It's a vanilla game as in only Bethesda content. Fresh installation. Steam says it is all up-to-date.

The racemenu loads and shows on the screen but will not respond to mouse or keyboard with one exception:

if I type 'r' I get the save and exit popup, but that will not accept mouse clicks, cursor keys, tab, or enter

the menu loads on the screen (overlays the regular image)

clicking with the mouse just gives me formid numbers for whatever is 'behind' the menu

can't exit (see previous paragraph)

I can type, but it is standard console behavior (writes out what I type in the lower left corner)

It's as if the menu partially loaded stopping short of accepting input. YET the game is waiting for information from showracemenu, so I'm stuck.

I searched going back through February 2012, which goes into prior versions.

Tried googling but you can't get to a specific post on the Bethesda forums due to the age check which 'hijacks' the browser and doesn't save the url for your original destination. I'm just saying I did look before posting.

Have you tried to verify your game Cache Files: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335

One thing, on the skyrim menus (in game) do you have a working mouse and keyboard ?????

If you're in the command console, try closing it by pressing the tilda.

This here. Gotta close the console to use any other UI elements.

First: thank you all for your quick responses.

Solution: exited the console

Since you go to the console to open the racemenu it never occurred to me to exit the console. I'd read other posts that mentioned the console but just assumed they were talking about clearing some cache or another. (note to self: skim slower when reading)

Thank you all again.

Woops! Should have said this can be closed.