows were shooting
[4:02]at that time.
[4:03]But where I'm active creatively, but not leading.
[4:07]And so I started writing the books.
[4:09]And then when I had my little baby girls, I was writing while they went to school.
[4:15]And we mean, my rule was, as soon as they got in the school bus, I would work.
[4:18]And then as soon as they walked in at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I would stop writing.
[4:23]And that seemed like something I could do, whereas I don't have control on a set.
[4:27]I can't say, listen, I got to go home and make dinner.
[4:29]I don't care.
[4:30]We're tweaking lighting.
[4:31]You're able to tune the morning and you're going to sit in that freezing cold trailer until
[4:34]we tell you.
[4:35]So that was a lot of the reason.
[4:37]That's interesting.
[4:38]Yeah.
[4:39]I also love to write.
[4:40]And I feel like it's the one thing and podcasting.
[4:42]The one thing you can do, really, around your own schedule, is that you can control over
[4:46]it.
[4:47]I mean, I did, I was fortunate enough a couple of years ago.
[4:50]I created a show that I started and wrote called Nightcap and we did two seasons of that.
[4:55]And because I was the boss, we didn't start reduction until nine o'clock in the morning
[5:01]because I wanted the girls to go to school.
[5:03]And then we stopped by dinner time.
[5:05]And I mean, that never happens.
[5:07]Yeah.
[5:08]But what I realized was you can actually shoot a half hour comedy in that time.
[5:12]There's so much time wasted that if you know, like, these are the parameters to which
[5:17]we have to shoot, it actually works.
[5:20]But you know, that seems to be, I don't know why people don't follow that film for me
[5:24]or not.
[5:25]I really don't.
[5:26]I don't understand why, you know, my friends in LA who are shooting half hour comedies
[5:30]are, you know, they're told 11 o'clock at night and I go, why it's not, it doesn't get
[5:34]funnier than when you're.
[5:35]Maybe it does to that.
[5:37]I don't know.
[5:38]But anyway, so yes, it's all about controlling time.
[5:41]And do you have a preference screenplay versus, you know, essay memoir?
[5:45]I, I mean, I actually like writing the books because I like writing, you know, sort
[5:51]of my experiences in the first person.
[5:54]I have a tendency to, I can just go on and on in that arena as opposed to, you know, writing
[6:00]dialogue in a character.
[6:02]I find that a little bit harder because you have to kind of put on your acting hat too.
[6:05]Okay.
[6:06]And then I'm sort of acting it out and then I'm crazy.
[6:12]So I like doing the sort of narrative in my own voice.
[6:15]By the way, when I lived in LA, I used to live in LA, I lived off of Wonderland Avenue
[6:20]also.
[6:21]I did.
[6:22]Yeah.
[6:23]What's true?
[6:24]I, I mean, I actually lived on Wonderland.
[6:25]Oh my gosh.
[6:26]It was so creepy.
[6:27]Yeah.
[6:28]And so when I was reading what you were writing again, I was like, I mean, I was like afraid
[6:31]at night, every night until we left, I was like the creepiest neighborhood and the murders
[6:35]and everything.
[6:36]So I was relating to why you know, my landlord was Freddy Krueger.
[6:40]Yeah.
[6:41]So that mask was in the garage.
[6:42]I mean, you couldn't get creepier than that.
[6:44]And I was terrified the whole time.
[6:45]Oh my gosh.
[6:48]One of the funniest parts that I really identified with right now, given all the Instagram
[6:52]craze and everything was how you talked about your Instagram addiction.
[6:55]And you said this whole maddening scene where, you know, your friends are doing this and
[6:59]you thought you hadn't been invited and then you throw your phone away.
[7:01]And then you say, and you screamed it through the phone and you said, I hate Instagram
[7:05]only to hear a ping and then you dove under the bed digging for the phone like a pig for
[7:09]a white truffle.
[7:10]So how have you managed this addiction and also do you still look at your daughter's
[7:15]feeds?
[7:16]Do they still have feeds?
[7:17]You mentioned that in the back.
[7:18]Yes.
[7:19]So how do I manage this addiction?
[7:20]I'm still, I'm like a investigative reporter with this stuff.
[7:24]I'm still trying to figure it out because we didn't grow up with that.
[7:26]Right.
[7:27]So I'm always, and my kids have to teach me, I'm like, what do you mean?
[7:31]What's a fencedo?
[7:32]What is that?
[7:33]You know, are you getting dick pics?
[7:34]What's happening?
[7:35]You know, I just feel like it's the Wild West.
[7:37]And so I, I'm dealing with my addiction, meaning I realize now a lot of it is for work.
[7:45]You know what I mean?
[7:46]It's, it's all curated, I don't believe any of it.
[7:49]But I'm, I'm concerned for my daughters because there's so much self-worth that comes
[7:55]out of Instagram and there's so much, you know, FOMO and all that kind of stuff.
[8:01]So it's a big topic for me and my house.
[8:03]I feel like I am educating my children in a different way, like when they come home from
[8:08]school, like I can't help you with chemistry or math or pretty much every subject.
[8:13]But I can tell you that that girl who is wearing a bikini on a public account has a
[8:19]hole she's trying to fill.
[8:20]And you know, I do a lot of that because I just, I think it's a slippery slope, but I
[8:25]do a lot of work with the Child Mind Institute and we do these panels about social media.
[8:30]And it's, you know, it's really sort of terrifying what's going on and how polarized
[8:35]boys and girls are now because of what they look at and see.
[8:39]So yeah, I'm going to be like the normal ray of the social media for teens one day because
[8:45]I, I'm terrified of it.
[8:47]Yeah.
[8:48]Yeah.
[8:49]My daughter, I let her be on it a little bit last year and she's now 11.
[8:52]And then all of a sudden I was looking at her account and I saw like, her friend leaks
[8:55]had brought someone else to Jingle Ball and I was like, how could she have done that?
[8:58]Why didn't she invite my daughter?
[8:59]And I was like, you know what?
[9:00]I'm getting off here.
[9:01]We're unfollowing these people.
[9:02]I can't even take it.
[9:03]I can't take this chance of it.
[9:04]I know.
[9:05]It's like, it just digs at the very root of all our insecurities that it does.
[9:11]And my daughter, she does like a deep dive sometime in the Instagram and then she knows
[9:17]too much.
[9:18]You know what I mean?
[9:19]I'm like, how do you know that?
[9:20]And she's like, I'm just telling you that, you know, Kim Kardashian is not, you know,
[9:24]oh my God, you're what a time-laster.
[9:26]Why are you doing that?
[9:27]I care about these people, you know, so it's, it's a little crazy.
[9:32]But Child Mind Institute, so I'm on the board there.
[9:34]I've seen you moderate the lunches every year and you're so great and funny and the dinners
[9:38]and everything.
[9:39]How did you get involved in Harold Couplets or rope you in or did you?
[9:42]Well, he does eventually, but I and also Child Mind is a research and treatment center for
[9:49]children's mental health disorders for anyone who's listening, he doesn't know.
[9:51]Yes.
[9:52]And it's fantastic.
[9:53]Amazing.
[9:54]So I have a very close friend in LA who sort of runs a philanthropy.
[10:00]for the creative artists agency.
[10:01]And so she works with Harold all the time.
[10:03]And when I was moving to New York, she said,
[10:05]you should, you know, this is in your wheelhouse,
[10:07]you should talk to Harold.
[10:08]And so I kind of put my toe in the pool
[10:12]and then Harold pulled me right in.
[10:14]It's encouraged me.
[10:15]But I'm there because I believe in the work that they do.
[10:18]And I have been very fortunate at times
[10:20]to have friends whose kids were in crisis.
[10:23]And I was able to call Harold and get them in
[10:25]and have seen amazing results.
[10:27]And I have a daughter with both daughters having anxiety.
[10:30]So I feel like at this point in my life,
[10:32]I feel like any kid that doesn't have anxiety,
[10:34]there's something wrong with them
[10:36]because it's an anxiety making world in general.
[10:39]So yeah.
[10:40]And I love doing those panels
[10:41]because I sort of think that if it's too dry,
[10:44]if it's just some doctors talking about it,
[10:47]it's you don't take it in as much.
[10:49]And as just a mom,
[10:50]I try to be that relatable person
[10:53]and sort of make it engaging in a way that,
[10:55]because I know I tune out.
[10:57]If it was like a TED talk on, you know,
[10:59]children and teenage anxiety disorders, I'd fall asleep.
[11:03]So it's more about entertaining myself.
[11:05]But if it entertains other people, it's great too.
[11:08]It definitely, it entertains me every day.
[11:09]No, no, that's right.
[11:10]My friends always want to come back.
[11:12]In the book you said you wanted to name your child Zoloft.
[11:15]I thought that was so funny.
[11:16]You have so many great lines like that.
[11:18]Thank you.
[11:18]You're so funny.
[11:19]And speaking of lunches,
[11:20]you have a whole section about the importance of ladies lunches.
[11:23]Not the ones like your mom or my mom probably used to have.
[11:26]But sort of where you, you know,
[11:27]as you were saying, dive deep into issues.
[11:29]And you said, I don't do chitchat.
[11:30]I don't care where someone bought her suede boots
[11:32]or what day of the cleanse she's on.
[11:34]I want us to speak honestly about the realities
[11:36]of being women, mothers and wives.
[11:38]I want to know if you wake up covered in sweat
[11:40]can have an orgasm without equipment
[11:41]or it convinced you have an undiagnosed infectious disease.
[11:45]So tell me about your relationship with your girlfriends.
[11:47]How has this been so helpful?
[11:49]How often are you going to these lunches?
[11:51]It's like weekly or not.
[11:53]It's not like a set time.
[11:54]Because, you know, everybody's working and has kids.
[11:57]And, you know, we sort of figure out like,
[11:59]what's everyone's first week in March like, right?
[12:02]But I found that over the years,
[12:04]I have gotten my best information
[12:07]from my girlfriends more than anybody else.
[12:09]Yeah.
[12:10]And information like, I have a friend Tracy
[12:13]who's like a doctor.
[12:14]You know, she's an actress, but she's a doctor.
[12:16]I go to her with all my, like,
[12:18]my daughter needs surgery for this.
[12:20]Well, you got to talk to this person that, you know,
[12:22]she knows everything about that.
[12:23]And besides that kind of information,
[12:26]if I'm sitting around with my sort of six girlfriends,
[12:30]there's no chitchat.
[12:31]We somebody cries at all times.
[12:33]Like, there's somebody, there's something going on.
[12:35]Somebody's having a problem with a toxic person at work
[12:38]and we talk about that.
[12:40]Somebody's having a marriage issue.
[12:42]Somebody, you know, so there's big things to tackle.
[12:44]And we sort of feel like we're not interested
[12:47]in getting together and talking about like, you know,
[12:50]does that kill thing work for you?
[12:52]It's, we go deep very quickly.
[12:54]And I think it resolved stuff.
[12:56]And there's also a sense of comfort.
[12:58]And one of the other things I say about in my book is,
[13:01]it was a huge relief for me to realize
[13:03]that my husband didn't have to be my best friend.
[13:06]There's a lot of pressure.
[13:07]I think women think like the perfect marriages.
[13:10]Oh, we're best for like we do everything together.
[13:12]My, no, no, I mean, George, I love George
[13:16]and all the important fundamental things we share.
[13:19]But he's not going to sort of chew on a marital issue
[13:24]with me that belongs to somebody else for an hour.
[13:26]He doesn't care enough, you know what I mean?
[13:28]And I was using an example that if I said,
[13:30]oh my God, I just found out that Lucy
[13:34]and her husband are getting divorced,
[13:35]George would go, oh my God, that's so sad.
[13:37]And move on.
[13:38]I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[13:40]I want to know why what happened is it can happen to me.
[13:43]You know, it's, I need to chew on it.
[13:44]And my female friends will.
[13:47]And they'll also just go deep on a lot of things
[13:49]I think husbands are like,
[13:50]there's such problem solvers that they're feeling as like,
[13:54]oh, well, if this is happening, this is what you should do.
[13:56]And my feeling is like, no, we need to,
[13:58]as my mother would say, shake it out and lay it down.
[14:01]Like we have to really like look at the whole thing
[14:04]and then be okay with it.
[14:06]So, so is this part of the secret.
[14:08]And you said your dirty secret is that you have
[14:10]a really happy marriage.
[14:11]And that's like, not really unvogue anymore.
[14:14]Yeah, that's a high day.
[14:15]Well, that's sort of what was a revelation to me
[14:18]that made it my marriage better,
[14:20]was that I didn't put all the pressure on him
[14:23]to like be that best friend.
[14:25]Like, you know, he just, like I said,
[14:27]he's not gonna go 45 minutes into why we see
[14:30]he's getting divorced.
[14:31]My girlfriend's well.
[14:32]And so if I know I can go to them and go,
[14:34]I don't understand is that scary.
[14:35]Like, why are they gonna divorce and not us?
[14:37]And he was having a fair on how did she not know.
[14:39]And I can do that with them.
[14:41]Right.
[14:42]And I won't instead then get mad at my husband and go,
[14:44]like, I want to talk about this.
[14:45]Why would I, you don't have time for me?
[14:47]I know.
[14:48]It sort of goes off the rails that way.
[14:50]It's funny that the thing with marriage is
[14:53]that there was a while where people were really
[14:56]bitching about their marriages a lot.
[14:57]And I had really nothing to complain about.
[15:00]And then I started to feel like,
[15:02]well, I have nothing to say.
[15:03]And so I'm somebody that likes to talk.
[15:05]So when I'm at sort of social situations
[15:07]and everybody's complaining about their husband
[15:09]and I have nothing to say, you know,
[15:11]I need to maybe I need to come up with something.
[15:14]And anyway, I started to feel like I noticed
[15:16]that we started hanging out, you know,
[15:19]you start hanging out with other couples
[15:21]that are happily married or, you know,
[15:23]because it sort of reinforces everything,
[15:26]but also it's like we just have a lot more common.
[15:29]And I did notice too that I have friends
[15:31]that have very sort of complicated marriages
[15:34]that end up hanging out with other people
[15:36]that have very complicated marriage.
[15:38]You know what I mean?
[15:39]The unhappy seek out the unhappy
[15:40]or the unfaithful seek out the unfaithful.
[15:42]And so then I just made a joke about how we meet
[15:46]at Polish restaurant to meet late at night
[15:48]with other happily married couples
[15:49]because we don't want to get caught.
[15:52]It's so true.
[15:52]I'm divorced and remarried.
[15:53]And I feel like my friends from my first marriage
[15:56]are now so different in part because, you know,
[15:58]I feel like a few friends felt like I was abandoning them
[16:01]by actually like getting divorced.
[16:02]Right.
[16:03]I mean, like I'm like, well, anyway, that's enough of that.
[16:06]But you know, friends are happy
[16:09]and you made yourself happy.
[16:10]And so anyway, another part that I really liked
[16:14]in your book, which I felt like was a fast for it
[16:17]into where I'm going to be at my own life
[16:18]and a couple, not that soon
[16:20]because my little list is still for.
[16:21]But at some point, the moment when you are sort of
[16:24]at your beach house and the kitchen and debating
[16:26]is it too depressing to go to a farm stand now
[16:28]and by one ear of corn because your girls were away
[16:31]and your husband was working and you were alone in the house
[16:33]and you said you were on the other side of life
[16:35]and scrambling to find purpose.
[16:37]She said when I was young, time was irrelevant.
[16:39]Summer is we're endless and the possibilities are infinite.
[16:41]But now standing in my kitchen in a still house,
[16:44]wondering if it's too depressing to go to the farm stand
[16:46]and by one ear of corn, I realized that this is it.
[16:49]Well, it's so sad.
[16:50]I wrote that.
[16:50]I know.
[16:51]Yes. Well, I will say I have friends
[16:54]who are empty nesters now and they're sort of scrambling
[16:58]and sort of freaking out and what am I going to do
[17:00]and who am I?
[17:01]And oh my God, I'm alone with my husband, right?
[17:04]I mean, my girls are in a great intent grade,
[17:07]but you know, I see it, I see it,
[17:10]but I'm already dealing with that emotionally.
[17:12]I'm preparing myself so that that
[17:14]and how I'm preparing is I have kept kind of a steady
[17:19]profession going, but you know, I will probably delve more
[17:23]into work when they're out of the house
[17:25]because I think women need to.
[17:27]I think you need to have these other things.
[17:29]And I think I'm going to be the mother that demands
[17:32]everybody home for Thanksgiving and Christmas
[17:34]and I don't care, bring your boyfriend.
[17:35]Like I know I'll be that person.
[17:37]My mother's like that.
[17:39]Like we're all going out to San Francisco
[17:41]for my brother's birthday soon, all of it.
[17:43]You know, I think that if you are a mother
[17:45]that sort of dictates how important family is
[17:48]and we will get together no matter what,
[17:51]no matter how old you are, then you know,
[17:53]it kind of that lives on.
[17:56]But there is, you know, there I am very
[17:59]was full about when we were painting rocks
[18:02]and on the beat, you know, those were great times.
[18:04]Those were just days that, you know, went on forever
[18:08]where you're just at the beach
[18:09]and you realize, oh, it's, you know,
[18:10]the sunset and you'll go home
[18:12]and have chicken finger to head.
[18:14]Those were, to me, those were the best of times.
[18:17]I mean, a lot of them would say,
[18:18]oh my God, that's the worst kids crying.
[18:20]I love that period.
[18:22]I really did.
[18:23]I feel like even looking back on my own life,
[18:25]that was my favorite period.
[18:27]It's like when I was a little girl on the beat
[18:29]to outdoor showers and, you know, that whole thing.
[18:31]We were in Cape Cod every summer
[18:34]and I remember feeling like the days they just were endless
[18:37]and I would just lay on a porch, you know,
[18:40]and maybe I had a tennis lesson
[18:42]or you went to the beach, but, you know,
[18:44]those were your big words.
[18:45]My only distraction was a snoopie tennis.
[18:47]Do you remember that little game snoopie tennis?
[18:48]It was like on that little thing with the batteries.
[18:50]Yeah, yeah.
[18:51]Anyway, I feel like it was like the beach
[18:53]and snoopie tennis in the books
[18:54]and that was like my summer.
[18:55]Yeah.
[18:56]And also we didn't have a TV,
[18:57]like my mother didn't have the TV in the summer.
[18:59]So we really were, it was like outside
[19:02]with the stick and a rock and figure it out.
[19:03]So, yeah.
[19:04]I made this rule a while ago,
[19:06]which now I've basically given up now that I have four kids
[19:08]but I used to have this rule
[19:10]or we could only watch TV if it was raining.
[19:12]They feel like if it's raining, fine.
[19:13]Like go enjoy it.
[19:14]But on a pretty day.
[19:16]That's good.
[19:16]That's a good role.
[19:17]What if it's kind of sprinkling?
[19:18]Well, then we got into this whole gray territory
[19:20]and, you know, then it didn't rain for a while
[19:22]or it was freaking out.
[19:23]Right.
[19:24]I found when I was young,
[19:26]my mother only allowed us one hour television a week
[19:30]and I found when I got older
[19:33]that I wanted television so badly
[19:35]because I didn't have it.
[19:37]And now, even when I'm home cooking,
[19:39]I've turned the TV on because I can.
[19:41]Right.
[19:42]And I sort of equated a little bit with,
[19:44]when my kids were a little,
[19:45]the friends that weren't allowed sugar
[19:47]and they come over and they'd be in my pantry
[19:49]like choking on marshmallows.
[19:50]Yes.
[19:51]So with my kids,
[19:52]I'm like, you can watch TV.
[19:53]You know, if you're down with your homework,
[19:54]you can watch TV because I just know I became,
[19:57]so yeah, all I wanted was TV.
[19:59]Go to a friend's house and wait.
[20:00]TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, so I don't want them to be like that, even though they're going to be
[20:04]watching it on their phones or they'll have like a chip in their head by the time they have kids.
[20:09]But I found that any time you should have taken away too much, they want too much.
[20:13]Yeah. I interviewed this man Gary John Bishop and he has kids and he's sort of a self-help
[20:18]guru and he was saying everything you do in parenting is direct reaction to how you were
[20:23]parented yourself. I think that's right. That's like either you do it exactly the same or
[20:27]completely the opposite, but nothing is just random. You know, it's always some sort of response.
[20:31]I totally agree. I feel like I do that. I'm a little too lenient with sugar because I feel like
[20:36]that was really restricted in my house and with my kids. I'm like, oh, let's make brownies again.
[20:40]Yeah. They were doing some like make pretend thing about like, oh, let's pretend
[20:43]Ramami and they're like, here, would you like a brownie? I was like, all right, maybe I took this too far.
[20:47]Oh my God, I hope like they never attacked that mommy. But yes, yeah, but you know, I do. I think that's
[20:52]true too. I mean, the reaction is, I mean, we force, you know, George's father was a priest
[20:59]and so that their meals were not always together because he was always the church and my mother
[21:04]was working in the White House and she wasn't around a lot for dinner. So we have family dinner
[21:09]every single night. You know, George and I won't go out during the week unless it's really
[21:14]important. Like really have to have to not should have to. And I think that's also a reaction.
[21:20]Like we had these sort of ideas of one day when I get married, I'm a family dinner.
[21:26]We're sitting around and do roses and thorns and we're going to, you know, and so yes, I think,
[21:30]and then of course you try to throw away the stuff that wasn't so great about your life.
[21:34]Like I don't think anybody. Right. What do we go into that? That could be like a whole
[21:38]another hour of course. One of the funny things your mom says speaking of like parents is,
[21:43]you know, her advice to always go to the four seasons. Yeah, basically. Can you tell the story about,
[21:47]I mean, this isn't even so funny. But on 9-11, how what happened with the? Yeah, so she has
[21:52]this thing about, you know, in a crisis, go to the four seasons. Like if you're mugged,
[21:58]just go to the four seasons. So it's really ingrained in me. And every once in a while,
[22:04]somebody will say to me, well, actually really it makes sense. So it was 9-11. George and I
[22:11]were engaged. We weren't married yet. And I was in New York. And 9-11 happened. George was at ABC
[22:18]news. Nobody could call like, I don't know if you remember, but like, something was working,
[22:22]except of course my mother was able to get through to me because she's so formidable that
[22:27]self-emotional thought for her. She was like, what's going on? I said, I don't know. There's,
[22:31]you know, the terrorist attack. And my mother said, go to the four seasons. And I said, okay.
[22:36]And finally, George had made his way back to the apartment. And I said, we have to do the
[22:40]four seasons. Now we were on West 86th Street. And he was like, what? I said, we're going to do
[22:45]the four seasons. He said, that we're going down towards grounds here. We're not going to midtown
[22:50]Manhattan. I said, pack your bag. Why the four seasons? My mother is going to the four seasons.
[22:56]And of course, nobody's there. And we're sitting, we're sort of sitting around. He's
[23:00]dealing with new stuff. And he was like, I don't understand why we're here. I said, we're here
[23:04]because if it's the end of the world, at least we can watch it with room service. And he still
[23:09]makes fun of me because, you know, we were not even married yet. So we were at the point where
[23:13]he did what I said. But it's funny. But my mother will still, she'll still say that. I mean,
[23:18]if I call her right now and I said, oh, my God, it turns out I have the flu and pneumonia. She'd
[23:23]say go to the porsie. And I go. And it would be very costly.
[23:27]So do you with slightly older kids, eighth and 10th grade, my older ones are in fifth grade,
[23:32]do you have any sort of New York City parenting advice through isms, things you've learned that
[23:38]maybe if you were in my seat over here, you might have wished you'd known that deals with
[23:43]New York City. It doesn't have to. But I just felt like in a, you know, in several years, I'll be
[23:49]I would say watch and educate the social media world. I think that's really important because,
[23:54]I mean, I see how it affects my kids, but I see it with others. And I'm talking about girls being
[24:01]sexualized. And I'm talking about boys who feel they can to judge girls. I remember one boy on my
[24:09]daughter's Instagram wrote, you'd be cute if you have boobs in that really. And the fact on her,
[24:14]they start to think the likes are, you know, important and they do get addicted. I mean,
[24:19]you do have to set rules. You do have to say there's no phones at dinner and there's no phone
[24:23]so you can use your homework. And, you know, it's dopamine. It's the same as when you play the slots
[24:27]in Vegas. The other thing is, even with that, I noticed that my older daughter, she doesn't feel
[24:33]like she has to go out with her friends on a Saturday night because she feels like she's connected to
[24:37]them with social media. And we encourage her to go to movies, you know, socialize, make eye contact,
[24:46]have empathy. Like all the things you're losing. So that to me is the biggest thing to look at.
[24:51]And I think especially with teens because the suicide rate is much higher now because of it.
[24:56]I would also encourage you to be very talkative with your kids. I find that the parents that
[25:03]don't have a great communication with their kids, their kids are the ones sort of off
[25:08]dueling and vaping and, you know, doing all kinds of stuff. Whereas my kids,
[25:13]I made myself very available and I didn't judge them. And I've always said to them, I'm the mom,
[25:19]like, you know, your best friends drunk and throwing up all over you, please call me. And I think
[25:23]those conversations are really, really important. And because, you know, New York is fast.
[25:30]It's a fast city. And they see a lot and they experience a lot. And sometimes they don't
[25:37]really know what's going on and what they're experiencing. And so if you can be that person,
[25:42]I also am, I really believe in sort of showing your kids charity that isn't going to a black
[25:49]tie ball. So I took my kids to Puerto Rico. I took my daughter to Barundi Africa last summer. I
[25:55]think the more they can see it, the soup kitchen, the, you know, anything because I think that private
[26:01]school sort of upper east side kids, they see charity. They do. They think it's, it's a, a ball,
[26:08]you know what I mean? Like bone marrow, dala is, it's about Kesha singing. Like, there's a huge
[26:15]disconnect. And so I sort of believe in getting our children's hands dirty a little bit. And,
[26:20]you know, the money stuff is always a big thing. I mean, you know, we're not good at it. But we're
[26:25]trying to kind of, this is your allowance. And that's it. And you figure it out. There's not an endless
[26:31]supply of money. If you go into the movies tonight, then I guess you can't get that mascara later
[26:36]in the month. Because there's this feeling, particularly in this environment that like you can just
[26:43]do and have anything you want anytime you want. So I, we kind of pushed against that a little bit.
[26:48]And the greatest thing was my husband just renewed his contract at ABC and it was in the papers
[26:54]and everything. And then, you know, which is always gross, you know, want people to, but my daughter
[26:59]was like, oh my God, I saw, you know, the New York Post, you know, oh my God, Daddy, that's so
[27:04]great. You're making so much money. He goes, oh, no, no, we're gonna mom and I are spending it now.
[27:09]So when you're out of college, you're going to be poor because we're, you know, we live on salary
[27:14]and we're going to spend it. So you need to figure out what you're going to do. And you know,
[27:17]she was like, her face turned into a freak out. But you know, you do. There is that entitlement
[27:23]thing that we're constantly battling, I guess. So we're trying to instill them now like, no,
[27:28]you need to go work and figure out what your life is going to look like. Because yeah, we did.
[27:34]Yeah. So that was great. Those were a lot of great. Thank you.
[27:38]You're pretty good. Yeah. Look at me. So are you going to be writing more books? Like, what
[27:44]do you have coming up next? Do you want to do more screenplays? I was, you know, I always say
[27:49]my career was like, you throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall. So I'm going to write another book.
[27:53]I'm going to, I think, write a humor book called, how to grow a teenager. That's fine.
[27:59]Then I'm talking to Audible about doing a podcast.
[28:03]Awesome. Exactly. You can do. And then there's a couple TV projects I'm working on. But as,
[28:08]as a producer, because, you know, staying at home, I can't still lately.
[28:12]Yeah, as soon as they're gone. It's all about me all the time. But yeah, so there's like,
[28:17]all lots of different stuff going on on the writing front last question. Do you have any advice
[28:21]to aspiring writers? Yes, I do. You know, there's like this cliche line that is the actors in the
[28:28]doing. And so many times I found myself guilty of it. I would say, oh, you know, I want to
[28:33]want to write a movie about this or I want to write a book about this or I hear people say,
[28:37]like, I would love to write a book about this woman and her husband and they go to Africa and
[28:41]he gets killed and it's just thing, you know, and I go, well, then write it. And my feeling is just
[28:46]write it, write it and don't judge yourself. I think too many people write a paragraph and they go,
[28:52]oh, my God, this is terrible. And they turn it off and they watch Netflix and they can't go back.
[28:56]And I always say, vomit it out. Just just write it out. It can be complete garbage and you go
[29:03]back and fine tune and fine tune. And I found that really frame for myself because I could just,
[29:08]all right, I'm going to write, I'm going to write a chapter about how I did this podcast with my friend
[29:13]and on Park Avenue. And then I just write it out, write it out. I don't care if it's terrible.
[29:17]There's all kinds of spelling mistakes. And then I go back and I edit and edit. And then before
[29:21]you know, it's actually not bad. But the writing is not going to done until you literally have your
[29:26]coffee, sit your house in the chair and just do it. Yeah, to do it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like sometimes
[29:31]I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a non-practicing writer. Yeah. But when I don't do it, no, no, I don't.
[29:36]But that's great advice. Thank you so much for coming out.
[29:41]This episode has been brought to you by Boombox Gifts. Memory boxes filled with personal
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[29:51]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books.