Pollen Catcher

Apparently I have been driving around with an expired license for almost a year and a half, only discovered because I was unable to buy some contraband of Sudafed at the drugstore.  I thought I could go back with my passport but that has expired too.  Well, I've only really been driving around for a few months.  Between September and January, I was only driving 2 miles to tai chi class.  If only I had actually gotten carded for trying to buy ginger beer at Whole Foods, I would have discovered this sooner.  I almost got carded three separate times for ginger beer.  It will be a sad day when I stop getting carded.  Not sure what the look younger than age is... 35?

I was wondering why I hadn't received a notice for the expiring license and then realized I still have my old address on it.  Submitting a permanent move at USPS only gets mail forwarded for one year and I haven't renewed that since 2007.  Whoops.  I wonder what other mail I've been missing.  I used to forward important looking mail to previous residents after Googling them and contacting them.  Anyway, so... I'm probably going to drive to the DMV tomorrow.

Sunday was a friend's one year old baby birthday party at a park.  It was my first time meeting the baby as well as another couple's baby.  I've been out of touch with most people for the most part for six years.  I ended up standing for two hours since all the picnic tables were in the hot sun.  I was quite tired by then but still made a quick stop at Kepler's nearby after resting in my car.  Kepler's is the best bookstore for browsing.  They actually put out books that I'd want to read.  However, I no longer want to buy physical books but would like if I were to buy e-books for some of that money to go to them.

It took me 48 hours to recover from that, mostly lying down, perhaps prolonged by waking up with bad allergies the next morning which lasted a day and a half.  It's June already and I've lost almost completely the last two months to allergies, and that is while taking both an anti-histamine and decongestant every day.  Allergy severity has been correlated with improving health.  I used to be about 25% productive during allergy season which can last from mid-January to mid-June and another short season in September, which is okay if you're really productive to begin with and thus still end up being more productive than the average person.  But now that I am about 15% productive with CFS, with about 10% being for eating and showering, 25% of the remaining is about 1%.

I washed my sheets and pillowcases, thinking maybe they had collected pollen and dust.  I also took out the garbage that was starting to smell.  I guess my recovery periods are a bit more functional now.  The next day, I realized it was probably my hair.  I hadn't washed my hair after standing in the park around grass.  So I washed my hair and it did seem to help, although I can't do a controlled experiment since there is only one of me.

Recently, I came across something about sublingual immunotherapy, the mouth version of allergy shots.  There's a clinical trial underway at Stanford.  Don't know if it's available yet but I made an appointment with an internist, which I have to wait almost two months for a new patient appointment.  I would like to know why minute gradually increasing exposure to allergens supposedly changes the immune system long-term but normal repeated exposure to pollen doesn't.  While having an allergy attack, often someone will comment that you just need to get exposed to pollen and then your allergies will go away!  Er... if it worked that way... no allergies would exist.