Every so often I smell cigarette smoke around the house. My first thought is always that it's my father's ghost and I'm good with it. My second is always it's some creepy stranger lurking in backyard and I FREAK OUT until I can convince myself of some other scenario. So I guess I still do believe in ghosts. Then again, I might well be considered primitive, superstitious, and bat shit crazy.

My friend Jennifer says that if you see a ghost you should probably move the toaster or microwave. Sometimes your eyeballs resonate at the same frequency as other objects, and you have a visual hallucination. Since your brain is all about seeing patterns, it fills in blanks and you get an image you understand.

In my world, the things that go rustle in the night are always imaginary (but perfectly plausible) mice or rats or cockroaches, never ghosts.

Even when I was little, I have a distinct memory of thinking, "But what if there's a tiger [in that darkened room]!" It was never a thing that wasn't real, even if it was a thing that was incredibly unlikely.

Even when I was little, I have a distinct memory of thinking, "But what if there's a tiger [in that darkened room]!"

You realize you just left yourself wide open for cheetah/squash court jokes....

again.

Tigers are much bigger! And I think I had been reading The Jungle Book at the time, so it's not like I pulled a tiger out of a hat. Shere Khan is scary!!

Having cats means never having to worry that ghosts are getting in and making odd noises.

Of course, if somebody asked me if I believed in UFOs, I'd say yes... but that's because I believe there are flying objects/phenomena that remain unidentified.

That building looks like a drill bit to me. I doubt that is what the architect wants to hear.

Yeah, that's the most popular nickname for it here.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't sleep well in total darkness either.

At night, I need complete darkness to sleep. And if I get up in the middle of the night to pee, I'd rather feel my way through complete darkness than turn a light on. (I step carefully, in case the cat is about.)

Ok, my apartment doesn't get completely dark, as light from the city makes it past the blinds. But I wish I could block out that last bit of light. And I'll even cover up my LED clock radio, as it makes too much light.

Over the past three or four years, since I bought a little TV/VCR combo set for my bedroom, I've gotten in the habit of putting in a boring PBS/History Channel documentary to fall asleep to. (I'm currently watching Ken Burns' Civil War doc.) It's now at the point that going on vacation and sleeping in a dark hotel room is an adjustment, whereas I used to fall asleep in a dark room all the time.

Ok, my apartment doesn't get completely dark, as light from the city makes it past the blinds. But I wish I could block out that last bit of light. And I'll even cover up my LED clock radio, as it makes too much light.

I bought semi-blackout drapes from IKEA that have worked wonders. Of course, the newfound darkness highlighted the fact that my router's blinking lights are bright enough to light a runway. I ended up taping over the lights.