I have decided to commit to February Album Writing Month (FAWM) in 2009. In the meantime, I am working on an EP of requests for my dad who is starting chemo in a few days, one song for every month of chemo. It is tentatively titled, Chemo EP. I may put some up, or maybe keep it personal and watch the masters grow to 'Smile'-like status.

It's been hard to know what to do for my dad. I live in France, he lives in Idaho, a blue man in a painfully red state. If the 32 year-old me went and told the 16 year-old me how much she wishes she could fly to her ailing father's side and take care of him through this difficult time, the 16 year-old me would have told today's me to fuck off, please. But facts are facts, if emotions can sometimes be counted as facts. I do want to go take care of him. Not as a doting daughter, but as a grown-up friend and cancer survivor herself. As someone who knows how hard it is to stand up for more than five minutes at a time to even nuke leftovers in the microwave when one is going through this. As someone who wishes that things hadn't been so lonely during 9 weeks of radiation. I could drive him places, grocery shop, clean the house, be trounced in Scrabble again and again and again willingly. Instead, I asked him for six songs he'd like to hear me play. Pretty lame. But given my bank account and the craptacular job market in France, there isn't much choice. I also knit him some socks and hats and am sending him real chocolate. So that's a little something extra for the cold, cold North Idaho winter. Not quite the same as having his only child looking after him through chemotherapy, though.

Then there's FAWM. I completed and 'won' NANOWRIMO 2004 with 51,000+ words. After that, I felt like I could do just about anything. I even finished the novel and sent it to an agent who has yet to acknowledge my existence. Since my songwriting is in a slump, FAWM seemed like just the right kick in the ass for me. We shall see...thanks to my first writing partner Paula J. "Rockstar" Smith, I have some song challenges that should help the ideas flow. The trick is not to be neurotic and overthink everything. If can do it, somebody out there better bake me a cake.