My brother, who seems to do very little these days except come to visit me in New York, is, once again, here visiting me in New York. Though he’s on his way to a summer real estate development job in Chicago (which starts next Monday), he’s taking advantage of the week of vacation before he starts mainly by sleeping exceedingly late on our couch, watching more TV than have my roommates and I, combined, since the start of the year, and generally causing drunken trouble.

Normally, I’d be happy to let him do his own thing while I do mine, but, unfortunately, we don’t have a spare set of keys for our apartment. And though we’ve tried to get them duplicated, apparently our front door key is some super-high-tech deal that can only be etched by computer lathe, controlled by a credit card key carrying the right shaping information. Sadly, I’m not making that up.

As a result, my brother’s and my schedules are hopelessly intertwined, pulled together by a series of elaborately choreographed key handoffs. They seem to be working well, in terms of actually allowing us both to get in and out and back in when we need, but they’ve also brought me a bit deeper into my brother’s life then I suspect he or I would prefer. Last night, for example, heading to pick up the keys from him at a local bar in our neighborhood, I found him, not drinking, but standing outside the bar, making out with some girl he had apparently just met.

And, certainly, at some abstract, ‘I taught him everything he knows’ sort of level, I was exceedingly proud. But at a more practical ‘listen, bitch, get your hands off my brothers ass, because I have a morning meeting and need to get home and go to sleep’ level, it may be a touch more brotherly bonding that we really need.