"drink!"

i like it when doctors finally throw in the towel and tell you to go ahead and drink every day. it's like they want to say, "i can't really help you, so try to enjoy your life."

i'm exaggerating. but it's true that today, my nephrologist, who concurs w/ my urologist that i should do the retrograde endopyelotomy, told me that he thinks i should drink every day.

well, there you go.

i choose Louis Latour Pinot Noir. but then there's this lovely Goats Do Roam (ha) red from South Africa that i just *love* (read about the "controversial" rhetoric of its name). i had something at Christa's a couple of weeks ago (she calls GDR "the goat wine," which i think is hysterical). so i was at a little party at her newly ikea'd home (it looks fabulous); i hadn't planned on drinking wine until i heard Christa say, "it starts out strong, and then . . . . flowers in your mouth," and so naturally i was in. that was a lovely red wine (the thing my doc thinks i should be drinking, which is just okay by me). and it's not about lowering cholersterol or anything like that . . . just about enjoying my life and not worrying so much. sure, there's xanax for that, but that's a drag. i love my red wine, especially with friends. and while i doubt i'll take to drinking every day, i'm happy to have my kidney doctor's blessing.

speaking of blessings, i'm actually glad that my nephrologist -- let's honor him by sharing his name, Dr. Stephanz -- thinks i should have the surgery. he's been conservative about it, but he finally told me today what he's never said in quite these terms, that "one day, your kidney will block up, so sooner rather than later [re: the surgery] is best". i don't think i was ready to hear that 5 years ago. i certainly wasn't *able* to hear it when they diagnosed the congenitally absent kidney when i was 29, 15 years ago. now, i'm fine with it. the procedure, meanwhile, has evolved, and i should be up and around w/in a week after it's done (probably scheduling, then, for some time after summer session ends and fall begins). My urologist, Dr. Platt, will do the surgery. it's probably just about time. i'm ready, and Dr. Platt thinks it will help me to control my d.i. much more elegantly than i have in the past (or present). that will be wonderful.

now . . . drink.

but first, to be fair to my web space's theme, i want to say that my wine choices, including my choice to drink wine, is so much a part of my socialization into a particular kind of arts/media culture (obviously). the look and feel of a certain piece of stemware somehow resonates an aura of something i want, something i want to participate in. i remember drinking a *very* dense-to-the-point-of-being-chalky-w/weight dark, dark red and very dry wine w/ a friend in Tampa, late one night . . . hurling myself forward with a gesture that wanted to expel it from my mouth -- and fast -- but holding it together, just barely, wheezing my way into an ability to say, "wow, . . . um, . . . that's dense" (it was actually something a bit less delicate, the thing that i said). so now i've found my reds on my own (?) and understand the pleasures of cultivating a taste for a particular wine. that is, i find it sort of special -- given the webs of discourse that bulk up a sense of mystery or superiority around/about a wine (like a cab) -- when i find or sense that i've discovered (?) a wine that i am genuinely excited about, even if it's all in a label or a myth generated my clever intellectual businesspeople or something in the sound of a name . . . "Louis Latour" (i must recall the name from Bow Wow Wow, right? Bill D?) . . . or some adventure novel. i often choose wines as i used to choose albums, by their covers, so it's all about initial impressions (conversely, with wine . . . "flowers in your mouth" . . . it's often about latter or more lasting impressions). i have informed myself enough to know where to begin when i'm searching for a nice red wine, but there's something in a label . . .

i may have to begin some serious analytical work regarding the labels i choose and why. w/ my new drinking schedule, i should have an article out on the subject quite soon.