I always assumed the man was just an older husband than I thought should be with her.

Which makes it more Gothic.

Heh. I just looked it up in wikipedia, apparently the House behind them in the picture is of the Carpenter Gothic style.

In fact, here is a picture of the very house! [link]

I'm with Tommyrot. I feel like he's making Hil's job harder. If it was me I'd say, "seriously, stop with the Judaism questions, I have work to do." and if it happened again, "Am I going to have to take this to HR?"

His sister Nan, perhaps embarrassed about being depicted as the wife of a man twice her age, started telling people that Wood had envisioned the couple as father and daughter, not husband and wife. (Wood himself remained vague on this point.)

Curious.

The snow continues. CJ's school was closed mid-day and it looks like some schools might cancel proms which were scheduled for tomorrow.

I get the feeling Hil's office mate is just deeply socially awkward and unable to come up with something to talk about with her besides her Judaism, probably because she intimidates him for some reason.

I think we're someways beyond that. This has been going on too long and with many instances of going past awkwardly personal into actually offensive.

I think my plan is to try, for the next week, just ignoring or brushing off or otherwise not answering any of these questions, and see if he gets the point. Because I'm being a wuss, and I don't feel like starting an argument. If it doesn't work, then I'll talk to him about it directly.

I just spent far too long looking at Google image results for "American Gothic."

Getting other work done sounds like a good plan.

Funny thing about the American Gothic. Since I was exposed to it at such a young age, it never registered how much younger she was than him. As a youngster, they both looked old. Curious how perception changes.

Hil, you really need to start recording these conversations. 1) for HR to hear what a douchenozzle he is. 2) you might be able to sell it to some comedian for material. The shit he is saying is just so ridiculous, it's almost funny. Almost. Either way, something has to be said, it's clearly effecting you. Maybe you can ask if he has any vacation time coming up, because you'd love the silence from the idiotic, racist questions for a few days.

goldfish:

Since our next season has been announced, I can talk about it now! There is one show that might be of interest to some folks (MiracleMan). Amazingly enough, MTV.com is talking about it. Us. Down here. In lil old Dallas, TX: [link] t shameless hyping of workplace rationalizing my move here

As a youngster, they both looked old. Curious how perception changes.

This is me. And I've stood in front of the painting for a long time, thinking about who they were and what their lives were like. It didn't occur to me how much older he was until the discussion here today.

omnis... is the musical a comedy?

I agree the guy's a douche, but he seems much more clueless than malicious. If Hil isn't going to let him know that this kind of talk bothers her, she can't blame him for not knowing that. If she tells him it makes her uncomfortable and he STILL does it, then she should take further action.

Yeah, he should know that it might bother her, but he doesn't. As adults, we are responsible for drawing our own boundaries, because there are a lot of clueless people out there--plus each of us have different levels of acceptable conversation. I know I have unintentionally said things which overstepped others' boundaries in the past, and I would guess all of us have whether we knew it or not. Peeples are complicated and they needz handling.