i'm thinking everyone has at least one *dilemma* at a time. solve one problem, and we quickly move to the next. we can not be without anxiety. some dilemma's are, like, impossible and those are the ones that leave us depressed and paralyzed. generalities are the worst, like love, age, appearances, success, etc. so, i think maybe the trick is to keep ourselves occupied with the dilemma's that we can cope with. my surrogate dilemma of the week is bagels. i've been going nuts trying to find a decent bagel not too far off the path from home to work. i'm a bagel snob: i can't stand those crap ones at the grocery store. they shut down the zi pani by my place. "they" being the bunch of assholes who thought it would be better to put a fucking starbucks in the space, even though there's, like, *30* within a 5 mile radius of where i live. i shit you not. and they don't even have bagels, either. so. anyway. this week: bagels. maybe i'll take another shot at love next week.

on my lunch i went searching for bagels at the market. no luck, but i did spend an obscene amount of money at a mexican folk-art shop. i fell in love with the milagros (spanish for miracle?) -- tokens representing the subject of a prayer or petition to a saint. the ones i got were little silver-coated shapes made of tin representing love and strength. i felt kinda dumb and fake buying them (shouldn't they be crafted by the petitioner?) but i couldn't help myself. i couldn't resist the la anima sola effigy, either. i also got, for larry, a little painted paper-mache & clay skeleton-dude in a boat playing a guitar for a little skeleton-christine who's smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. so rad. *so* christine and larry.

anyway. pleasantly bored. vaguely looking forward to the trip south in 2 weeks. i don't remember the cold affecting me this much before. and i haven't been out of the state in... oh my god, like almost 5 years. what a freak. i should just put money down on a pre-built, mount a gun-rack, and get it over with.

sigh. pleasantly bored. pleasantly hopeless. i'm in my shawnee mode and i am enjoying it.