Some disjointed thoughts

1. The rain is back, and it is welcome. The sun had me tormented. Applying Factor 50 to every inch of exposed skin. Re-applying it 30 minutes later. Tilting and re-positioning my hat this way and that, but still looking like I had a want in me.

Feeling the fear at every text coming through once the office blocks released them. "Beer garden?" Going along, because I am there at everything now, a social animal for the first time in all my days.

Edging my chair back into the shade every time that bastard in the sky made a move, chatting to my beloved friends from the shadows, while they lapped up rays that would appear only as a fresh lot of freckles in the morning.

The ears are the real worry, so they say. And the top of the head. And the hands.

You couldn't be up to that skin cancer, and where it might strike.

2. My hair is still falling out. Tomorrow I am going to visit a special hair salon where they deal mostly with women on chemotherapy and sufferers of alopecia.

I am worried that the clients with cancer will hate me, for being there in my vanity, for having life ahead of me, rather than creeping away from me.

But I look forward to seeing the ends of my tresses dropping to the floor. I was hanging on to them, thinking that if I had length, it would disguise the absence of fullness. But they are scraggly, thinned and waning. They have to go.

3. The work scene is a tricky one these days. Those healing weeks I needed to take after my transplant put me out of favour with my on-again-off-again employers.

I am trying to pitch ideas to newspapers. Some weeks I think I'm getting somewhere, only to be put back in my box the next.

I have enjoyed intervieweing, researching and writing to a deadline again though. Seeing my byline over a piece that is about someone other than myself, and about something other than dialysis.

But the newspaper industry is in about as good a shape as my old kidneys. The freelance pickings are scarce, and it offers nothing in terms of security or certainty of an income from one landlord visit to the next.

I have so much joy now, so much interest in every other aspect of living. I am in an almost constant state of delight at how well I feel.

But I have nothing left in the tank when it comes to dragging work out of this recession. I have been begging for scraps of temporary employment for two and a half years, showing up on time, often on days when I was hardly fit to bless myself, and working hard for people who would never value my efforts.

It seems somehow insulting that after all I have come through, after my little miracle, the loss of one life to save mine, that still I sit here and fret over such mundane issues as bank balances and pay slips.

4. I tried Zumba for the first time last night. What a load of nonsense. But what total and utter fun.

It's not often that any of us dance anymore. Increasingly, we seek out seats in the pub, where we talk and drink within our circle. There is rarely a nite club chanced, even after several scoops.

And to dance soberly? Perish the thought.

I will definitely go back next week.