Going viral (in a non-internet way)

What exactly is wrong with me: an onging mystery

Oh other slipper, where art thou?

Thank you all for your concern and kind wishes after my virus reveal last week. I am feeling much better although still proceeding with extreme caution.

My memory and concentration are still poor. This is almost worse than the sore neck and dizziness. I am almost devoid of cogent thoughts. What might I cook for tea? Was that show a four star knock out or a low three nil-nil draw? These struggles are real.

These mental blank spaces that had me wondering if it was hormonal. Failing to get pomegranate, with a queasy upset stomach and weird out of body feeling, is peak menopause.

Google suggested this was not a thing. A lovely GP, younger than one of my children, confirmed. So that’s something.

What is actually wrong is still as hazy as Edinburgh on a bad haar day. I have had a blood test, a shit test and then a fasting blood test. Still I am met with the shrugging emoji.

In the meantime, I am trying to find the funny side. Like when I drove to Stobhill Hospital for an unrelated gynaecology appointment that has been 14 months in the waiting, then realised I had the time correct but the date wrong. That was truly hilarious. My laughter echoed off the Springburn high flats.

Strasbourg completely defeated me. Out for dinner with another old person, talking about possible upcoming trips, it was as if I was giving her clues in an elaborate parlour game.

French city that has EU stuff in it.

Near the German border.

Does not sound as if it should be in France.

Nothing.

The next morning, still nothing. I had to resort to google again.

Later we had a wild adventure driving to Central Station. This is a challenge to those of us functioning at 100%. The bus gates and one way systems of the city centre, compounded by a sluggish satnav being interpreted by someone who lives in the Outer Hebrides, do not an easy journey make.

I remembered, at the final moment, that satnav goes to an annoying dead end off Wellington Street then proudly proclaims that it has reached its destination.

Instead we freestyled and double parked. I didn’t even have to do a U-turn, which is more than I achieved last week when I was almost trapped in the dystopian nightmare that is the streets surrounding George Square.

At least, when I got home, I remembered to pick up my phone, take the keys out of the ignition and lock the car. I failed at all three of these on a hallucinogenic trip to Melrose a few weeks back when I thought I was better.

Hahahahahahaha no, I was not better.

It was a blazing day at the Borders Book Festival, I was chairing Jen Stout talking about her stellar book Night Train to Odessa.

Not pictured for obvious reasons, Anna and Jen in a giant tent talking sauerkraut

Thankfully Jen is a pal and we had done an event together before. Muscle memory and adrenaline carried me through the hour with only one humiliating stumble - conflating pickled vegetables with fermented ones.

Jen, who knows nearly as much about lactobacillus as she does about the history of the former Soviet states, quickly put me right.

These are some of the macro examples of the virus. I’ve undoubtedly forgotten lots of them. The microagressions have also been constant. Where is my other slipper? When, exactly, did I put those eggs on to boil? Why did I buy olives and edamame beans but not tea bags?

As I washed my hair on Saturday morning, I tried to remember the last time my scalp had encountered shampoo. Drew a blank.

Now I can be trusted with car keys, just about, I am taking this as a reminder to enjoy the faculties I have left while I still can.

What I thought old age would look like. But what if I can’t remember David Byrne?

I previously had a theory that, for people of my generation and cultural references, old age would be three people sitting round a dinner table arguing endlessly about whether Love Goes To Building On Fire was on Talking Heads:77 or More Songs About Buildings and Food.

(It will be a long argument; it was their first single, only included as a bonus track on the 2005 CD of 77. Google again.)

For the last few weeks I’ve only had the vaguest idea who Talking Heads even are. I now think the endgame will be trying to get the word for pomegranate over and over and over again until I no longer care about eating 30 different plants a week.

In the meantime, I will continue to try to get better.

Jackie Kemp, reading last week’s feverish ramblings, wondered what an ironic moustache might look like. Then she went to the newly reopened Filmhouse to see a three-hour Turkish bum-number and there they were. The Hairy Eyeball, expanding minds across the central belt since 2024.