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Group Therapy: I Don't Want to Give Up on Us

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:00:00 -0700

My boyfriend and I have been together for two years and have been living together for most of that time. In the first eight months, we were rocky - we broke up twice for brief periods. He had some serious issues and a wall that I couldn't get passed. After we broke up the second time, we finally worked through his personal issues that were holding us back. We haven't had any serious problems since then.

We have gone through some spells where I doubted us, but they've always been temporary. But in the last few months I'm having more serious doubts; I just feel like we aren't going to make it. I really want us to, but it just seems like we keep growing apart. We have sex only three or four times a month. I know we both want to be happy, but we just keep butting heads. He loves me, and the majority of the time I end up being the bad guy in our disputes. I don't really respect him, and I'm not sure he's truly what I want. But I do love him. I want him to be the one I want. I want us to work it out. I just want things to go back to the way they were. Is this even possible? Any advice?

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To be involved in more GROUP THERAPY, click here]

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The How-To Lounge: Keeping in Touch With Old Friends

DearSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:00:00 -0700

Often, even if we have the best of intentions, life tends to get in the way of staying in touch with the people that we care about. It’s easy to put off a phone call for one week and watch it turn into four, until finally a year’s gone by without a single word exchanged. Before you know it, you’ve inadvertently lost a friend that you really cared about and enjoyed having in your life. To check out tips on avoiding this common problem, read more.

There’s no doubt about it, keeping in touch is hard work, but it should be worth it. If making the effort doesn’t seem worth it, then perhaps the person in mind isn’t really someone you want to remain friends with, in which case don’t bother. It sounds harsh, but you'll save yourself a big serving of guilt later on.
Once you’ve made the decision to make the effort, then it’s time to start following through. Schedule your calendar once a month to remind yourself to send an email or make a phone call. Make sure to note all the important dates that pertain to that person, too - their birthday, wedding, graduation, etc.
When your reminder goes off, it’s possible you won't have enough time to devote to a full catch-up call. If that’s the case, make the call a quick one and talk to your friend about setting up a phone date sometime soon. Everyone has time for a two-minute phone call to let the person know that they’re too busy to talk right then, and although a phone date might sound silly, it's a great way to make time without rescheduling your life.
If you haven’t called in a few months or forgot to call her back the last time she called, don’t let yourself continue to avoid calling out of guilt. It'll only make things worse, and of course, the more time that passes the more difficult it will be to pick up that phone.

It truly is invaluable to have people in your life that you’ve shared memories with and who've seen you grow into yourself, so make it work even it means planning ahead!

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Group Therapy: Should I Let My Best Friend Drift Away?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:00:00 -0700

I love my best friend. She's a great girl, and our friendship has brought tons of joy into our lives. However, we're at this stage in life where things are changing for both of us - I just graduated from college, and she's still in school. She has a serious boyfriend, and I'm very single. I understand that since we're not doing the exact same things anymore, its harder to get together, and I respect the fact that her boyfriend or classes will come before me a lot of the time. But lately I feel like she's been completely nonexistent. When we do try to get together, it's near impossible, and when I feel like I really need to talk to my best friend, I hesitate to call because I wonder if she'll really be listening.

I have a special event coming up where I expected her to be, and predictably, she's not going to be able to come. I'm really frustrated and totally hurt! Should I just let things be and watch our friendship grow apart or make more of an effort to be a part of her life?

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To be involved in more GROUP THERAPY, click here]

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You Asked: Are We Growing Apart?

DearSugar — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:00:00 -0800

Dear Sugar,

My boyfriend and I have been together for three years and he just doesn't seem to have any time for me anymore. He tells me everyday that he loves me, but I've only seen him twice over the past week. I feel like we are growing apart. I love him more than anything so can you tell me what I should do? Should I stay with him or let him go his way and I go mine? - At a Loss Laurie

To see Dear Sugar's answer read more

Dear At a Loss Laurie,

Feeling like you're growing apart from the man you love is a terrible feeling, but let's make sure you're not over reacting here. Having to juggle work, family, friends and a relationship can be incredibly difficult, especially when you're trying to please everyone. Has he been over loaded with work or preoccupied with anything lately? Have you only felt the distance this week or has this been an ongoing issue?

When you're together with someone for three years, the honeymoon period can feel like a distant memory, but you can get the romance back with a little effort from both of you. Try making a few date nights per week so you're guaranteed time together. Add some excitement back into your relationship - surprise him with a candle lit dinner or take him away for the weekend so you can reconnect.

If your female intuition is telling you you're growing apart despite his efforts of telling you he loves you, the only thing you can do is talk to him about your feelings. Ask him what you can do to get things back on track but don't give up without putting up a fight. I wish you luck and hopefully you're just having an off week.

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Growing Up, Growing Apart

DearSugar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:00:00 -0800

Most of us enter our first serious, long-term relationship in our 20s, and even if it doesn't lead us to the altar, it usually gets us thinking about marriage. And yet, whether it's personality and values or career and financial stability, our twenties are chock full with uncertainty - it's the time when we discover who we are and what we want from life. Because of these constant changes, often the person we believed was the one doesn't turn out to be.

With a little hindsight, it's easy to point out the ways in which you and your significant other have changed over the course of your relationship. Although it certainly takes a commitment on both sides, I do believe it's possible to grow together rather than apart. Do you agree? What's your advice when it comes to growing apart or together?

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You Asked: Should I Let Our Friendship Fade?

DearSugar — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:00:00 -0700

Dear Sugar,

In high school I had a best friend who I was really close with. In the beginning of college, I started getting interested in vegetarianism and yoga. She didn't understand at first, but then became a devout follower. Over the past few years I have eased up on my tight restrictions. I feel that I have found a good balance between living purely and enjoying the world humans have created.

My friend, however, has stayed at the radical end of things. I feel like she looks down on everything that doesn't fit her vision of acceptable. That is, until she goes through it herself. Last year she thought that I was a nonindependent woman for doing most of the household chores (because my boyfriend worked more and paid most of the bills). Now she is in the same situation and is fine with it. I saw her last week and told her about my boyfriend's great new job and all she had to say was "Doesn't it bother you that one of his clients is Nike since they use sweatshops?"

We have a long and precious history together, but I am starting to feel like I can't tell her anything without having judgment thrown against me. I feel like if I tried to explain my feelings to her, she wouldn't even understand since she is so far on that side of the fence. I feel like she is on such a high horse and is just following the crowd instead of making choices for herself. Should I try to keep the connection alive and risk judgment of my choices or should I let the old friendship fade?

-Less than Perfect but Perfectly Happy Harriet

To see Dear Sugar's answer read more

Dear Less than Perfect but Perfectly Happy Harriet,

It sounds like your friend is extremely opinionated. It's great that she holds onto her beliefs, but doesn't she see that they are getting in the way of your friendship? I know you're nervous to talk to her, but you've got to tell her how you feel if you want this friendship to last. Explain that you respect her views and you would appreciate that she respects yours as well. Tell her that you feel like she is always making you feel bad about your decisions and that you don't feel like she's being a very supportive friend. You never know, she may not even realize that's she's acting like such a judgmental friend.

The thing is, when you're in your early 20s, you go through a lot of changes trying to figure out who you're going to be. It may turn out that your differences are way too vast to make this relationship work. Losing a friend is never easy, especially when you have a tight history together, so you should at least give it one last shot before you let it fade completely out. Good luck.

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Talking New Moon With Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene

BuzzSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:15:50 -0800

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner may be dominating the promotional circuit right now, but they're not the only cast members with something to say about New Moon. I had the opportunity to chat with costars Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene, aka Emmett and Alice Cullen, during their recent stopover in SF. They chatted about their characters, the vampire craze, and what it's like to be a "Twilight celebrity." Here are highlights:

On why so many people are crazy for the Twilight Saga:
Ashley: I think this film in particular is highly relatable. There are a lot of situations that people can relate to. The love story - everyone can relate to being in love or being in lust. You add the vampire, and it adds that next level fantasy. Vampires are mysterious and sensual and dangerous and unattainable. And everyone wants what they can't have. I think on another level that this came together at the perfect time. All the elements just fit, the casting was spot on, and we're in a difficult time right now with our economy. That's why you never have a drop in ticket sales because everyone wants an escape, and this movie is very much an escape from reality.
Kellan: It's a good escape but also it deals with so many situations, on so many positive notes. Just looking at it from the vampire coven to the wolf pack. It just deals with everyday issues just on bigger levels, in a way. And you have Bella as the keystone in many situations. You can just all relate from different countries to issues within the United States. It's easily relatable.

To read a lot more about working with three different directors and why they feel so lucky, just read more.

On how their portrayals of the Cullens are similar or different from the books:
Kellan: We got the jobs because we brought something new to it. You can interpret the characters each their own, but I think it's what we did alongside. Just like Kristen said - she's playing Bella but she's putting her Kristen spin on it, just like all of us are. And I think that's what's making it unique. We're still following the cheat sheets that Stephenie created by making the books, and there's Wikipedia. We have a lot of information to go off of. But I hope it's what I did in my audition that set it apart from the other guys trying out.

Ashley: I think it's mannerisms too. People do fall in love with this book, but I think part of it is that they always want more. You can't write out every human mannerism. You can imagine it, but seeing the emotion in someone's eyes and seeing them be affected it - it was kind of easy to give something to it, because we were just being people. We kinda just got lucky.
On how much more of the Cullens we can expect in the remaining movies:
Kellan: Realistically, we stick pretty close to the books. Obviously us Cullens would love to be in the books a lot more, which would mean we'd be in the movies a lot more. Talking New Moon, the scenes that the Cullens - except for Ashley, playing Alice who gets to go to Italy and be a main lead in the movie - us Cullens, we have to stick really close to the books, and the scenes that we're in are really crucial to the story, as you know - the birthday scene, the voting scene. I don't know, it was kind of a tease. Chris Weitz is such an amazing director, and for us, for myself - I only worked about a week on that movie. And it didn't even seem like I really got a taste for what it was.

Ashley: In the third film, you'll see a lot more of the Cullens because it's all of us collaborating and then getting ready to fight this war that's coming up. In the second one, my character got a much larger role because Alice is the Cullen, other than Edward, that really embraces Bella and they end up becoming best friends. In the beginning, you see her throw this huge party for Bella, and then Alice is the one who does, in fact, come back for Bella when everyone else decides to skip town. Alice is responsible for dragging Bella over to Italy, and she and I the whole time are fighting to save my brother's life. And then of course we get held up by the Volturi and stuff like that. My character got to grow a lot, which is really cool. You get to actually see the relationship develop between Bella and Alice, where in the first one you didn't. The first one was very much about the romance and showing the audience why these two people are willing to die for each other.
On working with a different director on each film:
Ashley: Each director is going to be very different. They're artists as well, and I don't think any of them are quite the same. The books, when you read them, all have very, very, different tones. So I think it's highly appropriate that we switch directors each go. The first one is very much a romance and is a very scenic, beautiful film. And Catherine's really, really great at capturing that. She's very high energy and works well in chaos and stuff like that. And it was fantastic because we didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into, and so it was nice to have her to guide us when we were freaking out a little bit. She was just so high energy, and it was really contagious. We were sad to lose her and move on to the second film, but then we got Chris Weitz and he's the complete opposite! But great as well. He's so giving and caring and collaborative and created this atmosphere that was kind of a safe haven for us. And it was really nice because we didn't know, switching directors, if they were gonna embrace us or if they had a completely different vision than what we created in the first one. It was nice that he was right there on the same page with us. And the second one is a warmer film, even from the color scheme. The first one is very blue tones, and the second one is much richer and warmer and I think he did a great job at capturing that. And we just finished shooting with David Slade, and I think he's highly appropriate as well. He just finished shooting 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy, and they're both very dark, edgy films. And Eclipse is very much that. It's all centered around the anticipation and us getting ready to fight this huge war. We just finished filming, we haven't gotten to see much of it, but I think it's gonna be fantastic. He is, technically, the most advanced director. The angles that he shot and how he knows that tweaking something can affect a whole scene and the lenses. He was really nice to work with.
On coping with the fan effect and being a "Twilight celebrity"
Kellan: That's what blows my mind, 'cause I feel like it's really unearned in a way. The fans are making our careers. Without them, we wouldn't be working and doing the saga. There's so many times that trilogy books become a movie and the first one bombs, and then that's it. And you're always hopeful that you get to do them all. Especially since we're all in love with our characters. I love Emmett Cullen to death, he's my favorite character I've ever played. It's just so cool to have made it this far, and I think we all hope that we get to finish this series and do Breaking Dawn. This is such a blessing, it's every actor's dream to be part of something like this. It's not terribly hard either. We don't shoot halfway around the world; we don't shoot for a year of our lives. I know a lot of us have homes, we have pets, we have family. And it's really nice to shoot on the West Coast, either Portland or Vancouver, and have the chance to fly down if we need to. But it's definitely amazing to be part of something like this. And I don't think any of us knew how crazy it would be and how exhilarating it would turn out to be. Going to the premiere, really just, wow. I don't even remember it because I was really just starstruck by how many fans and signs and cameras. It felt like I was just walking through a strobe light room. It's amazing.

Ashley: I still think we can't really wrap our heads around what's going on and what's happening. We're still in the midst of filming and kept very busy from one film until the next. It's only these brief moments where you sit back and are actually able to take a breath where you go "Whoa. Wow. This is crazy." I mean, the amount of tickets they've already sold for New Moon - I'm pretty sure I can't even get a ticket if I tried to see my film in Jacksonville and it's mind boggling. We're just very lucky. I went into this film thinking "Oh my gosh, I got a job" and the it turned into the biggest break of my life. I think we all feel very blessed to be a part of this.
On how it feels to be part of Twilight fan fiction:
Kellan: It's an escape, in a way. We do live in a trivial time period right now. There's so much depression that it's kinda cool to be a part of something where people use it to be an escape. In a way that's kinda what Stephenie did -she had a dream and just elaborated on it. It became a huge success and it's really encouraging that people are doing the same and just making up this journey.

Ashley: That's why people love it so much I think. You can take it and make what you want of it. Before the demographic was teenage girls, but now it's women of every age and guys are starting to get into it, too. It's because there is that element of fantasy. If you're 8 years old you look at it one way; if you're 80 years old you look at it another. I think it's fantastic that we can draw such a huge crowd. The other thing is - it blows my mind but people are making connections over this film and over this book. there are mothers and daughters and grandmas who can all sit and talk about the same story and all fantasize about it and I think that's a really cool thing. I think it's rare.

To see all of our Twilight and New Moon coverage, check out TwilightSugar!

What to Download: New Music Today

BuzzSugar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:30:32 -0700

It's Tuesday, which means that not only is your Netflix queue getting a shot in the arm, so is your iPod: I've checked out today's new music releases and have some advice for you on what you should download today.

Hipster Halloween Party: I'm pretty shocked by how much I'm enjoying the self-titled debut album from Dead Man's Bones, AKA the band that Ryan Gosling is in. The "goth-folk" concept sounds too campy to work; Gosling and his bandmate Zach Shields have compiled an entire album of creepy-themed tracks, finding inspiration in zombies and werewolves. It sounds ridiculous, but their stroke of genius is adding the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children's Choir. As backup singers, the kids' voices are sweet and catchy, especially on Flowers Grow Out of My Grave. My other favorites are the charm-filled, retro-sounding My Body's a Zombie For You and Pa Pa Power, where Gosling's '50s-toned voice plays off the backing of the young voices.

Spill it: I was eagerly awaiting Built to Spill's latest album, There Is No Enemy, and I'm not disappointed; so far I like it more than their last effort from three years ago, You in Reverse. Enemy is more in the upbeat-yet-deep vein of 1999's Keep it Like a Secret (maybe my favorite BTS album). Lose yourself in Hindsight and Aisle 13, but if you're craving a lilting, classic BTS jam, cue up Things Fall Apart.

See one more release when you read more.

A girl and her guitar: Brandi Carlile hit the pop culture jackpot when songs from her last album The Story were featured on Grey's Anatomy several times. Now she's back with her third album, Give Up the Ghost, and her emotional folk will probably get her back on the show: Dreams ramps up from a slow ballad to heavy rocker, while That Year and Before it Breaks are worthy of a Mer-Der cryfest.

Woman Pregnant With Siblings, Not Twins

LilSugar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:30:54 -0700

Carrying two babies, but they aren't twins? A woman goes in for her routine first sonogram where doctors see a healthy baby girl growing in the womb. Moments later, doctors hear a second heartbeat belonging to a younger fetus. They soon discover that the woman is pregnant with two children, two weeks apart in age, making them siblings, not twins.

An Arkansas couple appears to have a very rare case of superfetation, which involves conceiving while already pregnant. Doctors have only found about 10 other similar cases in history. While gross differences in the conception dates of the babies can potentially cause lung development issues in the younger one, these babies appear to be healthy and growing at normal rates. The babies have different due dates, but will likely be born at the same time. This should make birthday party planning a bit easier for the parents, because if they were born on their actual due dates, one would be born in December 2009 and the other in January 2010. Would you treat the children as siblings or twins?

Ask Casa: Best Ways to Store Vinyl?

CasaSugar — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:00:39 -0700

Hi Casa,

I recently had the idea to start a record collection because I found some old vinyl albums that belonged to my parents and I live near a record store, and I also have a few CDs as well.

I was keeping one of my favorite vinyls in my bedroom but for some reason when I took it out of the cover it had cracked, now I'm wondering what is the best way to store vinyl records so this does not happen again as well as possible ways to store my CDs.

Do you have any design or organization tips? I've checked out Ikea or the Container Store but I don't want a bunch of separate containers scattered all over my room and I live with my parents so I can't just put a music collection in another room. Any ideas?

Thank you,
Peachy

To hear my suggestions for Peachy, read more.

Hi Peachy,

Between my husband and me, we probably have around 1,000 vinyl records at our house (at a minimum), so I understand your concerns! We used custom-made shelves that we bought inexpensively and stained (you can see them on the right side of this photo). Check out our other music storage solutions here.

Another great, inexpensive way to store records is by heading to Ikea and picking up some Expedit shelves. Record geeks note that each space holds 90-100 albums, so that should easily accommodate your needs (and the need to grow your collection).

I also love the solution that Gemma Ahern used in her apartment, which you can see in the top photo. She simply used a floating wall shelf from Ikea that she hung at a height about an inch above the height of a record, and then painted the shelf to blend in to the wall. This created instant storage, as well as space for books, a turntable, and sculptural objects.

As far as keeping your records in tip-top shape, always store them upright (not stacked) encased in the sleeve and a plastic or paper insert. Keep them out of direct sunlight, and if your record happens to warp, place it between two pieces of heavy glass, and lay it in mild sunshine for several hours, until the record lies flat.

Does anyone else have a brilliant storage solution? Tell Peachy about it in the comments!

Cheers,
Casa

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