Almost finished the heel flap on the self-patterning (it's Meilenweit Cotton Fantasy color 808) last night.

This morning, having problems. Slept badly all night - humid, humid, humid. I feel like something is sitting on my chest. Bad dreams all night - I've been really troubled by this flu-shot news (WHY in the name of all that's good, do only two companies make the vaccine? That seems just idiotic to me - like putting all your eggs in one basket. Heh. Eggs. Which they make the vaccine in....).

I've gotten a flu shot every year since 1994, when I got the flu. I was sick for a month, it turned into asthmatic bronchitis, I had to go on a theophylline inhaler (and as I am a naturally anxious person, theophylline and I do not play well together.) And now, they're talking voluntary rationing, and I'm wondering if I should get the flu shot, and feel a right heel if it turns out I could have given my dose to some elderly person who would suffer far worse than I with the flu, or should I be noble but perhaps foolish and offer up my shot to someone else? That was on my mind last night and I dreamed about it all last night.

I could argue that I'm in the group that requires the vaccine, but that would probably require going out and getting what I'm convinced is asthma diagnosed. And I don't want to be put on another med, especially an inhaler, if I can manage the asthma by realizing that it's not a wise idea to go up four flights of stairs at a full-tilt run when my chest feels tight, or drinking a cup of strong hot tea to loosen things up.

It may be a moot point, for all I know. It could be my campus' health services ordered from the banned manufacturer, and none of us will get the vaccine. Ugh. That will be a horrorshow - students and profs and staff all infecting and re-infecting each other in the close and overheated quarters where most of us work.

But one thing I wish: would the local news channels please NOT talk about the flu shot shortage and then immediately follow the story with another on how there might be a coming "flu pandemic"? I mean, it's not like there's a fat lot we, the populace, can do, short of staying sequestered in our houses from November to May, which isn't gonna happen, and I REALLY don't want to see Cabbage-Patch-Doll-riot behavior over the flu vaccine.