would you like one as a surprise?

:lol:

One of the manifestations of Stepdaughter's crippling anxiety is her refusal to commit to anything, anything, on the first go-round. Some examples from our real, actual life:

Me: What time do you want to have lunch?
Her: What do you mean by "lunch?"

Me: I like your shirt.
Her: What do you mean by "shirt?"

This is not a dismissive or sassy thing; she just always has to make sure she completely understands any comment or question because she is profoundly terrified of making a mistake or agreeing to something that wasn't ideal. (She is also afraid of looking like an idiot, but somehow we can't convince her that this quibbling behavior does exactly that.) ANYWAY...

She was hanging out with friends from work (she has friends! from work!) and the conversation loosely turned to race relations in America. One of the guys noted to her that he never gets to think of himself as a computer nerd first, or a teenager first, he must always remember above all that he is a black man as his primary identifier. Her response, of course...

"What do you mean by 'black?'"

And the collectively whispered whoooooooaaaaa could be heard for miles. And now her friends all think she's some kind of goddamn philosopher-poet.

Cool, you have a poet philosopher in da house.
Her deflections sounds like stalling to me. But, what do I know? OF COURSE, she knows what "shirt" is, lunch might be less unambiguous, but as long as it's amusing, qualify on, m'dear.

Sometimes I feel like I should have and still should answer everything my ex says with a request for a definition. Her default is to claim "that's not what [she] meant" and my attempts to clarify or point out that there is really only one way to interpret the word or phrase she used is met with "You are twisting my words around."

And I suppose, in the sense that I am pointing out that a lie is not the truth, then yes, I am twisting her words around.

Does stepdaughter deal with being gaslighted a lot at her other house? People pissing on her shoes and telling her it's raining? Might make her hyper clarification vigilant.

Oh, absolutely. Her mom is a lot like your ex, based on other descriptions of behavior you've given us. Her anxiety is 90% PTSD.

We straight up ignore meaningless questions, because clarifications only lead to more clarifications. When she's driving to work, it's a steady stream of "Should I get in the left lane? Should I turn left here? I get on the highway, right?" I don't respond, and she gets to work just fine.

I feel for her. Hopefully she'll eventually have enough time away from the poison well and enough time with relatively normal people to see that things can be different for her.

What's mildly amusing you today?
 

The idea that, in order to be happy, all I have to do is wish it, and, VIOLA!

I'm still not happy, but, I am amused. So, closer, I guess...:haha:

So maybe I do have a little bit of a vindictive streak.... (no, really?) but I'm really enjoying the thought watching of DT'S "empire" spiral down the toilet after the election. Especially fitting if he ends up in jail but I'm too cynical to expect that

I have called every presidential election correctly since 1964, and I predict that Trump will win. I pray every night that I am wrong this time.

Trump will lose in historic fashion. There will be no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority in this country has NO INTEREST in him being the leader. ZERO chance.

It's the difference between the popular vote and the electoral votes. They may be within a handful of points of each other in the popular vote, but Hillary is going to easily sweep the states with the most electoral votes. Not even close. The only way that won't happen is if her supporters think she has it locked up, so they stay home. But Trump is remaining so terrifying, they will come out in droves.

The NYT this week had a big spreadsheet of all the polls for all the states by several different poling companies, and every single one of them showed Hillary has around a 85% - 95% chance of winning this. The real question now is the Senate. The Democrats have a 50/50 shot of winning the Senate as well.

sorry didn't mean to derail this, I was just amused by my own merciless glee at the possibilities

Amusing me:

"Snitches get stitches" coming from my son's substitute English teacher as he allowed them to take their reading quiz with an open book.

They told their regular teacher when she came back the next day and she was horrified. Threw the quiz results away though when she should have given them all 100s for being so brave and honest.

That's hilarious! And sure, sure, good on the kids for being honest. But being a good liar is a practically mandatory skill for leadership, you know.