Really the Rest of the Roommates

When I last left my roommate saga, I was up to 2002 or so and was living in the Warehouse. That’s when I started dating Montana, who was a hilarious breath of fresh air, and the second girlfriend I’d end up living with for a while.

Due to sudden circumstances, Montana ended up moving into the warehouse where Jay and I lived pretty quickly. I described it thusly:

Actually, we moved into The Warehouse, a show destination in Richmond for a few years during the very early 2000s. The thrash band Municipal Waste practiced their earliest songs there, and I got to memorize what they sounded like and learn the songs way before they were recorded. I heard them some nights from my second floor—2700 square feet total—while I was trying to sleep some very early mornings.

This doesn’t even do half the job. The Warehouse had no heating or cooling, so we put kerosene heaters in there. My floor didn’t really have rooms carved out, so I put a clear plastic polymer sheet around as insulation. Yes, I realize this is not the most intelligent way to live, and it wasn’t really sustainable.

Montana was a trooper, but we ultimately needed to move into an actual house, which we did in 2003. We had a little back yard where Tiamat could run around, and there was a cool architecture in this old place. Plus: air conditioning and central heating, just like normal places to live. I was ready for a normal place to live.

After returning from Brazil, we broke up and I lived solo for the remainder of the lease. I actually liked it this time around, whereas the last (and only) time I had lived by myself, I was a bit younger and maybe less grounded in the community. This was from 2004-2005, dovetailed by the two visits to Brazil I took those summers.

I took advantage of my lease expiring and decided to travel, without a forever home or a date to settle in mind. This felt incredibly liberating, like something I needed to do, so I gave in to that impulse and drove halfway to the moon. My life was nothing but competing in and refereeing jiu jitsu events, teaching jiu jitsu classes, seminars, and private lessons, and trying to hustle for whatever cash I could, so long as it was at least somewhat related to BJJ.

This lifestyle was sustainable for nearly a year, which might surprise some folks who know me well today. I’m a creature of habit and routine, and I seldom leave my house to attend any social activities. However, there was something compelling about living on the road that made sense to me at the time. I was unencumbered for the first time in my life, although I still had some stuff stored in the attic of a kind dude who agreed to let me keep that stuff there for very little money.

When I finally returned to Richmond for semi-good, it was Montana’s residence where I ultimately settled. This might seem utterly anathema to some, but the unique circumstances made this work. Montana had been the only person I would trust to take care of Tiamat while traveling, and there was a little yard at the place where she and several roommates lived.

This reminded me of the second place I lived in Richmond, all the way back in 1995. It was a big but full house, with a spiral staircase in the kitchen and a unique architecture resulting from that upstairs. Montana would soon move out, so I ended up with a mishmash of roommates in various stages of leaving and arriving (mostly leaving).

Me learning deep half guard from Jeff Glover, 2005. We weren’t roommates, but this is from the appropriate time

Judd and another roommate whose name I may never remember had a bunch of records. I remember reading the liner notes of LPs while listening to those records, and I remember being able to watch the first real streaming videos while I was living there. The kitchen was the main source of activity, where the drinking, listening, and learning took place.

Ultimately, Mike Byrd moved in toward the tail end of my time in this awesome old house. Mike was a jiu jitsu practitioner I knew pretty well, and he lived upstairs in the attic-type room (it really was a cool house). Unfortunately, the house began falling apart around me—the roof began to leak, and I ultimately took my landlord to court when he refused to take any action. Forced to move out, I gratefully accepted Fred’s offer to move into his spare bedroom for a while, in exchange for a modest rent.

Fred was really cool. He and I would drink 40s together ironically, and watch Idiocracy or South Park together. Fred was also a jiu jitsu person, which probably shouldn’t be surprising. I had my own school by now and was deeply immersed in all things BJJ.

That brought me to the point where I was finally ready to buy a house and sort of settle down—another big story for another day. Meanwhile, if you want to hear more about me moving around, this really dovetails nicely: