diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 35ca012..9bb7abf 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -1042,11 +1042,11 @@ dependencies = [
  "r2d2",
  "r2d2_sqlite",
  "rand 0.8.5",
+ "regex",
  "rusqlite",
  "secp256k1",
  "serde",
  "serde_json",
- "serde_urlencoded",
  "thiserror",
  "tokio",
  "tokio-tungstenite",
@@ -1767,18 +1767,6 @@ dependencies = [
  "serde",
 ]
 
-[[package]]
-name = "serde_urlencoded"
-version = "0.7.1"
-source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
-checksum = "d3491c14715ca2294c4d6a88f15e84739788c1d030eed8c110436aafdaa2f3fd"
-dependencies = [
- "form_urlencoded",
- "itoa",
- "ryu",
- "serde",
-]
-
 [[package]]
 name = "sha-1"
 version = "0.10.0"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index ff9624f..fc44f21 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ http = { version = "0.2" }
 parse_duration = "2"
 rand = "0.8"
 const_format = "0.2.28"
-serde_urlencoded = "0.7"
+regex = "1"
 
 [dev-dependencies]
 anyhow = "1"
diff --git a/src/delegation.rs b/src/delegation.rs
index 8e93381..d2f4f33 100644
--- a/src/delegation.rs
+++ b/src/delegation.rs
@@ -1,11 +1,12 @@
 //! Event parsing and validation
-//use crate::error::Error::*;
-//use crate::error::Result;
+use crate::error::Error;
+use crate::error::Result;
 //use crate::utils::unix_time;
 //use bitcoin_hashes::{sha256, Hash};
-//use lazy_static::lazy_static;
+use lazy_static::lazy_static;
+use regex::Regex;
 //use secp256k1::{schnorr, Secp256k1, VerifyOnly, XOnlyPublicKey};
-use serde::{Deserializer, Deserialize, Serialize};
+use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 //use serde_json::value::Value;
 //use serde_json::Number;
 //use std::collections::HashMap;
@@ -58,35 +59,11 @@ pub enum Value {
     Number(u64),
 }
 
-#[derive(Serialize, PartialEq, Eq, Debug, Clone)]
+#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, PartialEq, Eq, Debug, Clone)]
 pub struct ConditionQuery {
     pub(crate) conditions: Vec<Condition>,
 }
 
-impl <'de> Deserialize<'de> for ConditionQuery {
-    fn deserialize<D>(d: D) -> Result<ConditionQuery, D::Error>
-    where
-        D: Deserializer<'de>,
-    {
-	// recv'd is an array of pairs.
-	let _recvd: Value = d.deserialize_seq
-	let cond_list = recvd.as_object().ok_or_else(|| {
-            serde::de::Error::invalid_type(
-                Unexpected::Other("reqfilter is not an object"),
-                &"a json object",
-            )
-        })?;
-
-	// all valid conditions will be put into this vec
-	let conditions : Vec<Condition> = vec![];
-	// loop through the parsed value, and identify if they are
-	// known attributes.  unknown attributes will trigger failure,
-	// since we can't respect those restrictions.
-	Ok(ConditionQuery{conditions})
-    }
-
-}
-
 /// Parsed delegation statement
 #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, PartialEq, Eq, Debug, Clone)]
 pub struct Delegation {
@@ -95,6 +72,7 @@ pub struct Delegation {
     pub(crate) signature: String,
 }
 
+
 /// Parsed delegation condition
 /// see https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/pull/28#pullrequestreview-1084903800
 /// An example complex condition would be:  kind=1,2,3&created_at<1665265999
@@ -105,6 +83,36 @@ pub struct Condition {
     pub(crate) values: Vec<Value>,
 }
 
+fn str_to_condition(cs: &str) -> Option<Condition> {
+    // a condition is a string (alphanum+underscore), an operator (<>=!), and values (num+comma)
+    lazy_static! {
+        static ref RE: Regex = Regex::new("([[:word:]])([<>=!]+)([,[[:digit:]]]+))").unwrap();
+    }
+    // match against the regex
+    let caps = RE.captures(cs)?;
+    let _field =caps.get(0)?;
+    Some(Condition {field: Field::Kind, operator: Operator::LessThan, values: vec![]})
+}
+
+
+
+/// Parse a condition query from a string slice
+impl TryFrom<&str> for ConditionQuery {
+    type Error = Error;
+    fn try_from(value: &str) -> Result<Self, Self::Error> {
+	// split the string with '&'
+	let conds = value.split('&');
+	// parse each individual condition
+	for c in conds.into_iter() {
+	    str_to_condition(c).ok_or(Error::DelegationParseError)?;
+	}
+	Ok(ConditionQuery{conditions: vec![]})
+
+    }
+
+
+}
+
 #[cfg(test)]
 mod tests {
     use super::*;
@@ -114,6 +122,5 @@ mod tests {
     fn parse_empty() {
 	// given an empty condition query, produce an empty vector
         assert_eq!(Delegation::from(""), vec![]);
-	assert_eq!(serde_urlencoded::from_str::<Vec<(String, String)>>(""), vec![]);
     }
 }
diff --git a/src/error.rs b/src/error.rs
index 5a0c992..bca9fc6 100644
--- a/src/error.rs
+++ b/src/error.rs
@@ -50,6 +50,8 @@ pub enum Error {
     HyperError(hyper::Error),
     #[error("Hex encoding error")]
     HexError(hex::FromHexError),
+    #[error("Delegation parse error")]
+    DelegationParseError,
     #[error("Unknown/Undocumented")]
     UnknownError,
 }