Carrie, Sam, and the Underexamined Grief of Losing a Best Friend
Watching her drift through grief, only to then, in time, reignite her romance with the possessive Aidan, I couldn't help but notice the more glaring absence: Samantha. For me, the loss that lingers isn't the husband whose ashes she sprinkled over the Seine, it's the best friend who's no longer by her side.
One of the low-key radical elements of the original Sex and the City was its depiction of friendship as a kind of romantic destiny all on its own. It was always the four characters first, then the men. We've been conditioned to chase the dramatic highs and painful lows of romantic love, but maybe the relationships that truly define us unfold more quietly. Not in grand gestures, but in the steady, sustaining solace of friendship.
Last year, I lost someone who wasn't a romantic partner, but who nonetheless shaped my life and the person I am today. Katie was my first great love. From the moment I met her at the start of secondary school, I was in awe. She was brilliant, mischievous, funny. I was awkward, lacking in confidence and direction. But she made me feel interesting—worthy of attention and friendship. Ours would continue for the next three decades.
At 18 we backpacked through Italy together. This was the pre-smartphone era: no Google Maps, no Netflix. For entertainment we had one terrible book stolen from a pub and a single mixtape. We lived in one another's pockets for six months, all while listening to Barry White, Jurassic 5, and The Smiths on repeat. Somewhat miraculously, looking back, there were no arguments or drama. We were young, but we knew each other's needs, as well as the limits that only real friendship teaches. It was our coming of age story, our Goonies adventure.
When we went to different universities, my monthly phone bill soared past £100. I struggled with the separation, even after meeting my now husband—a man I love unconditionally—in my first year. It was Katie's emotional presence that carried me through those formative years. Later, when I moved to Dubai, the different time zones and our respective chaotic schedules meant we spoke less and knew less of the minutiae of each other's lives, but the distance was only ever physical. A bit like Samantha's occasional texts to Carrie in AJLT, a message or voicenote from Katie calmed me like nothing else could. So often, it felt like she was the only person who truly understood how I was feeling.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Android Authority
2 hours ago
- Android Authority
I've been a Spotify user since 2008, and these are the 5 tricks everyone should know
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority I received my invite to join Spotify back in November of 2008 — yes, back then, you couldn't sign up by yourself; another user had to invite you with a personalized link first. I created an account, used my free trial, and finally had access to the world's largest music streaming platform. For the first few years, though, I kept switching between Spotify and my personal music collection, canceling and restarting my subscription, until Spotify won, and it was game over for my local music library. Since then, I've tried to make the most of my subscription. If I'm paying 17 Euros or so for Spotify Duo (despite having access to YouTube Music with my YouTube Premium subscription), I have to ensure I'm getting my money's worth. So I've accumulated a list of tricks and tips that improve my Spotify experience. I'll share the first big five with you here, but there are more obscure tricks coming in another article. Avoid what you don't want to hear on Spotify The best part about Spotify is its recommendation algorithm. The worst part is also its recommendation algorithm. There are songs I don't want to hear, artists I don't like, and random music I don't enjoy. Luckily, Spotify has settings to avoid most of these. Here's what you can do. Hide a song in a playlist Rita El Khoury / Android Authority When playing songs from a playlist you didn't make yourself (either one by another user or an automated playlist like Discover Weekly or Release Radar), you can hide songs in that playlist that you don't want to listen to. Just tap on the three dots ⋮ next to a song and choose Hide in this playlist. If I really don't want to hear that song again, I can also select Don't suggest this song anywhere for 30 days, which will hide it in other playlists, too. Completely block an artist Rita El Khoury / Android Authority If there's a particular artist that Spotify likes suggesting to you because you heard one song from them a million years ago and the algorithm somehow thinks you love them, or because they're similar to many artists you enjoy on paper but they don't really hit your sweet spot, you can also completely block them. Go to the artist page, tap the three dots ⋮ next to the Follow button, and choose Don't play this artist. This will stop any of their music from appearing in recommendations and radio stations, and will force Spotify to skip them in any pre-existing playlists. Turn on or off Smart Shuffle Smart Shuffle on Playlist + recommended songs under Smart Shuffle Enable/Disable Smart Shuffle There are times when I'm open to hearing what Spotify's algorithm suggests and times when I only want to play the songs I've curated. One easy way to quickly do that is to tap the shuffle button repeatedly until it switches to a starry shuffle icon, which is Smart Shuffle. With it on, Spotify will fill up the current queue with similar songs that it thinks I'll enjoy, and when I switch back to a regular shuffle, it just plays the current playlist or artist. If you dislike Smart Shuffle and never want the option to show up, you can turn it off under Settings and privacy > Playback > Include Smart Shuffle in play modes. Listen without messing up your recommendations Contrary to the first point, there are times when I do want to listen to random things on Spotify without them messing with my algorithm and recommendations. Like that week when I fostered a frightful dog and played relaxing dog music playlists for her, which would calm her down but also caused Spotify to suggest dog music for me for months to come. Or that one time I listened to a Nickelback song and kept seeing their music pop up in all my playlists. Luckily, I learned my lesson and started using the following two tricks to avoid this. Exclude a playlist from your taste profile Rita El Khoury / Android Authority If there's a particular playlist (or several playlists) you play for a specific reason, such as when falling asleep or to calm your pet, you can force Spotify to ignore it. Go to the playlist, tap the ⋮ button, and choose Exclude from your taste profile. This will force Spotify to (mostly) ignore your love for this playlist and all of its songs, no matter how often you play it, thus not influencing your recommendations in the future. Use private sessions Rita El Khoury / Android Authority If you suddenly have an urge to binge-listen to 90s pop music, and you know it's a one-time thing that shouldn't influence your cool R&B / lo-fi / rock metal music profile, you can switch to a private listening session. Go to Settings and privacy > Privacy and social > turn on the Private session mode. This lasts for six hours and lets you listen to …Baby One More Time without disappointing your followers or your Spotify algorithm. If you ask me, there's no guilty pleasure in music; you should embrace the tunes you love, but not everyone is as free-spirited as me. Use gestures to do things faster Like many other apps on Android, Spotify has a few hidden and sometimes unknown gestures that make my life easy when I'm using it. Once you know these, there's no going back to tapping buttons, trust me. Swipe right to add a song to your queue Rita El Khoury / Android Authority My most-used gesture is to swipe left-to-right on any song to add it to my currently playing queue. It beats tapping several specific buttons to do the same thing. I use this a lot when Spotify plays a song by an artist I don't know but that I like: I go to their page and quickly add several of their songs to the queue to see if they're worth following. Swipe to skip or rewind in the mini-player The second gesture is to swipe left and right on the mini player to replay the previous song or skip to the next one. It's faster to do this on the bottom of the screen than opening the full player to do the same thing, especially if I'm listening while browsing the app. Swipe to find songs in a playlist And my third favorite gesture is to swipe down on any playlist to reveal the Find in playlist box to find any song or artist in that playlist. It helps a lot in super big playlists when I don't want to scroll to find a song. Quickly access your favorites Using Spotify sometimes feels like a constant struggle against the algorithm. No, I don't know what those recommendations are doing at the top of my home screen, nor why my playlists are sorted like that. Why can't I get to what I want to listen to faster? Well, there are three ways to speed up access to my newest musical addiction. Pin music in your library Pin album Pin artist Pin playlist My pinned playlists or playlist folders The easiest way is to pin favorites to the top of the library. Just go to the Your Library tab, tap and hold on any artist, album, or playlist you want to see first, and select Pin artist, Pin album, or Pin playlist. This keeps them on top of anything else in your library, no matter what sorting order you use. Create Android home screen shortcuts My second favorite trick is to add shortcuts to artists, playlists, or albums on my Android phone's home screen. Spotify used to offer this option in the options menu of whatever you were listening to, but it now hides it a bit. What you need to do is first go to the artist, album, or playlist you want to create a shortcut for, and then tap to play anything there — this is a crucial step. Then go to your home screen, tap and hold on the Spotify icon, and you'll see a new item under Search with the music you just played. This is an app shortcut on Android, and you can drag it to create a standalone shortcut on your home screen. You can repeat this as often as you want and then move these shortcuts anywhere or put them in a folder. Spotify library organization with folders Rita El Khoury / Android Authority The last trick involves using the Spotify web or desktop app to create playlist and album folders. This isn't possible on the mobile app, but on the larger screen, you can add a New Playlist folder to your library and organize some playlists and albums inside it. You can even put a folder into another, creating sub-folders. All your organization carries over to the mobile app, so once you do it on the desktop, you can enjoy the new order on your phone. Rita El Khoury / Android Authority If you hoard a million playlists like me, if you want to group your favorite albums together, or if you want to organize the playlists Spotify makes for you, this is an excellent way to add some order to the madness. I use this, for example, to group the artist and genre mixes Spotify made for me, as well as my top songs by year, to avoid them crowding my main library. Listen with others While I enjoy listening to music in my own bubble, I also like to share the experience with others sometimes. Spotify has two neat ways to let me share my love of music with my husband and friends. Make a blended playlist with another user Start a blended playlist Invite friends Share the invite link Blended playlist created My husband and I tend to enjoy very similar music, but there are still different artists we each listen to a lot more. Creating a Blend of our taste profiles makes a playlist that we can both enjoy while also introducing me to songs he's listening to that I don't know, and vice versa. To do this, just tap the Create button > Blend > Invite and send the link to your partner or friends. When they join, Spotify will create a new playlist and add it to your library. It'll also update it daily. Start a jam when you're listening with other people Start a jam Invite others to join your jam Jam started, multiple users in control Songs added to the queue by other listeners And finally, the last trick is to use live jams to let other Spotify users control music with you. When I'm playing music on my Google Nest speakers or my Samsung soundbar, I start a jam by going to Create > Jam and letting my husband scan the code to join in. This shows the current queue on his phone, too, so he can control playback, skip or rewind songs, and even add his own songs to the queue. If you often have people over or you like listening to music with your friends, and you're nearby on Bluetooth or the same Wi-Fi network, it's an excellent trick to let everyone contribute their own songs to the mood. And this is where I'll stop today with my first and most important Spotify tricks. I'll share more obscure ones in another article soon, but in the meantime, if you have other tricks people should know, please feel free to share them in the comments. Follow
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Julianne Moore Soaks Up the Sun with Daughter Liv, 23, and Husband Bart Freundlich on Family Vacation in Italy
The actress and husband Freundlich share Liv and son Caleb, 27NEED TO KNOW Julianne Moore is spending some time on vacation with her family The actress was photographed with her daughter Liv and husband Bart Freundlich as they went for a swim The couple is also parents to son Caleb, 27Julianne Moore is relaxing in the summer sun with her family. The Sirens star, 64, was photographed spending time with her daughter Liv, 23, and husband Bart Freundlich as they enjoyed time in the ocean on a vacation in Italy. Moore could be seen wearing a black one-piece swimsuit that covered her arms, adding a tan bucket hat and sunglasses for extra protection. Her daughter, Liv, wore a tan strapless bikini and could be seen alongside her parents, carrying a green pool noodle. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Moore and Freundlich are also parents to son Caleb, 27. Earlier this summer, the May December star shared a few family photos on Instagram and was all smiles as she posed for a photo with her kids and her husband. 'Cal killed it at @thesurflodge this weekend. What an epic night. Love these guys so much. @musicbycalebmoore,' Moore said of her son Caleb, performing during NYLON's residency at The Surf Lodge in Montauk, New York. The happy Instagram photo showed the group sitting together outside at the venue. Moore and Freundlich's daughter joined in on the festivities. 'BEST NIGHT EVER!!' Caleb commented. In June, the actress spoke about how proud she was of her daughter Liv. Moore shared a carousel post of snaps celebrating her daughter graduating from Northwestern University. 'This smart, wonderful, beautiful and insightful young woman graduated from @northwesternu,' Moore wrote in her caption alongside a photo of Liv smiling while sitting amongst other university graduates. 'We are bursting with pride @livfreundlich - congratulations on your accomplishment #wildcat. We love love love you. 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜.' In the second photo, Liv held up a sign that read 'English — Northwestern Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences" during the graduation ceremony, while in the third she posed her pals as they held up champagne bottles. Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Oasis Live '25: European tour rumours circulate as no mainland EU dates yet announced
When Oasis announced they were getting back together and taking the show on the road, no dates were listed for venues in mainland Europe. Guess fans on the continent just had to roll with it. Liam and Noel Gallagher kicked off their Live '25 Tour in Wales at Cardiff's Principality Stadium last month, and they've brought their long-awaited reunion tour to their hometown of Manchester and most recently London. Next up are shows in Edinburgh and Dublin, as well as stops in North and South America, Australia and Japan. However, there may still be some hope left for fans in mainland EU... The Rome City Councillor for Major Events has claimed that 'negotiations are underway' to bring Oasis' tour to the Italian city – sparking rumours that more dates could follow. Alessandro Onorato said on local radio station Radio Sei that he's making efforts to bring the tour to Italy. 'Organising a large event in Rome is very complicated; in the past, Rome has been the 'city of missed opportunities.'' He continued: 'Oasis in the capital? These are live shows for companies that organise events all over the world, and the financial aspect is crucial. Negotiations are underway.' So, could Oasis be adding some more dates? Don't get too excited just yet, as Onorato's comments come after the Britpop band's manager Alex McKinlay denied that more tour dates were going to be announced. In May, McKinlay told Music Week: 'This is very much the last time around, as Noel's made clear in the press. It's a chance for fans who haven't seen the band to see them, or at least for some of them to.' He added that there would not be any new material from Oasis: 'There's no plan for any new music.' Then came a response from Liam Gallagher, who took to X to contradict McKinlay's comments and reaffirm that only he and his brother call the shots when it comes to Oasis updates. 'The only people that will be making any kind of decisions on the future of OASIS will be ME n RKID (Noel) so let's just take it 1 day at a time.'He later doubled down on his stance, telling another fan who thought 'there must be a degree of truth' to the manager's comments that McKinley is 'the accountant' for the who knows right now... All mainland European fans have to do is pray to that Champagne Supernova in the sky and stay tuned for any possible extra tour dates. In other Oasis-related news, it was recently announced that the money made from Oasis' shows at Manchester's Heaton Park would be used to help fund grassroots music venues in the city. Indeed, the Manchester city council announced a £250,000 (€287,000) fund for local music venues – a move that comes amid worrying statistics about the UK's live music scene in recent years. Last year, it was shared that only 11 of the 34 grassroots venues that Oasis had previously performed in still remain open, and in 2023, it was revealed that the UK was set to lose more than 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues. The Oasis tour continues. After dates in in the UK and Ireland come stops in North and South America, Asia and Australia - ending (for the moment) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 23 November.
