A few years ago, I suddenly found myself unemployed. This sent me into a pretty severe depressive episode. While I was unemployed, my days consisted of a pretty regular pattern: Print copies of my resume, walk the dog, go to an interview or two, walk the dog, apply for jobs online, fall asleep on the couch, walk the dog, wake up, walk the dog, watch a floppity jillion horror movies, walk the dog. In case you, dear readers, couldn't determine this from my blog being called "The Garbled Babbling of an Insomniac," I don't sleep well. I particularly don't sleep well at night. It's typically quite rare for me to sleep during the psychic hours. My brief period of unemployment was no exception to this. Because of this, I frequently take my dog for his long walk around three or four in the morning. During this time, a series of crazy, creepy events occurred.
One night during unemployment, I decided it would be brilliant to power watch all of the "Paranormal Activity" movies that were available at the time, which was only three. I finished up PA3 around 3 a.m., which meant it was time to walk the dog. I called my bestie, Jocelyn (my late night phone calls are the only time I'm glad she lives in a later time zone than myself), so I had somebody to talk to while I was walking the dog. We walked around for about twenty minutes before Lenny (the dog) stopped to sniff some things and be a dog. While he was dogging it up, I was yapping away on my phone. Suddenly, I glance up, and see this bizarre, blue-ish face in the window of the closest building, about only five feet from the sidewalk, staring intently at me. It's eyes met mine, and I was overcome with a sense of horror. Then a horrible, blue-ish hand reached up and towards the window. I was certain I was going to die. Then that horrible, ghastly hand slammed the window shut. My logic kicked in. I had been standing outside somebody's open bedroom window at 3 in the morning, talking on my phone, and had woken up my neighbor. The look hadn't been one of malice, it had been one of...well, maybe malice, but justifiable malice, as I had woken this person up and stupid o'clock. My neighbor had an eerie, blue appearance because she had turned on her television.
A few days later, I took Lenny out for another 3 a.m. walk. This time, I was on the phone with my mother, who also prefers to be awake at night. Explaining the architecture of my apartment building is a little tricky. There are two doors. The back door opens into a sort of common area like you might find around college dorms. When I take Lenny for short walks, we go out the back door, go around this courtyard, then walk around the attached buildings, making a wide circle in order to enter through my building's front door. The front door is in sort of alcove. The door itself is set back about twelve feet, with the apartments jutting out that distance. On this particular night, Lenny was getting a short walk. As we rounded the corner of the building and started towards the front door, I saw a flutter of something white and transparent flitting from the alcove. Then something misty appeared, floating a little higher than that white transparency. Panic. Complete and utter panic. I felt as though my heart were in my throat. But Lenny was okay with this. He wasn't bothered. In fact, he kept pulling me forward. He was ANXIOUS to reach this apparition. So I proceeded forward. The mist continued to float as we got closer and closer to the alcove. The white transparency sporadically fluttered, making itself visible. Finally, as Lenny was dragging me to that alcove, I saw the source of the mysterious substances. My neighbor, who I'll call Carla, was standing outside, leaning against the wall of the alcove. She was wearing her light-weight, white nightgown, smoking a cigarette. I had a really hard time explaining to her why I couldn't stop laughing.
A lot of weird little things like this happened outside of my building, always easy to explain, and always really funny in retrospect. However, after two years, I still haven't been able to explain why the lightbulb in my closet literally exploded as soon as I hung up the phone from talking to my friend Marty about Ronald DeFeo, Jr., the young man who killed his family in the home George and Kathy Lutz would later purchase, and would soon become the subject of The Amityville Horror, or what caused the loud knocking sounds on the walls of my apartment - the common wall to Shawn's apartment, the wall against the common hallway, and both external walls...
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