Torrefaction

1. is there a connection between allergies and weight gain (I've been having a massive metabolic slowdown for a couple of years that has recently improved)?  Results: zillions of quacks promoting magic weight loss solutions and/or magic allergy remedies.  Better results gotten by googling specific medicines and weight gain, since about 50% of all medicines genuinely cause weight gain (including, apparently, Zyrtec for me).

2. what are the symptoms of an overabundance of estrogen?  Now that I'm on DP I don't have this problem so much, but endometriosis can cause an imbalance where the body makes extra estrogen. Results: single doctor promoting--all over the place--natural progestin solution to "estrogen dominance syndrome" which is an ailment discovered and defined by him, and treated by his product and only his product.  Normal living can cause this syndrome, HBC can cause this syndrome, chemical progestins also cause syndrome! Only his natural progestin product will do.  This one is particularly annoying because I think there is probably a real ailment in there somewhere, (that in my case is vastly improved by chemical progestin) but he is masking any useful results for it.

3. I have located the majority of my college buddies on FB or via Google, except my old housemate Amber Stout.  Results: beer, beer, beer.

So I went at lunch to make an attempt at getting a Social Security number for Charlie.  I shall make another attempt on Wednesday, this time with an appointment and the correct paperwork in hand.

Big-city government offices are always a little odd, but almost everyone was pleasant.  One (pleasant) guy sat by me for a while going through his paperwork and cussing about how much paperwork he had to do, then apologizing for his language and saying that he had been good all day (i.e. not cussing) and had even been to church, but there is no way to get through all of this motherfucking paperwork without cursing, sorry.

There was a lady who appeared to be strung out on drugs, and she was wandering around restlessly, but she wasn't hassling anyone or getting fussed about waiting for her number to come up.   A couple of people even missed having their number called and placidly went and took another number, possibly because many people who come to the social security office are going through the immigration process, and are used to being made to stand endlessly in line for no good reason.  Also because the wait times weren't that long, strangely for a government office.  They had four queues going with little numbered tickets, different queues for different activities, so the ones that weren't mine moved fairly quickly.

Then there was the lady who decided to sit next to me and rant at me about the terrorists and the illegals who are able to get social security cards with no problem, whereas she, who was born here and whose fingerprints are on file, can't get a driver's license without a social security card and they won't give her a card because her license was stolen!  And now she has to keep paying expensive insurance on her expensive BMW without even being able to drive it! "They are taking away our rights in this country, is what they are doing. We are becoming a red state! Not red like in mumble, red like in Russia! Totalitarian! They're over there getting more rights while our rights are being taken away!"  Ah, contemporary Russia, land of individual liberties and getting more rights.