COLUMN: Insomnia

Because life just isn't fun without challenges, I've picked up a new hobby this week: insomnia. I've given it a chance, but I've got to say that so far, I don't get the appeal.

I'd like to blame it on science somehow. Perhaps the drop in barometric pressure causes restlessness. I don't know if that's a fact. I also don't know if the barometric pressure has dropped. Come to think of it, I don't really even understand how barometric pressure works. But it sounds impressive, right? Maybe it's the fact that we're on the precipice of the summer solstice. When it doesn't get dark until 9 p.m., going to bed shortly afterwards feels like I'm being cheated out of my evenings somehow. It's disruptive to my circadian rhythms. (See? I'm dropping mad science terms all over the place like a proper intellectual.)

I'm just desperate to blame this on anything or anyone other than myself. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure I know exactly why I've had trouble getting to sleep lately. For one, I need to stop drinking caffeinated soda after dark -- that's just dumb. I also know a lot of the blame falls on my side hustle as a weekend DJ. During the week, I try to live a somewhat respectable schedule of getting to bed by midnight and getting up around 7 a.m. On the weekends, though, I'm spinning records until 2 a.m., which means I don't usually get to bed until 4 a.m. or later -- and then wake up at the crack of noon wondering where my weekend went. When I was in my twenties, that lifestyle was easy to master. These days, it's a little more taxing. 

But honestly, I'm trying my best not to divulge the REAL reason for my sleeplessness, which has less to do with circadian rhythms and owes more to me staying up til the wee hours watching ridiculous videos on TikTok. I'll get in bed, tuck myself in, realize I'm super bored, and grab my phone. 97 videos later, I'll look at the clock and realize it's 1:30 a.m. and then lay there worrying about how many brain cells I've just lost watching utter nonsense.

Thankfully, though, the internet has an answer for sleepless nights, and that answer is Spotify. Specifically, the ever-growing and ever-popular category on Spotify simply called "sleep." Just scroll past pop, rock, and country -- you'll find it towards the end of their genre list. Inside this category are a number of carefully curated playlists with the sole aim of lulling you to sleep. I'm deeply fascinated by it. Perusing Spotify playlists might honestly be my new favorite hobby.

I've written about some of these Spotify sleep playlists before, but I never really took a deep dive. The last time, I was captivated by my discovery of five distinct playlists -- the ones labelled "white noise" (214 "songs" of pure static fuzz), "pink noise" (196 tracks of slightly deeper static fuzz), "brown noise" (230 tracks of even lower pitched static fuzz), "black noise" (essentially the soundtrack to the lobby of Hell,) and "green noise," which is identical to pink noise except they superimpose sounds of frogs and cicadas and such over the top of it.

Somehow this is supposed to make me sleepy. Instead it just makes me giggle. It all just kinda sounds like the interior of an airplane cabin to me, except that it must not, because there's a separate playlist called "airplane cabin noise." They ALL sound the same to me. Either my ears are off or there's a scam afoot here. Either way, I applaud whoever earns an honest living by recording static and marketing it as a magical sleep aid. I bet that dude sleeps soundly every night.

Every one of these playlists has over 100 tracks that are each roughly around five minutes long. I've rapidly discovered that the only thing more off-putting than listening to five minutes of static is the one second of silence that plays as it changes tracks. I tried lulling myself to sleep in static-filled bliss the other night, but every time that second of silence hit, it felt like I could suddenly hear my own soul and my eyes immediately popped open. What happened? Did I die? Did the plane crash?  

The other trendy sleep sound that the new-age-iers amongst us swear by are "binaural beats." It's an auditory illusion that occurs when you play separate tones of slightly different frequencies to each ear at the same time. The human brain can't process the different tones together, so it instead perceives the noise as a combined third tone. Supposedly, this can induce a semi-hypnotic state of relaxation and tranquility. I've found it can also induce a semi-gross state of nausea. Plus, the effect only happens when you're listening through headphones, otherwise it just sounds like your cat is having a lie-down on a Casio keyboard. 

Speaking of Casio keyboards, that's pretty much what Spotify's "lo-fi sleep" playlist sounds like. Or there's the "sleepy piano" playlist, which sounds like you're trying to catch a catnap inside a Von Maur -- as opposed to "calming nature music," which sounds like someone let birds into the Von Maur. "Floating in space" is a neat playlist if you refrain from thinking that you'd die within about five seconds in the vacuum of space. And if you think the "train sounds" playlist is relaxing, you might have problems way deeper than insomnia.

Personally, the one sleep playlist I like is called "gloomcore," described by Spotify as "wandering the forest as the fog floats through the trees." I dig it -- but I dig it a little TOO much, because instead of sleeping, I prefer to just lay there and groove out to the gloomy bliss. 

Do the sleep playlists work? Well, you be the judge -- it's presently 1:30 a.m. and I'm currently listening to the "Deep Sleep" playlist while writing a column about listening to the "Deep Sleep" playlist at 1:30 a.m. Mission unaccomplished. But I'm not giving up on it yet -- after all, what else do I have better to do in the middle of the night? I mean, other than sleep.

COLUMN: Joro

I promise you it isn't my goal to turn this column into your new home for all things small and icky, but the hits keep coming.

A couple weeks ago, I told the tale of my backyard being invaded by a swarm of honeybees, which was pretty much my worst nightmare come to life. Last week, I mentioned how an aimless country drive took us straight into the heart of the great cicada uprising of 2024. For someone who hates bugs and insects and all manner of creepy-crawlies, I've certainly been devoting a lot of column inches to them.

I had plans to take things in a different direction this week, I swear. This one wasn't my fault. I blame TMZ.

People give TMZ a lot of grief. They are, after all, the "news" outlet that hangs outside of airports and restaurants in hopes of ambushing whatever celebrity might attempt to exist within their proximity. There's nothing quite as cringy as watching paparazzi painfully trying to get soundbytes from famous people by hurling inane questions at them. "J-Lo!" they'll scream in desperation. "Where's your wedding ring? Why did you cancel your tour? What do you think about the Trump verdict? How should we solve the crisis in Gaza?"

Paparazzi are the scum that live between the toes of other pondscum. I feel terrible for celebrities when they're hounded by paparazzi everywhere they go. People give Taylor Swift occasional grief for being so omnipresent, but can you imagine, even for a split second, living her life? She's literally a prisoner of her own fame. Taylor Swift can't step one foot outside her house (whichever of her many houses she happens to be in) without an onslaught of flashbulbs and idiots yelling inane stuff. It's truly a miracle she hasn't gone completely lost the plot, built an amusement park in her backyard, and tried to buy the elephant man's bones at this point.

TMZ are terrible -- but so, apparently, am I. As much as I despise the culture they perpetuate, I'm JUST shallow and vapid enough to obsess over the culture they cover. The TMZ app sits on my phone right next to CNN's like it's a major news source. I hate TMZ, yet there's a part of me that will always root for them. Whenever they get the jump on "real" news networks and scoop some breaking news, I can't help but cheer for the underdog, even if this particular underdog is covered in slime.

But most of the time, TMZ's breaking news bulletins are nothing but sensationalistic twaddle -- which brings me to their alert I just got on my phone:

"GIANT VENOMOUS FLYING SPIDERS INVADING ANY DAY NOW."

Welp, there's one I didn't have on my bingo card.

Honestly, though, given the decade we're living in, it kinda tracks, right? We've survived a global pandemic, an insurrection, Korean boybands, and whatever Jojo Siwa's turned into. I suppose it's simply high time we added giant venomous flying spiders to the list.

It's actually kind of horrifying. A few years, some Asian joro spiders must've hitched a ride on some shipping containers, landed on our shores, and set up shop down in Georgia back in 2010. Since then, the invasive arachnids have begun spreading across the U.S. If you haven't seen a joro spider, they can grow to the size of a human hand and have leg spans of four inches. Their webs are massive and sticky. And if that's not gross enough, when joro spiders feel like relocating, they weave their webs into the shape of balloons and just go paragliding in the summer breeze until they presumably fly directly into my face and test the efficacy of my heart medicine. Fun times.

The GOOD news is that TMZ is over-hyping and clickbaiting the headline somewhat. While joro spiders are indeed starting to colonize our continent, they're still a ways away from the Midwest. They're currently making their way up the east coast and even into Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They're likely coming our way, but not for a bit. And while these spiders ARE venomous, they usually prefer sinking their tiny teeth into other insects and NOT people. I just read an article that said their teeth are so small, they might not even be able to puncture human skin -- and if they DID, it would be no worse than a bee sting.

(Note to the general press and mainstream media: When you're trying to minimize the danger of something, don't compare it to a bee sting. Some of us are deathly allergic to bee stings. Just sayin'.)

When it comes to spiders, I generally have a "live and let live" philosophy, unless they're the scary and/or deadly type. If you're a spider and you want to set up shop in a distant corner of my property where you will never bother me and I will never walk into your web, have at it. Enjoy feasting on all the other bugs I hate. But if you decide to move that party INDOORS and encroach on MY turf, I am not responsible for whatever actions myself or a rolled-up newspaper may do. Last week, a spider decided the best place to build a new home would be my bathtub. I may have displaced him to a new home -- in Davy Jones' locker. 

The other night, my home security alarm starting blaring in the middle of the night to let me know there was an intruder on my front porch. That intruder turned out to be a tiny spider trying to build a web directly ON my doorbell camera. When I pulled up the surveillance video, it looked like there was an eight-foot multi-legged monster waiting patiently on the porch to sell me life insurance or something. If you were driving around at 2 a.m. and saw a guy flicking a broom around desperately, it was just me doing some spontaneous 2 a.m. arachnid gentrification.

None of this bodes well for the future, but it's okay, because neither does anything else in the news. Last week, it was cicadas. This week it's flying spiders. Next week, we'll probably have man-eating millipedes free-roaming our neighborhoods. But don't worry, when the great millipede invasion takes hold, I'm sure our leaders will come together and figure out a way to blame each other for everything. As for me, I'm putting a moratorium on bug columns for the foreseeable future. If you need me, I'll be out buying cases of Raid.

COLUMN: Memorial Day

We kick off every work week here with a staff meeting. Usually, they're pretty fun. Well, maybe not the work-ier parts of it, or the fact that it usually happens two minutes after I clock in on a Monday morning. It's tough for my brain to get into first gear on a Monday morning, let alone full-throttle work mode. Each week, we gather around our conference table and I don't have the heart, stamina, or caffeine levels required to tell these good people that I'm still technically asleep until 10 a.m. or whenever that first cup of coffee decides to kick in. 

Every one of these meetings begins with a Pandora's box of a question that often stresses me out: "What did YOU do this weekend, Shane?" As the guy with the reputation for writing silly columns and trying to find laughter in the mundane, I feel like I should always be armed and ready with a good weekend tale. But more often than not, my weekends aren't especially story-worthy. I often feel like I'm letting my colleagues down.

But THIS week? Thanks to the holiday, we didn't have our meeting until Tuesday. I had three full days for weekend shenanigans to accumulate. I should have been locked and loaded with solid material, plot twists, and sordid tales to regale the masses. As we went around the room, everyone had exciting stories. People went home to their families. One went to a wedding, some went fishing, one drove all the way to Nebraska and back. Eventually, all eyes turned my way and that dreaded question was directed at me.

"How was YOUR weekend, Shane?" Defeated, I could only respond, "...I got nothing." Boring weekends stink, but boring THREE-DAY weekends are nearly unforgivable. Here's an honest recap of mine:

Friday night, I was in my usual spot, rocking my side hustle behind the DJ decks at a popular Davenport night spot. I've spun enough records over Memorial Day weekend to know that Friday is usually the quiet night, so I was expecting a tame crowd and a relaxing evening. Instead, I walked into a club already packed with freshly-minted college graduates -- and a fair share of their parents. 

I knew I was in trouble ten minutes in, when a nice lady outside our usual demographic came up and kindly asked if I could play some Seals & Crofts. Err, that's not exactly our usual format -- or preferred decade. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Seals & Crofts hater. Last weekend, I DJed a yacht rock party and busted out "Summer Breeze" with glee. But at a downtown dance club on a Friday night that's known for hip-hop and house music? Even if Seals & Crofts had been DJing, THEY wouldn't have played Seals & Crofts.

"That one might be tough," I said apologetically. "Let me see if I brought it." (I already knew I hadn't.) I was worried this particular parent wasn't going to be very thrilled with my musical offerings that night. I don't think it'd fly if I'd said, "Well, if you like 'Summer Breeze' by Seals & Crofts, I bet you'll just love 'Slut Me Out' by NLE Choppa!" I ended up compromising with some ABBA, one of the only bands that can unite multiple generations in singalongs and bellbottom dreams. And I swear to you, I looked up a half hour later to see that same kindly lady in the center of my dancefloor, busting some moves to Drake's "Rich Baby Daddy."

Saturday was a friend's son's high school graduation party, which went swimmingly. I brought tunes and my services weren't even required. Instead, it was a relaxing afternoon with friends and good food. It was probably the first graduation party I'd attended since my own, and it was fun to sit around and watch dozens of high school kids completely ignore us and focus on the things that matter most: gossip and laughter. "Did you HEAR what so-and-so said to so-and-so," I heard two of them whisper to while walking away giggling. I miss those days. I guess we still have gossip amongst my generation, but it's usually more like, "Ooh, did you hear about so-and-so? Yeah, he died."

Sunday I didn't even leave the house. I almost didn't even bathe. Instead, I sat on my couch like a bump on a log, watching a rain-delayed Indianapolis 500 followed by a rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600. What did you do this weekend, Shane? Well, at one point, I shifted my weight from my right buttock to my left, that was pretty exciting. Perhaps you'd like to hear the play-by-play on the two hours I spent updating the firmware on my DJ controller? Good times, my friends.

On Memorial Day itself, my best friend and I filled my car up with gas and just start driving in hopes of finding something interesting. Sometimes these aimless drives take us to exotic destinations of adventure and exploration. Monday's drive instead took us to... northern Missouri. Know what happens in northern Missouri on Memorial Day? Not much. We drove around for a bit and headed home before we risked Monday becoming Tuesday.

That said, we did stumble upon a small town cemetery proudly decked out in flags, and we saw families paying visits and honoring loved ones -- a sobering reminder that this holiday isn't called "Bonus Fun Day." It made me extra grateful that my military veteran parents are both still here and around when I need them.

The other cool thing about traveling a couple hours south is that we drove straight into the apex of cicada Brood XIX, and they did NOT disappoint. We saw a woods absolutely teeming with the little (well, little-ISH) buggers, and their undulating chorus was ear-splitting, impressive, and a little bit icky. "What a majestic display of nature," I said. "Now let's leave before one of them majestically flies into my face."

So I dunno. Maybe my weekend wasn't as boring as I thought. It just filled an entire newspaper column, so it must be worth something. It won't win a Pulitzer or likely even hold anyone's attention around a conference table of small talk, but I'm grateful to have lived it, even if it wasn't the most exciting one on record. Here's hoping I get many more chances for a do-over.

COLUMN: Swarm!

I am many things -- brave is not one of them.

If you ever want to see me act like a complete and utter ninny, just put me anywhere in the vicinity of insects and watch the comedy magic play out before your eyes. If some gross bug even makes a move like it MIGHT want to crawl on me, I go from behaving like a fully-functioning adult to a panicked toddler in the blink of an eye. Wait, I take that back. I've seen panicked toddlers who handle insect encounters better than me.

This seems like perfectly justifiable rational behavior to me. I mean, they're called "creepy crawlies" for a reason. No one ever calls insects "cuddly crawlies." I've never looked at a bug and thought, "aww, how cute" -- and if you ever have, zoom in with your camera phone and take a good hard look at the prehistoric fanged nightmare factory you're gushing over. Bugs are tiny little horrifying monsters.

But I knew what was coming this year. The news has been giving us plenty of warning. 2024 marks the twin emergence of not one, but TWO different broods of periodic cicadas. These hulking beasts spend 13-17 years living underground (where they belong) before crawling to the surface, shedding their exoskeletons, and partying it up for a month of naked cicada debauchery before having the common decency to die -- all so their offspring can do it all over again 13-17 years later. Gross.

I was braced and ready for cicadas. As it turns out, they're the least of my problems this spring.

Last week, I took a rare and well-deserved day off to sneak down to Peoria with some friends for a concert. Having elected myself driver, I figured I'd take advantage of the beautiful morning by pulling my car into the backyard and giving it a good clean for the benefit of friends who would soon be piling in. It was a gorgeous morning, but I found it kind of annoying that one of my neighbors was running a high-pitched weed whacker that was seriously interfering in my ability to low-key rock out to the tunes bumping from my car stereo.

When I stepped out of the car, the shrill noise was even worse. I looked around to figure out where it was coming from, but didn't see anyone out and about. That's because I was looking AROUND. I should have been looking UP. 

It wasn't a weed whacker making that racket. Just feet above my head, the sky was full... of bees. Not just a few bees. Not even what I would call "a lot of bees." We're talking horror movie levels of bees, a "where-are-his-glasses-Thomas-J-can't-see-without-his-glasses" amount of bees. I'd reckon at least 3,000 in all. I didn't know there were that many bees in all of Rock Island, let alone one backyard. 3,000 bees is beyond my brain's capacity for rational thought. All I could think to do (as if "thinking" was an option) was dive into my car, roll up every window, and have a panic attack. 

In full disclosure, I lied earlier. I don't hate insects. I only really truly hate bees. The problem is that when any other insect dares come near me, I err on the side of caution, assume it's a bee, and act accordingly (specifically, like a ninny.) My mother once had to physically restrain me from tuck-and-rolling out of a moving car on the interstate because a bee flew in the window. I am super allergic, I am super petrified, and I assume no responsibilities for my actions when a bee comes near me. It's my worst phobia.

"But Shane," you say, "bees are nature's miracle! Without them, we would..." blah blah blah. Yes, I know. No, I don't care. Kill them all with fire, I say. And here, on this fine afternoon, they must have overheard me -- and they were here for revenge. I watched in horror as they worked to assemble what I assumed to be a massive hive in my backyard walnut tree.

Only later, when I gathered enough courage to run full bore back into the house, did I learn what I was actually dealing with. I grabbed my phone and called the first number I found after Googling "bee removal Quad Cities." I'm glad that number was Adam Ziegler's. He's an amateur backyard beekeeper and a kind soul who talked me off the ledge. I also suspect he might be clinically insane, because he seems to actually LIKE these flying death-bringers, but I won't judge. After I sent him a pic of the horrors I was witnessing, he let me know precisely what I was dealing with -- a swarm. 

The structure I was seeing in the walnut tree wasn't a hive -- it was just bees on bees on bees, gathering around their queen while scouts were out looking for new build-to-suit hive real estate. Let's hope it's nowhere near here. "They'll likely be gone within an hour or two," he reassured me.

I had no idea bees were prone to this sort of caravan lifestyle, but apparently it's pretty common. "This time of year in our region is known as swarm season," Adam explained. "The warmth and conditions have been great for trees and flowers to bloom, giving the bees plenty of resources to grow and expand."

"As a colony produces more and more bees with these abundant resources, something is triggered in the hive to start feeding young larvae extra nutrition in the form of 'royal jelly.' This gives the female larvae enough extra proteins and fats and carbs to develop into a queen bee. When the queen bee hatches, parts of the colony abscond with the new queen and become a swarm."

"Neat," I replied. "Now come kill them."

Except I didn't say that, because I'm not a monster. While it would warm my heart to no end watching these bees meet a most painful demise, I understand their importance in the world, which is why I purposely Googled "bee removal" instead of "bee extermination." Sadly, Adam was on his way out of town, but he reassured me the swarm was likely just making a pit stop in my yard, and he was right. Two hours later, they all took off in horrifying tandem to become what I can only hope is now Someone Else's Problem.

If that someone is you, Adam's your guy. I was super thankful for his advice and cool lesson, even if it was like listening to someone recap the world's scariest horror flick. He's looking for a swarm to re-home, so if you've got one, check out his website at https://zigsbees.adamziegler.com/. In the meantime, if you need me, I'm pretty sure I'll be indoors until first frost. 

COLUMN: Northern Lights

This story begins in 1992. It was my senior year of college, 32 years ago this very week. I'd learned a lot at school, but nothing quite as important as THIS realization: If I rolled up to a party with a couple crates of records, people were often willing to PAY me to play them. This strange little skill proved very valuable living on a meager collegiate budget.

So when a sorority called to see if I'd DJ their end-of-year formal, I was all in. I figured I'd worry about the logistical problems later -- like how the formal was in Cedar Rapids and I owned NO sound gear or a vehicle big enough to cart said non-existent gear halfway across Iowa.

But where there's a will, there's a way. So when the formal rolled around, I enlisted the help of two close friends. The three of us convoyed to Cedar Rapids in separate cars filled to the brim with our respective home stereos, which we then wired together into a makeshift PA system. Shockingly, it all worked out fairly well. I still have pics from that formal, and it was a good time.

The one thing we DIDN'T procure, however, were hotel rooms for the night. So after the shindig wound down and we got everything packed back into our tiny cars, we decided to hit the road and make the return convoy back to the Quad Cities in the pitch middle of the night. My friend Jeff was in the lead car, my roommate (whose name, confusingly, was also Shane) was in the middle, and I was bringing up the rear. That's when the night went wonky.

Somewhere halfway between Iowa City and Davenport, OtherShane had a tire blowout. Thankfully, he managed to pull his car off the road safely and I followed suit. Jeff, meanwhile, didn't notice a thing and kept right on driving, so that's the last you'll hear of him in this story, "How the Two Shanes Found Themselves on the Side of I-80 at 4 a.m. Attempting to Change a Tire." 

"Dude," OtherShane said to me while struggling with his tire jack in the ditch. "A little help here?"

Except I didn't respond. I was frozen, eyes glued to the north. OtherShane, rapidly losing his patience, stood up and saw it, too. "Whoa." There, along the horizon, bluish-green hues danced in the sky. For the first time in my life, I was seeing the aurora borealis.

"This is amazing," I said, pulling out my phone to take some pics. Except I didn't, because it was 1992, and camera phones didn't exist. All I could do was stare in awe -- for approximately 8 seconds, before OtherShane said, "Cool, now help me change this tire, you idiot."

That was my only encounter with nature's most elusive beauty. Eight seconds of spectacle. By the time we had the spare on his car, they were gone. I've harbored a grudge over that night for decades, wishing I could go back and see those ethereal lights, even for just eight more seconds.

At least once a year, there's some meteorologist on TV telling us a geomagnetic storm is headed our way that might cause the Northern Lights to appear this far south. Every time it happens, I get excited. Every time, I've been disappointed. Invariably, clouds will always roll in or the predicted storm just won't be enough to bring the auroras down to Illinois. One time, a meteorologist was SO confident we were in for a show that we drove all the way to a light pollution-free zone in Wisconsin, convinced we were about to witness wonders. When we got there and looked up, all we saw was blackness. 

So when those predictions were issued again last weekend, I rolled my eyes. Besides, I had a DJ gig that night. But as I was in the club trying to make dancefloor magic, I started getting texts from friends. I started seeing posts on Facebook, first from Europe and soon from people in Illinois. This particular geomagnetic storm didn't disappoint. Auroras were dancing in the skies above the Midwest, and I was stuck indoors. Sigh.

At 2 a.m., I left the club, half elated from owning yet another dancefloor for the night, but half dejected by what I missed in order to do it. I was heading home, literally at the apex of the Centennial Bridge, when a strange glimmer caught my eye in the rearview mirror -- but it wasn't another car catching up to me. It was the sky itself, bathed in an amber hue bright enough to see from the middle of town. Had the bridge lights not been turned off to assist bird migration last weekend, I might not have even noticed.

I was bone tired, but it didn't matter. I hit Illinois and immediately turned the car around. An hour later, I was some 15 miles north of Davenport along the darkest piece of rural real estate I could find, by myself at 3 a.m. Once again, I was pulled over on the side of the road -- but this time, there was no tire to change. It was just me, myself, and dancing skies -- and whatever was making that creepy howling noise, but let's not think about that.

Cross one off the bucket list. It only took a few extra decades, but I finally had a front-row view of the aurora borealis, right here in River City. I even had a camera phone, so I was able to record it for posterity. It was cool.

Like, literally cool. It was honestly pretty chilly, I was in the middle of nowhere without a single other human knowing my whereabouts, and I swear whatever was howling was getting closer. I didn't want this story to end with "and-that's-how-I-was-eaten-by-a-chupacabra," so I waved goodbye to the wavy skies and headed home. It wasn't the end of the magic, though.

Seconds later, while still on my way back to civilization, I suddenly watched a fiery green light fall from the skies and presumably land ahead of me somewhere. I still have no earthly idea what that light was. It didn't look like a meteorite. It looked much closer, like someone had shot off a bottle rocket -- but it was almost 4 a.m., I was surrounded by corn fields, and there were no signs of life anywhere. I probably should've investigated more, but I've seen how "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" ends (spoiler: not well for anyone,) so I kept driving. I'm happy that life still holds some mystery.

Do I have anything profound to say about my night with the Northern Lights? Nah. While a rare occurrence this far south of the pole, anyone that night who didn't live under clouds or light pollution could've seen the same show I did -- but what a show it was. Now if someone could send over some coffee, that'd be swell -- for some reason, I'm suuuuper tired this week.

COLUMN: Met Gala

When I was a kid, there were only two things I wanted to be when I grew up: rich and famous.

I didn't care how. Maybe I'd be an amazing actor. Maybe I'd write a best-seller. Maybe I'd write a song the whole world would sing along to. Honestly, it didn't matter. I just wanted money and fame and all the delicious trappings that come with it.  

Often, I'd daydream about my future celebrity lifestyle -- I squarely blame Richie Rich comic books. Mostly I'd just think about the basic stuff, like how many servants I'd have, where my mansions would be located, and how much gold they'd be filled with. My friends and I would even sketch out floor plans of our future mansions in our Trapper Keepers, and then spend our lunch hours slurping down chocolate milk while arguing over who had the best designs.

I never really knew what I wanted on the main floors of my dream mansions. I didn't have any extremely wealthy friends, so I didn't have much to go on. I just remember always designating one room as the "conservatory," despite not knowing what a conservatory was. I just knew it from the board game "Clue," and it sounded fancy. I just figured I needed one in case Colonel Mustard ever came round for a visit and fancied committing some atrocities with a candlestick.

The focus of our dream mansion floor plans, though, was always below ground. My mansions were kinda boring up top, but lurking underneath? Well, they all pretty much resembled the underground lairs of your standard Bond villains. You know, delightful accoutrements like pits lined with spikes. Pools full of sharks and piranha. Multiple bowling alleys. The giant warehouse room where Indy stashed the Ark of the Covenant. One of them even had an escape tunnel that bore through the core of the Earth and came out in China. As underground lairs go, mine were pretty sweet.

I'm not sure why pre-teen me thought celebrity status always required an underground lair, but it seemed a crucial element in any mansion I'd sketch out. I'm not sure if my celebrity plans included world domination by brute force (which might explain the missile silos my mansions were usually equipped with.) Maybe I was just planning to be such a reclusive kajillionaire that I needed a house capable of fending off a full-scale invasion. Maybe I just thought it would be a great way to impress the ladies (because, as we all know, if there's one thing chicks dig, it's a sub-sub-sub-basement video arcade surrounded by snake pits.)

But the older and wiser I get, the happier I become that I never achieved my desired levels of fame. I'm pretty sure being a celebrity might be miserable.

This morning, I watched highlights from Monday's Met Gala -- and if you're unfamiliar, the highlights consist of little more than watching famous people standing around being famous. The Met Gala is New York's premiere annual fashion event. It's literally just a dinner party -- except that it's $75,000 per plate and you have to show up looking like Christian Dior vomited on a peacock.

Beyond that, no one actually knows what the Met Gala is, unless you're one of the katrillionaires lucky enough to be invited by Vogue editor Anna Wintour to fork over $75K of your own money to get through the doors. We lower life forms aren't allowed inside. We simply get to watch the celebrities walk in and out, a task which appears to require a team of stylists, jewelry worth more than the GNP of some struggling nations, and a massive security detail to ensure none of that jewelry walks off in a different direction.

It sounds positively awful and just so out of step with our tumultous world. I get no joy out of dressing spiffy. To me, putting on a suit is every bit as awkward and unnatural as a Halloween costume. If I'm paying $75,000 for a meal, you'd better believe I'd show up in jeans and a comfy t-shirt and not be in constant fear that a cufflink which costs more than I make in a year might fall into my soup. The food there might be amazing, but I reckon I'd be every bit as content with a $15 burger from Floyd's.

Meanwhile, I'd be so stressed about coming up with non-idiotic celebrity small talk that I'd be in a constant state of near-stroke. No pressure there, right? You're only trying to make idle chit-chat with the likes of Rihanna and Beyonce. If you forced me to attend this event, reporters wouldn't be asking me, "Who are you wearing?" I'd be flop-sweating so hard that their only questions would be, "Whose pool did you just fall into? Do you need medical attention?"

If you look at photos from the Met Gala, absolutely no one looks happy. Every attendee poses looking stoic and serious. Maybe that just goes hand-in-hand with trying to look glamorous, but I'm not convinced. I'm pretty sure it's just a relatively miserable time and a duty to attend in order to keep being the "it" girl or "it" boy. Maybe I'm wrong and it's all tremendous fun, but something tells me I'll never know.

I don't think I'm destined for fame or fortune or personal invites from Anna Wintour. My options for achieving celeb status are running out. I have a hard enough time acting like myself, let alone someone else. I'm not going to write a best-seller because I'd rather keep writing stupid stories about my cats here every week. I'm too old to become a rock star, and besides, I'm pretty sure playing records is more fun than making them. I fear I'm just going to have to be content with my relative anonymity, average human income, and mere one-level basement embarassingly free of shark pits. Sigh.

If anyone needs me, I'll be in my conservatory. (And no, I still have no idea what a conservatory is.) 

COLUMN: Well, Hello Dolly.

I don't believe in fate -- at least, I don't THINK I do. I'm no longer 100% certain, and now I'm afraid to fully upset her, should she exist.

I'm no horror movie buff, so I confess I've only seen a few clips of the "Final Destination" film series. I might be wrong, but I think every movie starts with some kind of horrifying calamity wherein a group of friends somehow manage to cheat death and miraculously avoid a terrible fate. This causes Death, or Fate, or whatever supernatural force-du-jour that controls our destinies, to spend the rest of the movie slowly killing them all in retribution via a series of freakish accidents that certainly can't be coincidental. As I understand the film franchise, it's mostly just a nifty way to spend your money watching teenagers get gruesomely slaughtered while making you too scared to leave home without fear that anyone and anything could send you to an early grave. Sounds like a great time.

Except now I'm worried I'm in the next installment. I may have cheated death a couple days ago. Let's hope he doesn't hold a grudge.

I was heading back to the office from lunch and about to cross the Centennial Bridge downtown. Anyone who travels this route knows that 15th St. in Rock Island is presently a slalom course of potholes, construction crews and roadwork. As I made the turn onto 15th St., I found myself behind a rickety old hauling truck that appeared to also be heading towards Davenport. On any normal day, I wouldn't have given this truck a second's thought. Usually when I'm in my car, my brain's thinking about work, or thinking about this column, or thinking about absolutely nothing whilst internally rocking out to whatever's thumping out my stereo.

But on THIS particular afternoon, things registered with me for a change. This truck was in such bad shape, I'm pretty sure a stiff wind could've torn it apart like a clown car at a circus. We were on flat ground and this truck was already belching black smoke and making a terrible racket. In two blocks, it would be heading up the bridge incline, and likely doing so in a first-gear, Little-Engine-That-Could sort of scenario. I figured it was in my best interest to change lanes. Spoiler alert: it was.

Roughly four seconds later, that truck hit a pothole. It did NOT fall apart like a clown car. Instead, the back door of the truck burst open, and before I could even register an "eep!", a two-wheeled metal moving dolly came flying out the back, crashing to the ground below. Had it happened four seconds prior, I'm pretty sure it would have landed directly on my front windshield.

I'm no expert in physics, nor am I qualified to speak on the structural integrity and fortitude of the windshields provided by the Hyundai Motor Company. Ergo, I can't definitively state as to whether or not that falling dolly would have taken my head off. I'm fairly confident, however, that it would've stung a bit at the very least.

Thankfully, the car that had been behind me before I changed lanes was still far enough back to slam on his brakes and avoid calamity, and credit to everyone behind HIM for not causing a pile-up. The driver of the truck, meanwhile, was perfectly oblivious to the fact that his life's possessions were tumbling down 15th St., so I honked and waved and clued him in before he left a trail of detritus across the Mississippi River.

Adter that, there was nothing left to do but continue back to work while having a mild freakout at just how close my lunch hour almost became my curtain call. If you were one of the half dozen friends and family I called in a panic, breathlessly chanting "HI-I-ALMOST-JUST-DIED," I apologize -- my adrenaline system was in full control at that point. But it WAS pretty darn scary, and I was pretty darn lucky that I didn't end up the proud owner of a slightly used Korean pancake.

In a way, I feel cheated. If you can call this a near-death experience, I thought they were supposed to be transformative events. I didn't have a spiritual awakening. My life didn't flash before my eyes. I'm pretty sure all I did was go a little bug-eyed and make a noise like, "Whoooarpf!" That's not the kind of meaningful closing act people write books about. I've never seen "whoooarpf" on anyone's list of famous last words.

Maybe I'm blowing this whole episode out of proportion. Maybe the dolly would have just dented my car and caused me to have a very bad day. But honestly, it's just another notch in these less-than-terrific past few months. I've lost friends I cared about. I had MY first major health scare. This past year has put things into a perspective I've never taken the time to dwell on.

I'm not intelligent or poetic enough to offer any deep insight you haven't heard before, but: life's short, people. Why hate your neighbor when hand trucks could fall on your head at any given second? I'm tired of people fighting. I'm tired of the bickering. I'm tired of seeing nothing but bad news, bad attitudes, and bad vibes. Even the guy who almost brain-beaned me gave me a sneer until I told him he was leaving a sizeable trail of metallic bread crumbs all along 15th Street. I know there's not an easy answer that's going to fix our world, but I'm sure hoping some summer sun might help at the very least.

So what do I do now? Pretend I've got some cosmic new insight on life? Attempt to offer some kind of sagely wisdom just because I almost took a hand truck to the head? Nah. I'm less than qualified for such nonsense.

Instead, I'm just going to thank my lucky stars that I didn't get to be the lone participant in this especially avant-garde interactive staging of "Hello, Dolly!" I'm going to keep trying to survive in this increasingly weird world. And most of all, I'm going to be especially grateful that "Final Destination" is just a movie... I hope.