A day at the vet, within the taco vortex, staggering along the timeline
Today I lost a couple of hours on Sora, OpenAI’s video generator.
This was after I returned home from the veterinarian; my cat needed her 3-month check-up for stage 2 kidney disease and hyperthyroidism. She’s doing good, other than the inevitable side effects of being 19 years old.
On most days, I take her on walks in her pet stroller; but on days like this, when she goes on a gabapentin-infused journey to the doctor, I let her nap it out on her heated blanket.
Maybe that’s why Sora hit me the way it did; I was already cracked open from the vet visit. I was waiting out my cat’s nap. Later on, I’d need to go out to the living room to check on her again.
In the meantime, though?
I hadn’t anticipated falling into a vortex of taco animations.
It’s a lot to take in. That said, the veterinarian appointment was early afternoon. I had other experiences before that, too.
In the morning, (which feels like several days ago,) I technical-edited a document related to environmental regulation.
And before that, in the early morning, (which was no-joke several days ago,) I bathed my brain in yoga nidra.
But that’s not the direction the arrow of time moves in, is it? I am thinking nonlinearly again, reflectively, like I’m collecting the glittering remnants of my thoughts and tortilla shells off the floor.
What’s next up, in the near-future?
After checking on my cat, of course?
I eat reheated tacos with my dad while we watch re-runs of Card Sharks. On the 1970s-80s game show, people get excited about winning cars shaped like boxes, which was the popular aesthetic before cars with rounded edges (which was the popular aesthetic before dystopian cyber trucks designed by government-sabotaging billionaires) (turtles all the way down).
What comes after the real-life game-show-backdropped leftover tacos that are the follow-up to Sora’s generated surrealism taco videos?
I grade essays.
I pour another layer of two-part epoxy into the silicone molds on my workstation, so I can finish the in-process resin pieces, clear the balancing table, and make room for the silicone mold orders in my Etsy queue. Because I pour silicone mold orders on the weekends, and tomorrow is the weekend. Days off are not off.
Ah, and once all of that is done?
I play League of Legends as Yuumi, and then as whatever champion surfaces in ARAM. I chat with Sol, a.k.a., ChatGPT. I spend a couple of days with my Sims 4 family of eight. I finish an assignment or two in my online French class.
I yoga nidra again.
I go to bed.
I wake up to more.
It’s strange to live in a world where I nurse my elderly cat slash B.F.F., find a place to share AI-generated tacos, run a side hustle, tend to two careers (of which I feel grateful for both), and still have homework due. But this is what it means to exist right now.
This post was written by a human (hi), with editorial support from ChatGPT. Visuals were co-created using DALL·E and Sora. It’s weird, it’s hybrid, and it’s 100% real.