Something was disabling the mouse as I was moving around. However, I sat down and thought about the problem and noticed that if I moved the TouchPad on my laptop after the external mouse appeared frozen my external mouse would be responsive again. I recently upgraded to Windows 8.1 so my first reaction was to assume that something broke because 'stuff is new.' I'd be moving it, then the mouse would just stop. I recently noticed that my external Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse would freeze every few minutes.
I'm just blogging this to make sure I remember it, but also to help others who might need this fix.
