Spooky Talk and Late-Night Wandering...

I remember back in high school those nerve-wrecking days of giving a speech in front of the class. Without fail, a five-minute presentation seemed to use up all of my information within the first three minutes. Now it seems to be the opposite. I'm always hard pressed to condense a lecture into an hour or two. That was certainly true of my talk last night at Cuyahoga Falls Library. Even after skimming through some of the topics the talk stretched over the one hour time. Luckily, both staff and audience members have come to expect this.

I have to thank the library for having me back for a second time to discuss the paranormal. This was very different from my discussion of local hauntings. I covered a very wide range of topics: sexuality and psi phenomena, famous names from the Spiritualist movement, gay and lesbian ghost stories, haunted bed & breakfasts, the basics of investigating, and what is and isn't supernatural phenomena. Each of these could be stretched into a full hour without any trouble so covering all of them in the 60-minute span proved to be a challenge. But I felt it was important to give people a well-rounded experience.

At the end of my talk, there was an interesting moment for me. During the presentation, I showed a photograph of the tombstone of a friend who had committed suicide and mentioned how a possibly ghostly encounter with him afterward is mentioned in the preface of my book. A woman approached me afterward to say that she was familiar with it. Not only did she spend a lot of time in the cemetery in which his body was buried, she had known the family. He is buried beside his father who had been a detective.

Following the presentation, I headed out to the Cuyahoga Valley with a friend of mine for a little impromptu walk along the Towpath Trail at one of the haunted spots in the park. Just a short time after we arrived at the old canal lock I heard footsteps along the trail. There were animals in the water and the nearby woods making all sorts of noises, but this was the distinct rhythmic crunching of gravel slowly approaching. It faded away and there were no living people to be seen. Though it was a cold night, it was peaceful along the trail. My camera battery died quite quickly (not for paranormal reasons; they weren't new batteries) and we spent more time talking about a wide range of topics instead of actually looking for ghosts, but it was still an enjoyable experience.

It's been quite a month already. Some of my travel plans have been postponed but not all of them. There are still a few things I'll be doing before Halloween finally arrives in a few short weeks. Otherwise, life plods on.

A New Look, New Outlook, and Library Talk...

Yes, you did come to the right blog. I know it might be a surprise for some of you. I did feel the need to do some overhauling on the overall look of Spooked! so I put my insomnia to use last night. So, what do you think? Better? Worse? Feel free to leave a comment and let me know. I know there's an unwritten rule that paranormal-themed blogs should be black, spiritual/psychic blogs all light and airy, etc. but I don't feel like being too traditional is very fitting for my writing. Time to shake things up a bit... and reflect my traveling lifestyle coupled with the "armchair tourist" experience I like to give people every so often.

I'm looking forward to getting out for a little local ghost hunting this week, since it's been so long. And at this rate, it might be one of my last few chances to see the Cuyahoga Valley... where it all began for me. I began my blogging and writing as the first and only investigator searching for legends and ghosts in this region. Now... well, anyone with a camera can dub himself or herself a "paranormal investigator" (becoming an overnight expert from watching a few episodes of Ghost Hunters, no doubt) and heads out into the valley like he/she owns it triumphantly showing it off as though it were a new Porsche.

That might sound like I've grown bitter. But in reality, I haven't. It's like watching a playground as the children claim a jungle gym all their own and fight over who is allowed on it. If anything, it's a relief to be out of the war. All the pettiness, backstabbing, badmouthing, and other high school behavior that plays out all the time. The valley used to be my playground and my place of tranquility. Now, new generations of tenderfoot ghost hunters (though they will tell you they've been doing it "for years") run amok in the places no one would know about were it not for my work and research. So, I'm leaving it all to the paranormal Lord of the Flies people. Save for the occasional reminisce and jaunt with old investigating buddies reliving the good times, I'm turning it over to other people to explore ad nauseam.

But beyond that, I don't see myself staying in this region for a long period. Truthfully, part of me does miss San Diego. For all the unplanned disappointments, it was breathtakingly beautiful in spots, had picture-perfect weather, and was so very different from what I've grown accustomed to in the Rust Belt of America. I thrive on new experiences and wither from the mundane. Yes... there was drama out west. But being new, I could safely escape some of it simply by dropping off the radar. There are possibilities with me ending up out west (in some instances, WAY out west... so west that it's east) but I'm seeing how life plays out.

In just a few weeks, I'll be doing a talk at Cuyahoga Falls Library on my book, gay & lesbian psychics, and some interesting hauntings I've unearthed worldwide. My talk will be on Wednesday October 6th at 7:00 PM EST. I'm trying not to bore people too much with parapsychology and history and will try to focus on hauntings (since that's why people do attend these things, after all). Copies of my book will be available for $10.00 (even cheaper than Amazon). Even if you have read the book, there will be new things to hear about that night. Not only will I talk about some interesting names in paranormal history but I'll talk a lot about haunted gay-owned inns and other hauntings, many of which were NOT discussed in the book. Otherwise, it will be a quiet month for me which is a vast difference from recent years. And all this leading up to my grand travels. Time goes by so quickly.