Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets and Advice for Living Your Best Life

by Ali Wong

We sat down on his bed, in his closet room, as he gave me an envelope. It must be a gift card to Cartier! Even better! He’s letting me choose between rose gold and white gold! But there was no gift card inside. Instead, there was a blank card with these instructions: “Write down all of your goals.” Then he had me recite them back to him. And after every goal I read out loud to him, he replied, “So it shall be.” Like a cheap-ass genie, he gave me homework for my birthday. I shook the envelope upside down to see if there was anything else inside. At the time I would’ve preferred a Burberry fanny pack, something I could actually feel in my hands and show off to people. I remember writing things like “I want to go to the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival,” “I want to heal my rosacea,” and “I want to make a living off of telling jokes.” Looking back, each one of those goals came true.