My Brother Is A Male Nurse.....

Last night I was poking around blogspot. Anyone can do this if they sign in to the site. On the top header of my blog is a "Next Blog" button. I don't know the criteria for the "next blog" path. What constitutes the next blog? Do you always go to the same next blog? Can I go to the next blog backwards? Is my blog ever another persons next blog? How many next blogs are there? I should know things like this.

I am confused and wondering if there is a blog etiquette? Somewhere there may be a Miss Manners or a Mr. Manners posting everything you ever needed to know about blogs, and more. I need something like that.

What do I call the writing I do, a post, an entry, a blog? If I want people to read what I wrote, I click PUBLISH POST, so I guess after I click I am a publisher. Before the click I am writing a post. I think. So, the entire body of published posts is the blog. I am going to consider myself a published blog poster person. Now I need to figure out how to get more followers.

The daily posts would be easier to write and publish if I didn't need to be careful. I must think about the tale I am telling and the trail I am leaving. I couldn't write about my years as a cat burglar. I wouldn't write about my years in the ------------------, see.

I stopped at one blog last night, the author had four hundred and thirty eight followers. I have fourteen. They had over three hundred members. I have six and one of those is me. I need to find some way to get  more members. I have a couple of ideas. Every posting over a thirty day period will have a clue hidden in it's fourth paragraph. Only members will be able to collect all the clues. I will have a cipher hidden in someones Farmville. Once all the goats, chickens, horses, and sheep have had a weeks worth of feed the cipher will reveal itself to be somewhere in a large pile of hay. Once the cipher is found, in the hay, the clues can be decoded to get a nice prize. Either that or I will give everyone who signs up a dollar.

I 'm really trying to understand why I am doing this. Last night I read several blogs with apologies as the most recent posts. "Sorry I haven't posted lately." Or, "Sorry I have been busy with the baby and the move and I lost my job and Seymour left me and the twins had the chicken pox and my father was in the hospital and I was in a car accident so I've been taking the bus when I go shopping or looking for a job, but I promise I will start publishing again as soon as I get some time. My goodness, talk about a little pressure.

The blog shouldn't be anything, but fun. This is not a stepping stone to the next chapter of my life. But, could it be? I read someone last night who has had one book published and is now working on a second. She writes romance novels, titles like "I'm Hot For The Fireman" and "The Mailman Delivers The Goods." I'm thinking I should try my hand at one of these, maybe. Or, I could write about some of my experiences working in health care.

"My Brother is a Male Nurse" ....A patient once said that to me.

I could write about one of my favorite patients, Abdul. He was one of the most difficult people I have ever met, anywhere. The fact that he lived in the hospital didn't do much to improve his personality. Abdul had a nasty disposition and a severe skin disorder. Think terrible horrible dandruff and terrible horrible eczema. He had his left leg amputated just above the knee. He was able to get around in a donated wheelchair but traveled in a series of circles, or loops. He only used his right foot to propel himself his hands too busy scratching or rummaging through trash receptacles looking for cigarettes or cigar butts.

Abdul could have moved into to a nursing or group home if one of the resident doctors discharged him, again. It had been over a year since the last attempt. You see, he liked the hospital so much he didn't want to leave. He also liked me and called me, "Yuck." I would come into work at three in the afternoon knowing soon after I would hear, "Yuck, Yuck, you got my moke?" "gimme moke." He would follow me on my rounds, making little circles while waiting for me to get one of his cigarettes out of the cupboard.

Abdul would smoke a whole cartoon in a matter of days if we didn't ration his cigarettes. Some of the nurses were as tight fisted with his tobacco as they were with the morphine. I let him "moke" his brains out. His cigarettes were all he had for any happiness or satisfaction. It wasn't as though one an hour would kill him, although the television might.

See, wouldn't a book about my patients be fun?