Another amazing house

Did you know that my friend AJ has an awesome house? He doesn’t even know how awesome his house is, because he’s never been there. It’s in a well-treed area of his city, and he has two hot tubs (one’s shaped like a coffin, but I’m not sure that’s on purpose). His back yard is long, tiered, and extremely private. I was staying with him because I’d recently been in his city for a game.

We’d stayed up late, chatting, which is what we do, you know. And in the morning, I found a stack of chairs upon which to lounge beside AJ as we chatted with TUO, who’d also stayed over. TUO told us about all the gaming stuff she’d been doing lately, including making Star Trek Online, which, if I played MMORPGs, I’d probably be addicted to. And not just because TUO worked on it (she really did, too; in the really-real world). She told us about some of the porblems she and R:TaG had had travelling, which is nothing compared to the Issues some of our friends are having trying to get home from Parts German.

There may or may not have been some snuggling, with AJ on his reclining futon/dentist’s chair/massage chair/bed thingy and me on a strangely comfortable stack of chairs beside him. AJ has been known, in the past, to offer mammary support, and this may or may not have been a similar situation. Similar, but not the same. Anyway, enough about what AJ did to my dirty pillows.

His bedroom was in the basement, but because his house was built on a hill, the windows in his bedroom were huge and you could see the entire back yard. This is not unlike my own childhood home in the Up North. Along one wall was a built-in cabinet/table that housed his music player, a projector, some drawers for odds-and-ends, and pull-out shelves underneath where he kept extra blankets, pillows, and on one side, the coffee maker.

He had a basket full of coffees and teas, and a coffee maker and tea kettle that were plugged in to a wall of outlets along the back of the …unit. I made some coffee, since TUO and AJ had drunk the first pot (I slept in, so I can’t really blame them). AJ also had a small, but strangely silent fridge in the room. it’s where he kept the milk and cream.

Then it occurred to me that this wasn’t really his bedroom, it was the media room. The projector was, after all, for watching movies. And the bed/dentist’s chair contraption was actually a home-theatre style recliner. And the stack of chairs I’d been sitting on were for extra guests, but there were two or three or four of the recliners in the room. And the large windows could be covered by heavy velvet drapes. And in one of the other pull-out shelves was a theatre-style popcorn maker. It was all becoming clear.

Upstairs, TUO was eating shrivelled, burnt bacon at the dining table, and the dining room actually kind of resembled her dining room from when she lived on 6th street. I miss that dining room. We talked some more, and made some plans (I think involving a games convention), and I really really miss TUO. I think i’ll make plans to visit this fall, maybe. Because I’m one of the only folks who haven’t visited them yet. Because I’m a jerk.

Anyway, then AJ and I and TUO chatted about gardening, and gaming, and just the kinds of things you chat about with your best friends.

Sometimes, the worst thing about having really good friends is that when y’all become a diaspora, it kind of makes this achey feeling happen in your throat. Great seeing you both, though. Nice pad, AJ! Next time, can we go in one of the hot tubs?