Home for Joe

Well good news first -- Joe has been approved to rent this apartment that we looked at the other day! Hurrah!

Now, it is not a nice place, not pretty or cozy or charming in any way, that I could see. And the apartment itself was in fairly shabby shape, and run-down, with stained carpet and small kitchen and bathroom. But the ceilings were high, and the storage ample, and the two bedrooms were fairly decently sized -- and it's a town house, so no one above or below you, which is good -- and anyway, Joe is getting very antsy about finding a place. And I guess he can certainly move out if he wants to, if the place does not meet his needs. So there's that.

BUT. I've just hung up the phone from a conversation with him, in which he gave me several orders (cuz he's a man now, doesn't have to say please and thank you -- right?) and also asked for help as though I were bound as his mother to give it to him. And I just don't know about this. I still WANT to help him -- I'm still his mother, for goodness sake, and I still wish he had a better life and more belongings (hold that thought while I run rapidly backward through the last few years, and all the belongings which Joe has casually discarded along the way -- a-a-and done) but I need to sit down with him and talk this over.

You know, he has been behaving so much better lately -- really, so very much better! Calm and reasonable and nicely mannered, and understanding the things I would say -- and giving me hugs when I dropped him off, and all that -- that I am unpleasantly surprised by how instantly he got rude when I told him the apartment was his.

Oh, well, sigh.... I should just hold on to the good news, right? He has a place of his own! Well, he and Nick do. And I'm sure his girlfriend will be moving in soon, as well... but she is not on the lease, so her tenancy can be terminated with a quick push out the door.