Invisible Distractions...

Today was a strange Monday. It was very slow and quiet in the office and yet the time seemed to move fast. That’s never a bad thing, honestly. I find that the world seems to be sluggish on Mondays; People are slow to return calls and emails and, when they do, they inevitably end up deciding they need to get back to me.

I can’t blame them. I’m sluggish on Mondays myself. Today was a very sluggish day on account of the fact that I felt like I was walking like Iron Man. This is the result of doing mass amounts of landscaping yesterday. On the plus side, it means I was using my muscles and getting a workout of sorts. On the negative side, it hurts to move and I feel like I belong in the Ministry of Funny Walks.

Still, as the day winds down, it’s a non-rainy Monday which is something for which I am thankful. Given that a week ago, I discovered those nasty termites in my house, I’m hoping that my day doesn’t end so eventfully as it did last week when I went to bed with visions of termites crawling and flying in my head.

We haven’t seen any of the little buggers since Terminix came and saved the day. It’s much nicer to know there aren’t horrible buggy intruders hiding in my woodwork.

Of course, I’m a little afraid I might have an intruder of another nature but I’m choosing to ignore it. Ever since I watched “Paranormal Activity” which, in turn, inspired me to write The Reluctant Demon, I’ve been just a wee bit paranoid that the creaks in my house are more than creaks. Sometimes, there does seem to be an awful lot of noise coming from the attic.

Still, I’m quite good at talking sense into myself. Most of my brain does not believe in ghosts and paranormal creepiness. There’s a teeny-tiny portion that does wonder if such things exist since there are so many accounts and stories of such things and I can’t help but wonder if any of them are true. Also, I like the possibility that there are such things as ghosts because, well, it makes life more interesting. Yet, I’m also surprisingly quite rational and logical and thus, the other side of my brain kicks in.

However, there are times when rational thought tends to get a little overruled. In my case, it, as so many things do, involves my dogs.

Rory, my overly clever and mischievous dog is also very sensitive. For example, one time I had a bucket in my hallway because I thought my roof was leaking (it wasn’t- it was my air conditioner) and I thought I could catch the drips with the bucket. One morning, I accidentally kicked the bucket (literally, not figuratively, thank goodness) and it headed towards Rory who was watching me get ready for work in the bathroom as she usually does. The kicking of the bucket terrified Rory and, to this day, she’s afraid of the hallway and very jumpy whenever my clodhopping feet accidentally kick something towards her.

Also, she seems to see things which is where my rational thought gets overruled. Not long after I got the puppies, we were staying at my parent’s house for the weekend. It was just after midnight, my dad had gone to bed and my mum and I were enjoying the peace and chance to chat.

Then Rory started watching something move across the room. She was very intensely focused on it. Her eyes were moving slowly as though they were following something. To make matters more creepy, Sookie also sat up and began to watch.

It was most peculiar and it gave both mum and me the creeps. Still, when your dogs are seeing an invisible entity move across a room, there’s really not much to do about it other than hope that it’s just a shadow that moved or something equally less…creepy.

The problem is that Rory has been seeing something in our own house lately. On Friday night, she was very restless. It turned out that the poor thing had a very upset tummy and there was a reason for her restlessness- at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Otherwise, I might be slightly freaked out that she woke me up in the middle of the night, shaking with her eyes fixed on a certain spot in my room for a long time. My room isn’t completely dark at night. There is filtered light coming in from outside. It’s enough light that I could see Rory turn her head slowly, shaking the whole time as though she was following something with her eyes.

She did this for a long time. At one point, I turned on the light to see what was bothering her. She continued to shake and watch the one spot in room.

It turned out that not long after, she had to make several emergency trips outside because of her tummy. I’m choosing to believe that she wasn’t feeling well and that’s why she was shaking.

Of course, the fact that both dogs often come into my room when I’m getting changed, making the bed, etc. and both stare transfixed at the same area of my room where Rory was fixated the other night, is a little disconcerting. The rational part of my brain thinks it’s because I have a decorative pewter goblet on a small wall shelf hanging there and it reflects the light and it catches their interest.

The non-rational part of my brain has decided that it’s not going to entertain any other possibilities and that it’s going to listen to the rational part of my brain. Also, it’s caused me to make plenty of invitations to whatever it is that Rory stares at to communicate with me. I mean, say it is a ghost. Which is very silly and most unlikely. But what if it is? What am I supposed to do about it? Usually, ghosts have a reason for being somewhere, according to lore, right? There’s really not much I’m going to be able to do about it. I will admit, on the days when I’ve been creeped out by Rory’s staring-at-the-invisible-thing, I’ve been less rational and more…open-minded.

However, honestly, even if I did have a ghost, I wouldn’t know what to do. I think it would be nifty to come home and find a note typed on my computer in Microsoft Word that says, “Captain Monkeypants, thanks for letting me haunt you. By the way, I need you to get rid of the fan in the family room because it caused me to accidentally get electrocuted and die and until the issue is resolved, I can’t move on.”

Naturally, this might also make me a little nervous since it’s one thing to occasionally allow yourself to entertain the fact that you could have a ghost and completely another to have a note from a ghost on your computer. However, in my vast knowledge which, admittedly has been obtained from occasionally watching Ghost Hunters, ghosts do not use computers. I could say that my first thought to that was probably because ghosts are older folk who died before computers took over the world but that would sound weird. Most likely ghosts just don’t use computers because…they don’t.

Speaking of Ghost Hunters, by the way, I often wonder why the Ghost Hunters run away and scream so often when they’re supposed to be professionals. I mean, you don’t see Billy the Exterminator squealing like a girl when he has to crawl under a house to pull out a dead animal that’s infested with maggots. Nor do you see the Ice Road Truckers pulling over and sobbing hysterically because they’re on a scary ice road.

(And yes, I just admitted that I have seen episodes of both Billy the Exterminator and Ice Road Truckers. I’m not proud. I far prefer Billy by the way. He’s like a car accident with really, really bad hair.)

Back to my ghost issue. I don’t think I have one. It still makes me wonder what my dog is actually seeing though. It’s worse when both Sookie and Rory seem to be staring at the exact same thing and moving their eyes at the same time. Those are the times when Rational Brain tends to lose out to Non-Rational/Non-Logical/Overly Imaginative Brain.

Still, in the end, I let Rational Brain win. I find it far safer and far less creepy. Of course, it doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally wonder if I’ll come home and find a note on my computer. Of course, that leads back to the comment I made earlier about ghosts not using computers. Which is why I often check to see if the pen and paper on my table is still blank.

Oh, don’t judge me. I’m a writer. I can’t be rational all the time.

Happy Tuesday!