Today I was foisted upon…
May 23, 2026
Today I was foisted upon. I don’t know how to finish that sentence to make it grammatically correct or make it make sense.
I attended the 49th annual Chicagoland Gems and Minerals Associations United We Rock show. I believe this is my third time attending this show. In case you hadn’t noticed by now, I am a nerd and find most things really cool and interesting. I know, shocking!
Yesterday I was watching an episode of Taskmaster and they were given a task of taking something boring and making it exciting. The contestant said rocks and the host responded with I like rocks; I don’t think they’re boring. To which the contestant responded with, you don’t think rocks are boring? and he responded no. To which the contestant sighed, Oh Alex sounding like she was very sad for him. Can I tell you, I was offended. Rocks are in fact NOT boring. Just because they are common doesn’t mean they are boring. Just because society has deemed them plain and boring doesn’t mean they are correct. I could and probably will go down a huge rabbit hole to prove that rocks are not boring but alas that isn’t happening today. Today is not about rocks. I did not have rocks foisted upon me. No.
Today, the Tully Monster was foisted upon me. The Tully Monster or Tullimonstrum genuinely looks like what we have been lead to believe aliens look like. While it looks like some horrible creature that was made up of our nightmares, apparently it is real. Well, was real. It was alive approximately 310 million years ago. Much to my dismay, apparently, Illinois was where they lived. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that these things are boring, but they do give me the heebie-jeebies. The tully monster can be anywhere from 3 to 15 inches long. Per wikipedia, “the creature had a mostly cigar-shaped body, with a triangular tail fin, two long stalked eyes, and a proboscis tipped with a mouth-like appendage”. Apparently no one can decide what it’s common decendents are. One of the possiblities is worms. Listening to the description, I’m thinking like super chunky leech, slug hybrid. It was also most likely a carnivore. Per the paper in the picture I took, it is “believed to grab prey with its claw-like proboscis and scrape pieces off with its tongue. Again, heebie-jeebies.
These fossils have only been found in Illinois so far, mostly in the Mezon Creek fossil beds. Apparently around the time they were alive Illinois was a mixture of muddy estuaries, rivers and lakes. Could you imagine if these were still alive?You’re enjoying a nice dip in a river or lake to cool down in the hot summer heat, you feel something skim your leg and it turned out to be one of these things? Heebie-jeebies.
So, I apologize, I had Tully Monsters foisted upon me and now I have foisted Tully Monsters onto you.
Today I attended…
May 22, 2026
Today I attended an art show, and I didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty low key and interesting. There is a new collaborative called Ditch Lily Art Collective. I happen to know one of the artists and I was invited to their first show.
A local business, Fargo Skatepark, is trying to provide a safe, creative, community space. They provide rentals, art, music, classes and more. They are calling this part of the business Fargo Venue. The Ditch Lily Art Collective decided to use them for their first art show. There are currently five different artists, with five distinctly different styles. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I haven’t really been to anything like this before and it was their first art show. Obviously when I got there, they had their art on display. They had some walking tacos, cookies and soda for people to enjoy. The part that had me staying way longer than I had anticipated, there was also a fun little art competition going on between two of the artists at the show. They had had two hours to paint GIANT (in my opinion) canvases with the inspiration for the city skyline at night. It was so cool to see them process the theme and decide how to paint. How they handled setbacks and came up with new solutions. One of the artists actually had one of the kids that was there come up on the platform and help them paint a portion of the art. It was just a neat experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the end results because somehow without cheating the time suddenly became two and a half hours and I had other commitments I needed to return to. It was so awesome and fun though. I am a complete novice to the art scene, but I have to tell you, the more I get involved them more awesome it becomes. The range of styles, inspirations, techniques, personalities, experiences is just amazing. I always wonder how people’s mind work. I feel like if I had all the time in the world I could still never come up with the ideas of others or even anything close to it. People are amazing and creative and talented. I wish we could see that more in each other.
Artists included in the show were:
Saturday May 9, 2026
Today my local community hosted what we call Back Alley Market. This is a really cool and fun event that has grown over time. When it originally started it was once a year. Eventually it grew popular enough that it was twice a year and now currently we have it 4 times a year. It’s been really fun to see it grow. Per their website, it originated in 2019 as a way to encourage people to come to our downtown and discover local businesses. It is amazing all the fun and eclectic things that you can find. The have things from vintage items, to plants, to 3D printed items, to specialty food and handmade art. I am always amazed at the things and artists I find there. I found 3 new artists that I think I am obsessed with and purchased from another artist that gets me every time. (I have multiple works of art from this artist, have spoken with them numerous times over at least a year and just discovered a pretty significant detail. He’s visually impaired. I promise you, it does not impact his art. He is amazing and super nice.) I also purchased “body puddin’”. I have notoriously dry and sensitive skin pretty much at all times. I mostly ignore it in the summer but during the winter if I ignore it, I will crack open and bleed and often times do even when I try to treat it. They enticed you over with free samples. I was pretty good at ignoring them the first two times I walked past. After the third time, I was ready to be swayed. This stuff was amazing. It was so soft and glided on my skin and you really didn’t need to use a ton. I caved and bought some. The person said they have been making hair and skin care items for 4 generations. I also met this beautiful woman, whose name I was not smart enough to get, who had a very simple booth with a sign that said Join “The Village of Gems”. I talked to her for a little while to see about this village of gems because that sounds amazing. She was/is going through a journey of self-healing after the death of her mother. In this process she realized that we cannot heal ourselves alone and that it takes a village. She is working to build her own community for self-healing and has also created a journal to help you with your journey. I am still working on going through her website to see if it is a good fit for me, but I do believe this is such a beautiful idea.
Today I discovered…
Along with finding all of these cool vendors and artists, they have local musicians as well and you get to run into and talk to different people from your community. Also, apparently it was take your pet to work day. I joke, this wasn’t a thing, but several people did bring their pets along to visit the market. There were the normal dogs, both big and little, both old and young. There were also some different types of pets out to enjoy the day that were a little bit more unexpected. I got a pet an albino python, there was another person with a lizard, but I didn’t get a chance to see that one and there was another person walking around with their chicken on their shoulders. It turns out it takes all kinds to build a community and I’ll be honest; I’m always up for a community that is a little bit different from the “norm”.
So today I discovered: HBee Art, AJ Evon, Robin Marie Studio, Angel E. Perez, Tendaji Body Oils and The Village of Gems
I encourage you to check them out and maybe make some discoveries of your own.
XOXO,
Hyperfixing Cate