Go, Frisco! I support youngest children getting their revenge on older siblings through toys, because I'm biased due to two older sisters who always seemed to have something I wanted to play with.

erika, I'm sorry you felt blindvisible. We've all been there from time to time, and it's never easy. The difficulty of dealing with that feeling is probably in proportion to how difficult it was to post one's feelings about something in the first place. Just like real life people, I think it's easier for us invisible folk to speak up on the easy stuff than chip away at the deep and difficult, so a recurring problem will get numerous "Hey! I know the answer to that one!" responses.

Well, that was not my intention. I don't think I am that menacing, for one thing. But the last thing I really want is to be Chilling Effect Girl. But I don't want to feel like any "negative" feeling I have is the worst feeling anyone could express either, and I'm not sure that some feelings have I statements and outcome based results and... Although basically the bad feelings I have about this have come from the group chastisement, though I completely crossed a line with Susan and ripped her for every aggravating thing she ever said in her life. I admit that. Sometimes I still feel bad although that doesn't mean that we didn't have an issue for me to comment upon.

And Ginger, I am so sorry that I also missed/skimmed on your ankle post.

I know it's easy to miss things. I wasn't so much asking for hairpats as pointing out how invisible one can sometimes feel. I think the ankle is finally a little better today. It's my own fault for saying to the dog, "You're trying to break my ankle with these holes you're digging, aren't you?" Then I stepped in one and there was an ominous pop.

I'll be digging out for some time. I'm trying to figure out where the foot of dirt washed up on the patio should go. It's got to be piled somewhere while I spend the winter rebuilding the terracing. This would seem less daunting if I could manage to stop hurting myself.

I hate how everybody stops the thread when Sunil has to ponder something deep, like bailing on a lunch date.

Heh. I was actually going to comment last night that I'm such a fucking broken record, I don't know how you guys put up with me.

I don't have to suck it up now or do the bitchy, back-channel Girl thing and tell my friends Sunil has stupid hair because I'm annoyed.

I just got a haircut!

I think Erika is partly reacting to the fact that P-C keeps having the exact same problem: he wants to live his life and also keep his family happy. He knows how his family will react, yet he keeps telling them the truth, instead of the evasions and mumbles that have saved many of us so much grief. At some point, P-C, you're going to have to suck it up and decide whether your happiness or your mother's happiness is more important to you.

Here's the thing, though, and I don't know whether it means anything: I don't like lying. Of course I lie occasionally, but I really do not like telling blatant lies. To my parents or anyone else. I don't believe it's part of who I am, and I don't want it to be part of who I am. And being an honest, upstanding person is a component of my happiness.

Anyway, carry on.

I'm trying to figure out where the foot of dirt washed up on the patio should go.

It sounds like Mr. Peabody will move it to where he thinks it should go, no matter what you decide. My beagle is dying to have decision-making power over a pile of mulch my neighbor has piled up right now. She stands at the gate and cries. I hope the ankle keeps getting better.

I'm not sure that omitting stuff counts as lying...one last piece of advice for you, if you still feel that way and it comes up, try to avoid a polygraph.

Or a copy machine.

I don't like to lie either. But that means I have had to learn to deal with the consequences of telling the truth--people being disappointed in me or mad at me or whatever. It is hard but has been worth it.

I got very good at answering my mother's questions with only what was strictly factual. I stayed at school an extra day over Christmas vacation once instead of coming straight home, and my mother asked, "Can you stay in the dorms that extra day?" I said, "Yes, I can." And I could. The fact that I'd be with my boyfriend and not in the dorm was irrelevant.

Sunil--I agree with you on the lying. But you seem to want something you will never have--for your parents to be completely different people. That's not realistic and it's not respectful of them. They are never not going to want you to spend all your time with them. They are never going to not try to guilt you into doing what they want. They are never going to stop harping on your marriage. That's who they ARE. One thing I learned in therapy was to try to deal with other people as they are, instead of trying to mold them into who I thought they should be, which, I should add, is how I hope to be treated by other people.

If you don't want to lie, then you have to make boundaries and say no to them sometimes. And if you say nos, then they are going to get upset. But, you know, being upset isn't going to kill them. They won't stop trying, but saying "I am going to see college friends on Saturday" will become easier.

What you DON'T get is for them to magically become other people. And it seems like that's what you keep getting upset about.