T.J.’s Getting Settled

I registered T.J. at one of the local Catholic High Schools on Friday and he’ll begin his classes tomorrow, Monday.  I had to take him shopping to get suitable clothes – no jeans or tee-shirts for this school!  The tuition was a little steeper that I thought it would be, close to eight grand a year, but it will be worth it for T.J. to get a good education.  I looked into the local public high schools, and I was not thrilled with what I learned about the quality of their academic performance.  So, it’s Catholic school for T.J.

We had a little incident Wednesday morning.  The house I live in is an older home, built sometime in the 1910s, so there was only one bathroom originally; on the second floor where the bedrooms are.  (My Grandma did remodel about fifteen years ago and put a half-bath on the ground floor, but we only have one full bath upstairs.)  Anyway, Ian walked out of the bathroom after his morning shower like he usually does – naked – only to run unto T.J. in the hall while I was coming out of my bedroom.  T.J. was a little embarrassed, not knowing where to look and getting a little flustered.  Ian acted like it was no big deal and to him it wasn’t; Ian and I often walked from the bathroom to the bedroom or vice-versa naked (Billy did too when he lived with us).  I mean, walking around naked in the privacy of your own home?  Who gives a fuck?  After all, it was just us guys, right?  But the situation has changed and I should have realized something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.  I didn’t say anything about it and T.J. has come to accept Ian walking around bare-ass in the morning as part of who he is, but I’ve started putting on my boxers when I get up in the morning.  After all, I’ve started to feel a little self-conscious about being naked outside of my bedroom with my little brother around.

Since I didn’t register T.J. for school until Friday, Wednesday and Thursday it was just the two of us while Ian was at work, so there was a lot we needed to talk about – my relationship with Ian, T.J.’s relationship with his Mom and our Dad, Grandma, and Dad’s will.  Over lunch on Wednesday, we decided it might be best to rent out the house T.J. grew up in rather than let it remain vacant.  I wasn’t sure what the rental market was like in Hackensack, but I knew that a house rental would certainly bring in a good deal of money every month, money that we could set aside for T.J.’s college fund.  Of course we couldn’t rent it out right away, we needed to go through Dad’s things, see what repairs needed to be done, pack up the things we wanted and donate the rest.  I found the names of Dad’s contacts in the paperwork his lawyer had given me and I called them that afternoon, setting up meeting for tomorrow.  

About a week ago, I mentioned to a friend of mine, Diana, who works for an interior designer that I might have to furnish my brother’s bedroom if he didn’t want to keep his furniture from New Jersey and was at a loss as to where to start.  Well, she called Wednesday with some ideas for his room and came over Thursday to take us to some places in the city she knew of and thought might be a good fit for T.J.  He was so excited to have someone help him create a really unique room he could call his own.  The three of us spent hours searching second-hand shops, prop shops, outlet stores and Pier One for just the right things.  Finally, after hours of not liking anything, T.J. finally decided on one piece, a retro-50s metal desk that Diana was able to use as a jumping-off point and after another two hours, we had gotten everything T.J. needed and wanted for his room.  It should be delivered by the middle of the week, so by the weekend, T.J.’s room will finally be finished!

T.J. and I went back to Hackensack yesterday to get the last of his things.  It should have only taken a few hours, but he got sidetracked when his friends found out he was back and they dropped by to say their good-byes.  They were so pathetic trying to be macho and not letting it show that T.J. moving to New York was upsetting to them.  I just didn’t have the heart to cut their visit short, so I told T.J. he could hang out for a few hours while I stayed at the house, figuring out what needed to be repaired before we rented the house out.  He didn’t get back until nearly 8 o’clock, but I wasn’t mad.  How could I be?  I made my list of obvious repairs, then took a ride to drop off my father’s clothes at a local thrift store then got some pizza and beer before heading back to the house and watching some T.V.  After T.J. got back, we packed the last few things in the car and left.  We got home about an hour later.

Ian had dinner waiting for us when we got back, nothing elaborate, just hamburgers, fries and backed beans, but it was nice to sit down as a family and eat and talk and joke a little.  I guess T.J. is settling in just fine.  Hopefully tomorrow will go just as well as he settles into his new school.