Lame Atmosphere, but Cool Gear

E. took sick yesterday, so I spent an inordinate amount of time in the Mercy San Juan Hospital Emergency Room. Things seemed pretty quiet yesterday afternoon at what must be, at times, one of Sacramento's crazy hot spots, so I had time to look around at the cool equipment.

I found myself admiring the cool new "nitrile" gloves, which have an unearthly blue color, like Paul Muad'Dib's eyes on Arrakin spice. I wonder about the name, though: I thought nitriles were gases - acetonitrile is a gas - so maybe the gloves are just made of a less-volatile organic. I got some powdered latex gloves in the 80's, as some kind of strange medical promotional item in the mail, and I kept them, because you just never know when you might need powdered latex gloves, but I guess some people don't like the powder, and some people itch from the latex - hence someone invented these cool new gloves. Someone please mail me some of these hot new fashion items!

They wheeled E. to the fourth floor, which appears to be staffed by all-Asians - people from a dozen countries, who are very nice, and nominally speak English: it's a veritable Tower of Babel over there. E. finds herself under the thumb of a patronizing, rainbow-language, drug-obsessed tyranny, where she can't sleep when she wants, where she can't eat what she wants, where she has to wear what they insist upon, where people only seem interested in her body: kind-of-like what being a fashion model must be like.