This Side of Weird

You could say that I have a...fascination?...for the unusual, weird, and unexplainable. This isn't anything new. I've always been fascinated by ghost stories. I can remember visiting the library in my hometown in Northern California, located in the basement of a city building, and checking out books full of ghost stories. In fact, though I haven't been to that library in probably about 20 years...I can still picture exactly where those ghost stories were located in the library stacks.

But I digress...

Back to my fascination with the unexplained...I grew up reading books on ghosts, books on how to see ghosts, books on what ghosts were...anything I could get my hands on. I really can't pinpoint why it's such a fascination for me...except that it is.

One more digression...I remember one time, I was probably 14 or so, I had checked out a book that talked about what you could do to see a ghost. It was in the afternoon and I was in my bedroom, sitting on my bed with the door closed, reading this book. I remember that the book said that sometimes, when you are concentrating on one thing - such as reading a book - and you suddenly look up...you might catch a ghost off guard and be able to see it for a split second. Like I said, I was 14, it was the middle of the afternoon, and after reading that...I could not force myself to look up from my book! There I sat, cross-legged, gripping my book while my knuckles turned white, saying over and over again in my mind "I won't look up, I won't look up, I won't look up." But I couldn't spend the rest of my life, sitting on my bed, refusing to look up from my book. I mean, dinner would be ready soon. So, on the count of 3 I forced myself to look up...and there was nothing there.

There hardly ever is.

But that doesn't stop me from looking.

You need to know this about me to understand this blog. Because I'm fascinated with the weird and unexplained, I like to look for those things as I go about my travels. Not all of my trips that I chronicle in this blog will be about the paranormal...I did spend 10 normal (well as normal as can be expected) days in Guatemala...and another trip was to New York City. But here and there I will write about those trips I took to just this side of weird.

(Cue eerie music here...)

~TT