The Ovarian Bull
Hey y’all, Christian here with some more comic relief! 😊
First off, thank you so much to everyone who has helped support us during this time of need, it has really meant a lot to us both. 🙏 Who needs a functional healthcare system with family and friends like these.
When I was a child, unburdened by the world and its things, my parents decided that it was about time we had “the talk”… you know, that cultural right of passage that so often ends in an awkward conversation between a parent and their child about the birds, bees, and the cigarette trees. And my parents being into these self-help workshops that were so popular in the 80s, what better way to teach your child about how intimacy works then to send him to a sex-ed class consisting of a bunch of strangers, which in retrospect wasn’t the worst pairing with the overall “we must never discuss this again” vibes surrounding the event.
So one night my Dad dropped me off at the local church where the class was being held, within a minute or so of being seated, they already have they diagram of the female reproductive system up on the overhead projector, and the teacher is proclaiming, “it kind of looks like a bull with the horns” (points to the ovarian tubes) and that is where the memory completely dead ends and my life-long association with bulls and woman’s reproductive parts begins.
That is all to say that, please forgive me for my somewhat juvenile first-take of this situation, but when we found out about Kate’s ovarian cancer my initial reaction was to imagine this giant bull with blue skin, staring down murderously, violently exhaling smoke from its nostrils, a cancer monster looking like it was ready to charge. And of course, you know me (maybe), never have I missed an opportunity to use technology and AI to manifest the strange musings of my mind….
Of particular note, I love how the AI generated boots that matched the blanket she had around her shoulders. The way Dall-E (an AI art generator) works is that you erase part of the picture and it kind of just fills in the blanks with whatever you type into the prompt, then it tries to best match it with the original image, this is pretty much like magic to me… and also quite fashionable. Between the Chat GPT and the generative art stuff going on right now, it feels again like we live in a time of magic. You just have to know the right incantation (or prompt) and out comes a bit of wonder, which is really a much appreciated distraction on the path of Kate’s Quest.
Take care of yourself and loved ones,
Christian
