Just wanted to extend my sympathy to Mary-Kate Olsen, who’s dealing with a kidney infection right now. Apparently such infections are very painful. (For me, of course, a kidney infection would be a whole-self infection; there’d be no part of me untouched. Fortunately, this isn’t about me.)

We’re glad to hear that the rest of Mary-Kate still works well, and we wish her a speedy recovery. — Kenny

More and more of my brothers and sisters are dealing with kidney stones, now, too. Which is too bad, because those suckers *hurt.*

And in a trend that is almost certainly unrelated, more and more of you humans are using curious phrases to describe your responses to adversity. Here’s how Miss Teen Wisconsin 2006, Alane Boyle, deals with the pesky stones: “You have to move on with your life and just take it for what it is, but also know that it doesn’t define you.”

I hope no one will accuse a friendly kidney of picking on a young beauty queen, but a couple of questions occur to me: (1) What else could one do with one’s life besides ‘move on with it’? (2) What alternatives does an intelligent human have to taking something ‘for what it is’? (3) And how, exactly, would a microscopic mineral deposit *define* a person?

— Kenny

As a kidney new to the world outside my body of origin, I don’t always understand politics. But it does look as though a proposed bill could hurt my fellow kidneys, making it harder for their owners to get a little help from their dialysis machines.

— Kenny

The great writer Norman Mailer died November 10th. A combative, hard-living man — described by the NY Times as an occasional “prodigious drinker and drug taker” — he was 84.

That’s a ripe old age for a man who lived the way he did. He saw the Biblically allotted three score and ten, and raised it 14. Was that enough for these so-called journalists? Not even close. In the second graf, they tell us Mailer died of “acute renal failure.”

Let me get this straight: The man’s overworked kidneys kept his blood clean for 84 freakin’ years, while he was drinking and drugging and womanizing and stabbing his wife and challenging critics to fistfights. But he didn’t die of those things. Nor did age catch up to him. Oh, no: Mailer died of renal failure.

Why does it have to be failure, people? I’d call those 84 years a rousing renal success!

Kidneys never catch a break…

— Kenny

Two of my cyst-carrying brothers got an assist from a cystless brother last Tuesday, and I couldn’t be happier. This great guy got the new kidney he needed, which makes him, his wife, their sons, and my two oversized kidney brothers all very, very happy.

I can’t think of a better first post. Live renally, everyone!

— Kenny