My little brother is so cool. Lee is ten years younger than I, he's studying to be a chemical engineer, and he and his wife Emily are about to have their first baby. He credits me with teaching him all about jazz and classic rock as he was growing up. We like a lot of the same things. I can write, but he can paint and draw.

For years, having admired the paintings that hang on the walls in my parents' house, I've been wanting to have one of Lee's paintings or drawings for my apartment. I kept thinking I'd commission something from him someday. Instead, to my great surprise, when I showed up in Utah for Christmas last December there was a painting shaped object near the tree wrapped in white paper with my name on it.

It was this charcoal drawing you see here

It's was no mean feat getting it there, though. Before leaving Utah, Laura and I took the picture down to a Mail Boxes Etc. in Salt Lake City, where I insured it and had it shipped to my office in Manhattan. When it arrived the next week, I flagged down a minivan taxi and hauled it to Prospect Heights (despite my cabbie obvious annoyance at having to drive to Brooklyn—hey, I don't make the laws).

When I opened the box in my apartment, however, broken glass cascaded about my feet. Fortunately I still had my shoes on. The drawing itself was only damaged in a couple of place—a spot of charcoal rubbed off from the front calf, a scratch from broken glass across the head—but Laura points out that those are the small flaws that give art character.

I swept up the glass, then spent several weeks trying to find a time when I was in Brooklyn simultaneously with the odd store hours of the framing shop down on 7th Avenue. Finally, last week, I managed to get the picture down to the shop, and on Saturday I retrieved it, freshly glassed, and hung it on my wall.

Where I must say, again, it looks pretty darn fine. My little brother's so cool.