Thanksgiving is almost here, and spending time with family can be the best — and worst — part of the holidays. Cramped quarters, conflicting personalities, and childhood baggage mean tensions can run high, especially when you don't have any time to yourself. But with a little creativity, you can find ways to squeeze in alone time, and avoid a meltdown. Here are a few:

• Offer to be the errand-runner: If you're craving a little time to yourself, speak up when your mom mentions she's out of sugar. Even a few minutes in the car blasting music (or just sitting in silence) can be enough to pull you back from the brink.
• Go for a walk: Can't take another second of togetherness around the fire? Suggest a brisk after-dinner walk. True, you usually can't get away with doing this one all by yourself, but even the most grating of family members can be more palatable outdoors in the crisp air. And if all else fails, walk fast.
• Put on your dishwashin' gloves: Offering to take on clean-up duty is a double whammy. You'll earn brownie points for pitching in, and since only so many helpful hands can tackle a sink of dishes, you'll get a little QT with just you and the suds.

Need more ideas? Keep reading.

Pop quiz: how many Facebook friends do you have right this second? OK, now question two: how many of them are actually friends or family members you're close to and interact with regularly? According to research performed in the '90s by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, that number should be somewhere around 150.

Dunbar has studied groups from ancient hunter-gatherers to GORE-TEX wet-suit factories, and in every situation, the number of meaningful relationships people are able to maintain maxes out between 100 and 200. And new research from Indiana University focused on Twitter followers reaches the same conclusion. The reason for this, Dunbar says, is that at 150 relationships, our brains stop being able to keep track, and we reach a saturation point.

The Dunbar Number isn't an exact science; the number definitely varies from group to group, and even from person to person. So, take a good look at your social network and tell me: what's your Dunbar Number?

A bride's bachelorette party isn't really just about one last drunken night of debauchery. Let's face it, if she's marrying the right guy, she'll have plenty of those on the horizon! A bachelorette bash is more about spending the kind of intensely girlie quality time with friends that it's hard to find the time or space for once she's happily hitched. So if you're planning a bachelorette party for a friend — or someone is planning one for you! — ditch the clichéd trip to Vegas and plan a truly memorable event that will allow for plenty of QT.

• Head to the beach: For a party that's all about location, location, location, take things beachside. What better venue for relaxing, working on your prewedding tan, and knocking back a cocktail or two than a warm, sandy beach? If you can round up enough girlfriends, forgo the often-skeevy beach motels and rent a house near the sand instead. Need more inspiration? Take a cue from this community member.
• Take it to the Ace: All of the Ace's hipster hotels are perfect for a weekend of relaxing — and partying — with your girls, but as one community member found out firsthand, the Ace Hotel Palm Springs is especially well-suited to a bachelorette weekend. Lounge by the pool, indulge in an adult sno-cone, and never even have to leave the premises.
• Wine country weekend: A trip to wine country can be almost as relaxing as one to the beach, but, you know, with wine. Rent a house or apartment for the weekend if you can to cut down on costs. Then stock up on a few of your favorite bottles as you're tasting during the day, and skip the pricey wine country dinner that night; instead, bring an assortment of cheese, charcuterie, and fruit back to your digs, and continue the tasting on your own.

More ideas, after the break!

Buzz just got ahold of the new trailer for I Don't Know How She Does It, a film adaptation of Allison Pearson's book by the same name, starring Sarah Jessica Parker. The movie's got a great cast (Christina Hendricks and Busy Philipps, to name a couple), and it looks pretty funny and heartwarming — almost what we'd imagine Carrie Bradshaw's life might be like a few years down the line from where we last left her, juggling a loving husband, small children, and a successful career.

SJP's character is frantic and harried, focusing on everyone else's needs above her own, and at one point the trailer asks, "How do you keep life together, without losing it?" But that got us thinking: maybe we should be asking a different question altogether. That is, not just if a woman can have it all, but whether that's even what she should strive for. The idea of a "superwoman" who can juggle an unbelievable number of responsibilities without dropping a single ball is unrealistic, and in some cases, maybe even unhealthy.

I haven't read the Pearson book the movie is based on, so this isn't a spoiler, but we certainly get the impression from the trailer that SJP's character really can't have it all, and will have to let something go in the end. And while that seems like a reasonable compromise to reach, I get the sense that we're supposed to feel regret and pity that she couldn't, actually, do it all.

What do you think? Is the idea of the woman who does it all actually a myth, perpetuating an unhealthy ideal? Or are plots like these simply acknowledging the reality of many women's lives in a funny and touching way?

Young adult novels are definitely not just for young adults; when we asked you which YA novel you'd read again, you had no shortage of suggestions. But what if, rather than staying frozen in time for you to nostalgically revisit, your favorite YA series grew up along with you? That's what the Sweet Valley High series is doing, and creator Francine Pascal tells the NY Times it's getting mixed reactions.

In Pascal's new series, Sweet Valley Confidential, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are now 27 years old (OK, so they're not exactly aging in real time), and have had a serious falling out. Plus — brace yourselves — they drink and have sex. And orgasms.

If you read the Sweet Valley High books as a teenager (which 88 percent of you say you did), you'll remember that although there were a few miniseries-within-the-series that got a little intense, the books and their plots were pretty tame. Arguments were petty, reconciliations were quick, and relationships were chaste. Even "bad" twin Jessica was basically just a snotty and self-centered teen. The new series is definitely a departure from that, but if the Wakefield twins are going to grow up, their plotlines have to grow along with them.

Are you interested in reading the series? Or would you rather stick to the original and leave well enough alone?

Kotex is continuing its quest for world menstruation domination: first it launched a series of witty and to-the-point tampon ads, then it announced a maxi pad design contest. Now it's launched a new line of "tween" products, targeted toward younger girls (obviously), which are smaller, thinner, and . . . sparklier.

Along with the sanitary bling, Kotex is also pushing a "Pick Your Day" message, encouraging moms to set a special date on the calendar to talk to their daughters about getting their period for the first time. According to a video on Kotex's site, one-third of girls get their first period before age 11, so the brand is suggesting that parents may need to tackle the issue sooner than they think.

Some of the suggestions are a little over the top — I think I would die if my mom scheduled a "spa day" with 10-year-old me to "talk about what it means to be a woman" — but the message overall actually seems extremely healthy. Rather than treat a girl's period as a secretive, embarrassing experience, Kotex is encouraging parents to educate their daughters, talk openly about it, and turn it into a special occasion worth celebrating.

What do you think? Is it about time we start educating girls earlier about an inevitable rite of passage, or is this just too much?

Last month, we learned that India and Afghanistan were both considering laws to limit the size and cost of weddings in an attempt to help alleviate debt and food waste. But according to The Guardian, the Afghan law would also mandate the creation of wedding committees, who would police ceremonies to make sure that brides are dressed modestly and men and women remain in separate rooms.

Afghanistan's wedding industry has been on the rise over the past few years, and elaborate, glittery, and sometimes low-cut wedding gowns — decidedly not in compliance with Islamic sharia, as the new law would require — are par for the course. So are big pre- and postwedding celebrations, like henna night, which would also be out under the proposed law, which bans the gathering of large groups in wedding halls for other types of ceremonies.

The original rationale behind the law was apparently to keep young grooms from being plunged into debt after throwing a lavish wedding, but the morality elements put a new spin on it entirely. What do you make of it?

Disney teen queen Selena Gomez was taken to task by Ellen DeGeneres today for downplaying her relationship with Justin Bieber back in September, when she referred to him as her "little brother." It's kind of a creepy comment in retrospect, now that we've been privy to plenty of dates and un-sibling-like PDA between the two, but it's no wonder Selena would want to keep her Bieber fever under wraps for as long as possible — hell hath no fury like a tween's scorn for her heartthrob's other woman. Or something like that.

Selena may be the most recent famous girlfriend to receive angsty death threats, but she's by no means the first; Justin Timberlake's three-year relationship with Britney Spears, Joe Jonas's recently kaput fling with Ashley Greene, and Robert Pattinson's not-officially-official romance with Kristen Stewart have all sparked some pretty intense reactions among their respective fan bases.

I can almost relate: at the risk of dating myself, I boycotted No Doubt for a good six months when Gavin Rossdale started dating Gwen Stefani (I'm over it now, thanks). I'm guessing most of us don't harbor any ill will toward 18-year-old Selena, but have you ever felt resentful of a heartthrob's real-life mate? Tell me about it in the comments!

If this ad has anything going for it, it's that its message is a little hard to grasp at first glance. But once you get past the convoluted floor plan and into the meaning, it's all downhill. My reaction went something like this: "OK, your son is watching Brokeback Mountain with a friend. The drink is strong so you can be . . . oh! Oh. Ugh."

Everything is open to interpretation, of course, but I don't think there's any other message to take away from this ad: "Think your son may be gay? Time for a strong drink." Unless maybe the son is supposed to be drinking in order to cope with his homophobic parents; that I might be able to get behind. The brand has a couple other, much more innocuous takes on the concept that manage to be funny without being bigoted — why not stick with those?

What do you make of this ad? Would it fly in the US?

Listen closely: that's the sound of male fantasies all over the country being shattered. Although the image of young, experimental coeds hooking up in dorm rooms is so popular it has its own name — LUG, or lesbian until graduation — a new study by the CDC all but debunks that stereotype.

The study, which looked at the sexual behavior and activities of over 13,000 15- to 44-year-olds, finds that college-educated women are actually the least likely to have had a same-sex experience; women without a high school diploma are the most likely.

But before we jump to the conclusion that same-sex coed encounters are a figment of overactive frat-boy imaginations, consider one more factor: the same study in 2002 showed that education had no impact on a woman's sexual experimentation. The difference in this year's study, in fact, is that more non-college-educated women are admitting to same-sex experiences, not that fewer undergrads are.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's going on here: Was the concept of LUGs overblown in the first place? Are non-college-educated women just becoming more comfortable with admitting to experimentation, as society becomes more accepting of it? Share your thoughts — and anecdotal evidence, if you have it — below.

You know what they say: if social networking makes you nervous, just picture your Facebook friends naked. Oh, they don't say that? Well, FalseFlesh, a downloadable "adult image editing software," sure does. The program — which basically seems to be a simplified version of Photoshop with a stockpile of nude images included — bills itself as being "like X-ray vision" and "ideal for social network website pictures."

If you're scratching your head as to why anyone would want to see their Facebook friends naked — or, more accurately, with his or her head creepily superimposed on an image of a naked body — you're not alone, and you're probably also not FalseFlesh's target demographic. My Facebook friends list is dominated by co-workers, college friends with babies, and family members (skeeved out yet?), but the site's "testimonials" reveal a different type of user. Take this star pupil, for example: "I’m an undergrad at UCLA, and last semester I had a professor for one of my psychology classes who was just gorgeous. Even though she was in her mid-thirties her body was just perfect . . . The results were even better than I expected." See, it even works for women in their 30s!

As Slate points out, FalseFlesh takes the concept of Facebook as the new porn and turns it into, well, actual porn. I think I'll limit my Facebook voyeurism to finding out what my high school frenemies are up to these days, or, you know, social networking.

You've read it a million times: an in-depth magazine piece about an actress that not only details what she said, what she wore, and what she's really like, but also what she ate during the interview, down to every savory detail. An article in The New York Times gives this phenomenon a name — documented instance of public eating, or DIPE — and wonders why exactly we're so obsessed with what (or whether) an actress eats.

The article surmises that we fixate on what our favorite celebs eat, especially if what they're eating is decadent or unhealthy, because it makes them human. I agree; hearing that Cameron Diaz can't resist a burger and fries or that Drew Barrymore chows down on mac and cheese in bed makes them, and by extension their lifestyles, seem more accessible. It does make me a little uneasy that this obsession seems to mostly involve actresses, and not their male counterparts, but it also doesn't surprise me.

Do you care about what an actress eats? What do you think the reason is behind our fixation?

After two weeks of dinners, happy hours, and parties with all types of couples this holiday, I started to notice some patterns. Every relationship, of course, is a complex and unique little creature. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most couples in my life — new and established, young and old, happy and troubled — can be lumped into at least one of a few distinct categories. Here are my completely untested, nonscientific findings:

• The PDA couple: Loves each other. A lot. And isn’t afraid to show it, whether the venue is appropriate for smooching or not.
• The "just pals" couple: Opposite of the PDA couple. So low-key about their relationship, you sometimes forget they’re romantically involved. With a little luck, your parents fall into this category.
• The bickerers: Seem to get into trivial arguments all the time — or at least whenever they’re in public. Whether they think it’s cute, or it just strains their relationship to be social, you may never know.
• The lopsided couple: Separate, and not so equal, either. One half of the couple clearly wears the pants in the relationship, and friends are subjected to frequent and uncomfortable power plays.
• The inspirational couple: It may be your grandparents, your aunt and uncle, or that couple you’ve known since high school, but everyone knows a pair who reinforces the fact that healthy, happy relationships do exist. When you spend time with this duo, take notes.

Anything I missed?

Source: Flickr user garryknight

If you've ever wondered who really comes first in your boyfriend's book, you or his mom, Maxim has the answer. In a co-branded survey with Hornitas tequila, the magazine found that although most men's New Year's resolutions are surprisingly practical (save more money, watch less Jersey Shore), their gift-giving tendencies are not. Almost half of the men surveyed said they planned to spend more than $350 on their girlfriends for Christmas (I guess New Year's resolutions don't start until the new year!), compared to $100 on their mothers' gifts. Maybe because girlfriends still need to be wooed, but moms have that whole unconditional love thing going on?

But don't worry, your boyfriend isn't expecting much in return: not surprisingly, the tequila-sponsored survey found that men want — you guessed it! — tequila for Christmas.

How much do you and your significant other typically spend on each other's Christmas gifts?

The holidays are a time for family, friends, and celebrating — and, of course, for family overload and awkward questions about your life.

At family gatherings over the next few months, you're bound to field questions about your love life, especially if you're showing up solo. You can't avoid them, so make like a Boy Scout and be prepared! If you're hit with the dreaded "How is it that you're still single?" question this year, here are a few (semi-serious) suggestions for how to handle it.

• Kill 'em with sarcasm: Take a page from Bridget Jones's playbook and respond with, "I suppose it doesn't help that underneath my clothes, my entire body is covered in scales."
• Turn the tables: Even if you don't necessarily want your Aunt Diane's dating advice, asking her for tips will take the focus off of you. And might even be interesting or useful!
• Use TMI to your advantage: If you're brave enough, getting into the gory details of your last messy breakup will definitely make the offender wish he'd never asked, and chances are, you won't get that question again this year.
• Play the sympathy card: Sigh wistfully, misting up if you're able, adding, "I was just wondering that exact. Same. Thing."
• If all else fails, be honest: If you don't have the energy for a snappy response this time around, try just being honest — you're focusing on work, you're enjoying being single and going out with friends, you haven't found the right person — whatever the case may be.

Anything to add?

Time to move New Zealand over to the "healthy attitude toward sex" category! According to a small but telling survey, plenty of Kiwi women are down with the idea of a brothel targeted toward servicing, rather than employing, the fairer sex.

The survey polled women on what they look for in a man, in addition to whether they'd pay to have sex with one, in preparation for next Summer's opening of — you guessed it! — the world's first male brothel for women in Auckland. The gist? Most women would hang out in the brothel's bar, and a quarter of them would actually enlist the brothel's services. Also, almost all New Zealand women love cologne, and even more of them hate beards and mustaches.

Would you hang out in a man-brothel for ladies? And would you drop $240 for sex with one of its hired hands?