The details…

When I can’t sleep, I write, in my head. It all sounds so amazing, but it never makes it to paper, and is forgotten by the time I wake up.

So I had a hard time sleeping last night, because of a creepy encounter with my neighbour… and I wrote about it in my head until I fell asleep.

Ok, so I’m a bit of an Owl. I find myself still up late hours of the night, especially when Sam is on days and he goes to bed early because of his 4:40am wake up time.

So last night was no different. I was up late (obviously I posted an entry around 1am), watching Law and Order Criminal Intent.

Something people find surprising is my fascination with Murderers. Not in a sick violent way, and not into the graphic details of a crime.

More so, everything else. Who was this person? What made them this way? Who’s life did rhey take> How did they decide this person’s life was worth ending? What about the family let behind, both victim and prepetrator.

So, a few years back, and I may have written about this, Sam and I smoked honey oil and watched Serial Killer Bios (The Bill Curtis/ A&E ones) and I didn’t sleep for two weeks, I was so haunted by all of the things we’d seen I couldn’t get my mind to stop.

So, Sam banned me from engaging in any serial killer research from there on out. But, of course, I can’t be banned from doing anything. One killer, who I did write about once, Jeffrey Dahmer was particularily haunting because, I felt bad for him.

Yes, he’s a monster and he did unspeakable things, but it was from a place of lonliness I didn’t know anyone felt.

So yesterday as I perused Netflix documentaries there was one about him, called the Jeffrey Dahmer files. So I haven’t watched anything in relation to Dahmer in years. I did read a real life account of a student whose senior thesis was built around his personal interaction with John Wayne Gacy, and in that book he reaches out to Dahmer, who out of lonliness replies and put forth the groundwork of a relationship shortly before he’s killed in jail.

This is getting to be a whole other entry, so I’ll speed it up. So the documentary was about three people who were affected by Dahmer’s crimes. The Forensic pathologist, the lead investigator, and Dahmer’s neighbour, with whom he often had coffee with, and invited into his apartment.

I wasn’t horrified. My mind is in a different place and because the gory details are omitted and it’s just about the people around him, It wasn’t something that haunted me like before…

But then something weird happened.

After I tucked Sam in, I perused some boards on a site I’ve been a member of since before I got married, but I had picked a random episode of Criminal Intent. I had started it before Sam went to bed, but paused it because well, NPH was in it (love him!) and I wanted to watch it after I wasn’t so distracted.

So after I was all setlled in, I watched it. Well, what do you know, his story is about a man who is so lonely, he abducts women, but without intention to kill them, but to make them his zombies, so they’ll never leave.

Just like Dahmer. The parallels were so uncanny. I’m not surprised, because his crimes are often made into crime show episodes. Its just the co-incidence that it’s the one I picked, after watching the documentary, after years and years of avoiding anything related to his story for years.

So no big deal, it’s just a show. So to get my mind off Murder, I online shopped for Manda’s present.

Finally at around 1:30am, I decided to get to bed.

Ok, so I’m kind of a giant recluse, and the apartment we live in really separates us from our neighbours.

Behind our bedroom wall is a utility closet, and the spare bedroom shares the wall of our other neighbours spare room, so we never see them or hear them.

Not once, since we moved here (and I’m home pretty much ALL the time) have I ever seen someone on their balcony. Firstly there is a partition. So you have to really extend yourself around it to look into our place.

So the absolute last thing I ever expected to see was someone STARING AT ME at 2am.

I got all ready for bed, and I realized the balcony door was unlocked, which isn’t a big deal and I usually only worry about locking it when Sam is on nightshift because I’m alone. But last night, I was laying in bed and thought to myself "I should lock that door".

So I got up, and went to lock the door, and there he was. A man, around my age, leaned over his balcony staring at me. He didn’t look over when he heard me, he was already leaned over looking into my apartment, and when he saw me, he didn’t break the stare or even try to look away.

Maybe it was all the murder stuff, but I was thoroughly creeped out. I never pay attention to the balcony, because you have to be a weirdo to actually lean over and look into the next apartment. So, I started wondering how long he was there. How long was he looking in? Was he watching me? 

Sam was asleep so I changed in my living room, did he see that?! I used to sleep in just shorts, and would walk around my place topless… but lucky for me, I wear a long shirt to sleep now, so when I got up to lock the door, I was mostly covered up. But I still felt creeped out. Extremely.

Anyways, now I can’t not pay attention to the patio, every shadow weirds me out. I keep see him leaning over and looking into my place.

It was so dark, and my apartment was dark, but there he was STARING at me, staring into my place. Even after I clicked the door lock, he was watching me.

Creepy, creepy, creepy. I feel like my privacy is invaded, like I could look up at any second and see his hard, unbreaking stare looking into my place.

I do not like this feeling. Sam says we’ll talk to management, but what can they do. I mean he’s not a criminal (I assume) His behaviour was bold though. I mean to firstly creep into my place, and then see me, and not look away or move, but to keep watching??

I actually brought up going to Edmonton to go curtain shopping yesterday, BEFORE this creepy incident… and I think we’ll get one for the balcony door also.

Ok, I’m going to try to stop being weirded out.