Finding Creative Permission, my new post exploring creativity and nursing, is up at TheONC.
And Happy Valentine’s Day!
New Post on TheONC: Finding Creative Permission
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Tag Archives: blogging
TheONC: A New Blogging Community for Oncology Nurses and Teams
Last week CancerNetwork launched TheONC; an online community for oncology nurses and staff. TheONC is a gated site for professionals so login is required to participate. The video link below explains more fully:
video.asp?section_id=1687&doc_id=238579
TheONC features bloggers with a wide spectrum of expertise writing on various aspects of cancer care. As a contributing blogger, I write from the perspective of an artist working in oncology. Through weekly posts, readers and I will discuss creativity, and its pursuit, in nursing. Images of my artwork accompany the posts. My first went live yesterday.
AJN’s On the Web
This morning I’m drinking my first cup of coffee, thumbing through the January 2012 issue of the American Journal of Nursing. A familiar sentence catches my eyes in On the Web, page 22. It’s a line from a post published (and I wrote) on their blog Off the Charts. Thanks AJN!
It’s gonna be a good day.
Bogus JParadisi RN Writes a Sex Blog: If It Was Really Me, The Posts Would Be More…
Untitled. Collage by jparadisi 2004
Sometimes when I’m alone, I Google myself.
This week, I sat up fully erect in my chair, surprised to find a Yahoo Shine blog with my name and Gravatar. Harder to swallow is that the bogus JParadisi RN blog is a sex advice blog. (Cut and paste this link into your browser if you want to see it for yourself. http://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/author/jparadisirn-ycn-1205337/ ) It’s not my blog. I don’t think I have a Yahoo account. A JParadisi RN imposter created one, and I do not have password access.
I felt ashamed. Searching Yahoo for a way to report the hijack left me spent. I wanted that stain of a blog wiped from the web.
Pondering this cyber ménage à trio between Yahoo, a hacker, and myself, I reconsidered. I asked myself, “How many opportunities does a nurse blogger get to write sex posts, which are not clinically motivated?”
Nada.
In an orgasm of insight, I heard the voice of Kenny Bania, that annoying, fictional comic friend of Jerry Seinfeld’s, telling me, “That’s gold, Jerry, gold!”
So I went back to the fake JParadisi RN sex advice blog, and started reading. The posts are mostly submissive, with jparadisirn by lines, and titles such as:
- 20 Lovemaking Secrets That Are Guaranteed To Spice Up Your Love Life
- 13 Sex Secrets Men Don’t Know About Women
- 10 Things Women Shouldn’t Worry About In Bed
- 5 Moves That Make You Look Bad In Bed (apparently there are at least 5 things you should worry about in bed)
Afterwards, I was left unfulfilled. I think the fake blog makes me sound frumpy. For example, in
20 Lovemaking Secrets That Are Guaranteed To Spice Up Your Love Life,
bogus JParadisi RN offers this gobbet of advice:
You do not have to get dressed up as a nurse or anything. Just act out a fantasy where you pretend to be someone else.
Sexy nurse reference aside (Readers, I hear your collective groan), if I were the author of this post, I would tell you ladies to save your money. Men already want to have sex with you, they really do. Role playing, sexy lingerie, candles, whatever, serve one purpose for men. They are visual cues telling him YOU want sex, and he doesn’t have to do anything except show up. That’s why you get such an excited response from him: ALL HE HAS TO DO IS SHOW UP, because you want him, and that’s a turn on. Test it. Sit down on the sofa next to him and put your foot on his knee, wiggle it, and giggle. See what happens. It’s that simple. Besides, really nice sexy lingerie is expensive. If you’re doing it right, 15 minutes after you put it on it will lay shredded on the floor. Save your money.
Another post,
How to Know If Your Husband is Cheating Again
This post is clearly not written by moi. Fake JParadisi RN replies with information about spy software a wife (or girlfriend) can install that lets her track her husband’s cell phone calls and Internet activity. Me, the REAL JParadisi RN, finds this pathetic. First of all, the title: How to Know If Your Husband is Cheating Again. Again? What do you mean, AGAIN? Okay, I know there are all types of relationships out there, and monogamy is not on everyone’s priority list, but if it’s on yours, then there is NO AGAIN. If you catch him cheating, change the locks and move his sh*#t into the driveway. Pin a flame retardant note to the smoldering pile that reads, “Hope you can find something with the Occupy Movement, cuz you don’t live HERE no more!” Again, save your money, and your dignity.
Speaking of dignity: I don’t have immediate plans to defend mine from the hacker blogger. My relationship with my family, friends, and employer, and their intelligence is such that no one I care about will believe the fake JParadisi RN sex advice blog is mine. That someone would do such a thing says far worse about that person than it will ever say about me. Beyond hacking my blog handle, the posts are stolen from other bloggers and websites. Somewhere a blogger(s) goes unrecognized for his or her work. Blogging is hard, and often uncompensated work.The pirating of these posts is appalling.
Someone has said, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Maybe so, but it is surely travelled by the feet of those with bad intentions.
*Note: I am not a qualified counselor. The information in this post is not advice, merely my personal opinion.
The Meaning of Success Is In The Squiggles
What Success Looks Like, After via, via, via, via ...Facebook 2011 by jparadisi
Recently one of my friends on Facebook posted a drawing about success. I took the liberty of drawing a copy of it. In art school, copying the drawing of another artist, particularly a dead one, is acceptable if you write “After and insert name of the artist whose work you copied following the title of the drawing. In nursing, copying a written policy of another institution or department by using it as a template is legitimized by the phrase, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” My point, is this: I copied the above drawing from an unidentified artist on Facebook, because it illustrates the path of success. Maybe not the path of your success, but certainly mine, and that of many artists, writers, and nurses.
The definition of success has plagued creative and ambitious people since, well, the invention of the wheel. Is success defined by external validation from society in the form of wealth, fame, and Klout score? Or is it generated within the individual, an internal sense of satisfaction derived from knowing that what one contributes holds merit, whether society recognizes it or not? This brings to mind the contrast between the fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge, who’s myopic vision of success impoverished his soul, and the nonfictional, archetypical starving artist Vincent van Gogh, living in poverty for the sake of his art. Both had destructive relationships with success. A similar disparity exists in nursing, which demands intellect, critical thinking, and expensive educations as avenues of success, but offers limited career paths and varying financial incentives in return. Nevertheless, nursing’s contributions to society, and those of artists, are not diminished, though some find it difficult reconciling commercial success with creativity, or caregivers.
While writing posts for this blog, I ponder the meaning of success. Success as a blogger, writer and artist is often hidden in the squiggles, but it is not lost in them. The blog bears fruit. It has attracted opportunities for the sale of my stories and artwork. Moreover, within the squiggles I have discovered an Internet community of artist, writer, nurse companions, and like-minded readers through blogging. With such camaraderie, getting lost in the squiggles becomes a camping trip instead of The Exodus.
If you are a passionate blogger, artist, or nurse currently lost in the squiggles on the Road to Success, keep going. You are not alone.
JParadisi RN’s Blog Ranked Among 50 Up and Coming Nursing Blogs.
The Accredited Nurse Practitioners Blog has included JParadisi RN’s Blog in their list of 50 Up and Coming Nursing Blogs Worth Reading. JParadisi RN’s Blog counts in at 22 on the list. Thank you for the recognition!
Social Media is a Gateway Vice
Street Art, artist unknown. photo: JParadisi 2006
The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away when they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves.
B. Lopez
I clicked publish on the dashboard and became the narrator of my life.
As all such stories begin, it was innocent at first. I’d heard it was dangerous, but I thought I could handle myself. I had no understanding of what I had done. So began JParadisi RN’s Blog.
My naiveté was the result of experiences with other social media platforms. I actually closed my Facebook account once, and Twitter is no more to me than an electronic business card. I use each to announce art shows or accomplishments, and keep up with the same information from my friends. But, blogging, oh blogging, forgive my human foible I am hooked.
Like most initiates, in the beginning I checked stats obsessively throughout the day, lit by each new hit. Soon, hits weren’t doing it for me anymore. I craved comments and links. I needed to know someone was reading my posts. Like a neighborhood dealer, the Internet is happy to oblige. It makes me wait in anticipation, driving me to write more, write better, whatever it takes to get another link or comment. Ideas for new posts wake me up in the middle of the night. At work, I look for occurrences to divert into insightful posts. Often I see the ideas as images, so I started a second blog, Die Krankenschwester to handle the overflow.
Of course, I exaggerate to some extent. Occasionally I am able to shut down my computer for up to 24 hours at a time. Blogging isn’t an addiction. It is a medium of self-expression just like painting. Blogging is equivalent to exhibiting my paintings: a public voice. In one way, it’s superior to a traditional art show, because I don’t have to ask permission to publish my thoughts on a blog. In the art world, hanging paintings in a gallery requires the permission of the gallerist. As a writer, I ask permission from editors to publish my stories. In many areas of our society, the public expression of individual opinions requires someone’s permission. Not inherently bad, gallerists and editors are gatekeepers, deciding who gets in (I am joyful when they pick me). Blogging bypasses the gatekeepers, allowing anyone to express him or herself freely, as long as they are willing to take on possible consequences.
It’s no wonder that people homebound with chronic or life-threatening diseases use social media to find support. It’s not surprising so many nurses blog, often anonymously, telling the stories their friends and families often don’t have the stomach to listen to or the background to understand. I remind myself at social gatherings to say only I am a nurse, when asked what I do for a living. No one wants to hear about critically ill children or oncology at a cocktail party.
We are social creatures and our need to tell stories is strong. I cherish the quiet solitude necessary for my creative process, but if meditation was all it’s cracked up to be, solitary confinement wouldn’t be a punishment.
JParadisi RN Launches New Blog: Die Krankenschwester
“There is no use trying.” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
-Lewis Carroll
If you could hear this sentence, there would be a drum roll. Die Krankenschwester is a blog exploring identity by combining blogging and visual in an experimental format. Kronkenschwester ( kron/ken/shwester) is German for nurse and translates literally to the sick sister. Most of the art work will be created specifically for Die Krankenschwester over a not yet determined period of time. The images represent a visual exploration of nursing practice and identity through art and pop culture. I don’t have more of a plan than that. So check in at Die Krankenschwester now and then and see what you think.
JParadisi RN’s Blog will continue as a separate from Die Krankenschwester.
Die Krankenschwester blog header JParadisi 2010
