In the stuff I didn't need to know category, my upstairs neighbor and her teenage son are fighting about which one drinks more alcohol.

Ouch, sj. In that situation, if I weren't brought up with my own Straight Edge mentality, I'd say I would be the one to drink more alcohol.

Because I am a dork, I took a picture of my dinner. I made the mac and cheese a lot better by recooking a square of it in a pan with some margarine. Cut down the mustard taste and gave it the more buttery taste that I thought it needed. (Um, ignore the errant bit of spinach on the counter. I'm not so good at cleaning as at cooking.) [link]

That looks yummy, Hil. I'm eating salt water taffy and I can't stop watching Veronica Mars on hulu.

That's the thing, Typo Boy: I kindda know my limits. Only when I ask her to respect them, it's not happening, for some reason (from "I gotta hang up now. Really" to when I tell her I can't talk with her, she emails instead, kindda expecting me to pick up from there).

Ok, if you have mastered getting off the phone with her, the next step is to create a folder in your email that her emails can go into automatically. Then you only check that folder when you have the time and emotional resources to deal with her. So if you are in no-talk mode, have successfully gotten her off the phone, and have made the transition to working on your studies, or whatever else is on your agenda, even if that entails checking your email because you are expecting a message from a lab. partner or a professor or something like that, you do not have to see her shit. A few days or a week later, when you are ready to deal with her, it will be waiting. Sure there will be approximately 40,000 emails from her, but you read the first, and say, "So sorry, I've been busy, haven't had time to check personal emails, and now I have a little time. But sadly I am so busy that I won't be able to read all of these, so why don't you tell me the highlights."

Would that work, Shir?

Shir, that's tough. If she's not following the advice you are giving her, then shoot that at her point blank, "Look, I'd love to help you, but you always ask for my advice, and never follow it. Please stop needlessly pestering me.". Also, in an effort to push her out of the nest and hope she takes flight on her own, maybe say to her (and I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive or disrespectful), but say to her "look, my mind is not in a state to help people right now. I had a death in the family, and I really need to have some quiet, alone, 'me' time for awhile."

ION. Today I cooked the best omelet I've made in YEARS! It was damn near perfect, except for a bit too much cheese that oozed out and made the last little bit stick to the pan, resulting in a ripped off corner. But it tasted GREAT! Not burnt at all, just enough cheese for taste, and the toast and bacon timed out well, so all was done about the same time. Renewed my faith in my cooking abilities!

Then, I went to Half Price Books to play some backgammon with my backgammon buddy. While there, saw a couple playing card game version of Settlers of Catan. (see gaming thread). Then sold a stack of my old magazines to HPB for a whole $1.50 (hey, better than throwing them out, right), and saw a stack of packaged old comic books for $5 with at least (2) Green Lanterns in it, so I got that. All was swimmingly wonderful, until some asshat decides to ask me if my 'condition' is from an accident or from birth... and then proceeds to ask how it effects my school and my driving, and how wonderful it is that I am done with school and have a job, because that will make paying for DEATH/funeral much easier on my family!!! I shit you not! Then went on for like FIVE MINUTES on how great it is I will have money for my funeral. For the love of god, I'm only 37! WTF. If he didn't have such a cute Indian accent, I might have popped him one. Sometimes I really hate being a pacifist.

omnis is wise.

That omelette sounds marvelous.

IOpeanutbutterN, is it just how hungry I am right now, or does Skippy Natural taste as good as JIF used to taste?

Shir, here is how I might set limits. --say something , at the beginning of the conversation that you have only 10 or 15 minuets to talk today. At the end of the conversation you can say -- feel free to email me if you have more to say, but I probably won't get back to you for at least 24 hours. Obviously change to times to suit what you really can do. And you might actually have to hang up on her. but nicely , politely and kindly. ok, but you know me, I gotta get work done , so I'll talk to you another time -- bye click.

And stick to it. if you say you can't respond to her email for 24 hours than don't. The expectation should be that if you say x you mean x.

If you have an hour -- giver her an hour.

If you find that all you ever are willing to give her is 15 minutes -- that might tell you something too.

That looks good, Hil. No wonder you wanted to take a picture

Shir you've gotten a lot of good advice above. I can only add that there have been a couple times when I had to decide if a person was doing more harm than good in my life and if the answer was yes I stopped seeing them. I hope we're both better off in the long run.

WS -- now that I have only natural peanut butter in the house, those that have sugar in them taste wrong. since when should peanuts taste sweet?

Omnis- did you ask him if he had his funeral money set aside, because sometimes things happen unexpectedly? Much sooner?

I might have an abrupt , abbreviated , new england way of speaking, but I know i could never be that rude.