Give yourself a hug and push with your heels.

This is dedicated to my comrades-in-chucks: the "smart" kids who thought we were too smart, too ambitious, too logical, and maybe a touch too cool to spend our days slinging poop. The B-school thoughtfuls, the LSAT acers, the MCAT pummelers who somehow, sometime, thought that they'd just look into nursing. Probably the NP part, since that's smarter. Cleaner. And now what are we doing?

Slinging sh#t and grinning, sisters. Humming a little tune while while we switch NG tube canisters. Sizing up veins at the supermarket. Making up lyrics to the vent alarms. You know who you are. If you'd have been as smart as the nursing students who actually went out occasionally in undergrad instead of trying to get published, or amplify RNA, or achieve world peace, you'd have it made right now. You could be laughing at the sorry biochemist-turned-RN-student desperately asking the toddler outwhy he doesn't want his shots now. Instead, you have the great privilege of being overeducated AND overemployed (if perhaps grossly underpaid).

You may not stay here in RN land. You may keep going through for your NP. I may, too. But if you've made that fateful transition--from thinking of cleaning other people's bodily fluids as a menial task to seeing it as one of the many parts of the most trusted, literally privileged jobs in the world, this is for you.

As always, curious lookers-on, gaping crowds, and obnoxious interjectors are welcome. I have a strong preference for dialogue over narrative. There will be nursing, healthcare, literature, scatology, and plenty more to keep everyone (well, me at least) entertained and maybe just a little creeped out.

Join the messadventure, but keep your emesis basin handy, and mind yer junk!