Unable to select items on outliner I'm new to blender and I'm struggling with a few things that are probably tiny but I just can't quite get them. The biggest issue is selecting different parts of the mesh in the outliner. Specifically, selecting to make the name white on the outliner and allow me to edit that part. I click on the grey symbol with three white dots in a triangle. 1 out of 100 times it works.



The second issue is every once in awhile the texture of what I'm working on disappears. I feel like a button accidentally gets pushed and I'm unsure how to turn it back.

Before:



After:
In the Outliner, when you click on the object mesh icon, it allows you to enter in Edit mode and to edit the object mesh, it doesn't allow you to precisely select one part of the mesh if that's what you're trying. If you don't see anything when you click on this icon, maybe it's because your object is not visible on your 3D View, it can be on another layer for example. Also, when you try to edit an object, why don't you select it and press tab to enter in Edit mode? This is the classic method.

About your display problem: You must accidentally press Z, it makes you switch between Rendered (or Material) mode and Wireframe view. See what happens on the bottom horizontal bar of your 3D View.