Dear Stewart,

Hello, my friend! How are you? I hope that you haven't contracted this cold that seems to be making it's way through all my friends. My mom and dad have it too (my mom has bronchitis!). I feel OK, but I still have this stupid, stupid cough. It's totally affecting my sleep (and my husband's). And I'm still breastfeeding (my baby is 14 months old!), so it limits what medicine I can take. Believe me, if I could take cough medicine with codeine, I would have last night. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. Fortunately the baby seems to have gotten his sound sleeping habits from his daddy, because nothing wakes him up. I'm wondering if that's a drummer thing.

This morning, I got my usual Monday morning email from Powell's Bookstore. Have you been there? It's an awesome store, right in Portland, Oregon. Just to be clear, I don't live in Portland, I live in Southern California, but I've been there, it's beautiful, and I would consider it if I ever had to move. They have a great selection of new and (even better) used books, and they have a service where you can get an automated email every week when used books on any subject you choose come in. I get a notification about the books on music.

I'll be honest... I'm not very diligent about checking the list. A lot of times the books offered are not something I'm interested in ("The Best Fake Book Ever!" "The Songs of Mister Rogers"). Sometimes I barely scan it. This week's email came in at 3:20 a.m., and yes, I was awake (cough, cough), but no, I wasn't super excited about this message. I was just barely reading it, and I'd scanned down to the last title on the list, and the last author's name... Ian Copeland... when my eyes got all wide and I woke up a little more.

I didn't know that your brother Ian had even written a book (I've just started reading your brother Miles' website... you all are good writers, it seems), and all the descriptions of it make me very, very interested. I wish I'd known before. I'm sorry to say that I don't know very much about your brother but I'm really excited to learn more, in his book. I just placed my order now.

Anyway, that's all I have to say, for now. I hope you're well. I hope I'm well soon.

Love you,
Irene