MELTDOWN AVERTED: Ah, I'm feeling much better now. I think the seasonal shift (read: warm weather = more exposed female flesh) is throwing me for a natural loop. I'll be fine. In other developments, I've just came from a leisurely lunch with a good friend of mine in which we touched upon all matters of the political spectrum. Suffice it to say that said friend raised some salient points regarding our country's current bout of xenophobia. While I argued that our dynamism makes such "swings of the pendulum" inevitable, (and 9/11 only exacerbated/exaggerated our current swing to the right) we differ on the longer term ramifications of the current swing. I remain staunchly optimistic that the pendulum will swing back to the center, as it historically does. My friend, not being an American, isn't as confident of this as I and thinks that the current "damage" (and I use the term euphemistically) may be more lasting. I will agree that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, though. (In fact, I made that point myself.)