Housekeeping Question

Hello! Remember last year when I was doing my charity:water fundraising for Camp Mighty? If you donated with the notation “Maggie Mason finds me attractive” and sent me your address, you should have received a letter from me — or a package if you donated over $100. A reader mentioned that she hadn’t received hers in comments, and I want to make sure no one else fell through the cracks. If you should have received something from me but didn’t, will you please drop me a line (and include your address) at maggie at mighty girl dot com? Thanks.

For the third year, Camp Mighty attendees, including me, are raising $20K for charity:water before we meet up. If you’d like to donate this year, you can do that here. Just add “Mighty Girl” to the notation field so we know where you came from. And thank you, nice person.

Walking Papers by Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch is one of my favorite authors, so I wrote him a thank you note a few months ago. To my surprise, he sent me a few of his books as a gift, thereby cementing my affection for him. I’ve been working my way through them.

Lynch is an undertaker, so much of his work deals with mortality. My favorite poem from Walking Papers by Thomas Lynch:

Local Heros

Some days the worst that can happen happens.
The sky falls or evil overwhelms or
the world as we have come to know it turns
toward the eventual apocalypse
long predicted in all the holy books —
the end-times of old grudge and grievances
that bring us each to our oblivions.
Still, maybe this is not the end at all,
nor even the beginning of the end.
Rather, one more in a long list of sorrows
to be added to the ones thus far endured,
through what we have come to call our history —
another in that bitter litany
that we will, if we survive it, have survived.
God help us who must live through this, alive
to the terror and open wounds: the heart
torn, shaken faith, the violent, vengeful soul,
the nerve exposed, the broken body so
mingled with its breaking that it’s lost forever.
Lord send us, in our peril, local heroes.
Someone to listen, someone to watch, someone
to search and wait and keep the careful count
of the dead and missing, the dead and gone
but not forgotten. Some days all that can be done
is to salvage one sadness from the mass
of sadnesses, to bear one body home,
to lay the dead out among their people,
organize the flowers and casseroles,
write the obits, meet the mourners at the door,
drive the dark procession down through town,
toll the bell, dig the hole, tend the pyre.
It’s what we do. The daylong news is dire —
full of true believers and politicos,
bold talk of holy war and photo-ops.
But here, brave men and women pick the pieces up.
They serve the living, caring for the dead.
Here the distant battle is waged in homes.
Like politics, all funerals are local.

Outside Lands Style 2013, Jaci, Hannah, and Kristina

I wrote ten short posts on Go Mighty to kick start my goal to See 1,000 live shows. Only 990 to go! This will be my last festival style post for Outside Lands. Thanks for the photos Mai!

I cannot resist elementary school teacher chic, or maybe it’s the grin. Either way, I’m pro any look that says, “I have a distinct personality, and I like to read.”

Also, curly hair with bangs! So it can be done.

Continue reading “Outside Lands Style 2013, Jaci, Hannah, and Kristina” →

You Made This

You guys have been making intimidating stuff. Like violins? And chairs? Meanwhile, I’m unwilling to work with any tool that plugs in unless it comes with glue sticks. Or hot rollers. This is probably because I can’t drink wine while I’m using a table saw.

Anyway, we’re in our final round of the I Made This Project on Go Mighty. If you’ve been making stuff, just add the tag #imadethis to a story. We’ll enter you for a chance to win a $400 package of good things. (And I’ll announce the winner August 30.)

If you know how to use a table saw or a sewing machine, now’s the time to make me feel inferior. Like so:

I’ve mentioned Caitlin before. She’s learning how to make a violin and sharing the process on Go Mighty. Most recently, she whittled the scroll and put in the Filletatura. Every time she posts, I’m like, “Still? I would so be the girl with the half finished violin in my closet until I die.”

Lorien is sewing and gifting a new stuffed animal every month for a year. Most recently she made dragons as a wedding gift.

Liz crocheted these washable, reusable face scrubbies from yarn. Good for your skin and the environment. She also used the word “cunning” to describe an object. One of uuuuuus.

This ramen from the Momofuku cookbook took 9 hours to make. Which, in cooking years, is almost as long as it takes to gestate a child.

More things. More things!:

• About half of us have pinned this, Kellee actually did it. The rest of us are just killing ourselves slowly.
• Tara rescued a chair from an alley and tried her hand at reupholstering for the first time. Success.
• Karisa has been sewing since she was 10, but this shirt is the first piece of clothing she’s ever made for herself.
• Robyn is making and giving away 1,000 hats. I wear mine constantly.
• Amy is finishing all of her unfinished sewing projects, and she made something I want.

If you haven’t posted your project yet, do! It can be something, you cooked, wrote, drew, whatever. Making stuff automatically makes you a more interesting person. And better looking too.

Go Mighty is our Life List community for people who get it done. If you’re not a member yet, let’s fix that. Sign up, and we’ll send an invite your way within 24 hours.

10 Tips for Making Florist Style Bouquets from Grocery Store Flowers

I’ve been making things as part of Go Mighty’s I Made This Project. Tag your Go Mighty stories with #imadethis, and we’ll enter you for a chance to win an Epiphanie Camera bag and lots of other good stuff.

Flowers make me happy. As a kid, I used to pick gardenias, camellias, ferns from the backyard and leave arrangements around the house. I don’t have any formal training, but over the years I’ve made lots of wedding bouquets, and I try to keep fresh flowers in the apartment.

Of course, that can get expensive in the city — where there’s no backyard to pull from — so over the years I’ve learned how to put together pretty options by buying flowers from the supermarket and rearranging. Here are a few tips to keep you in fresh flowers using grocery store options, but leave you cash for the actual groceries:

CHOOSING YOUR FLOWERS

1. Use what you have.
For the love of all that is holy, if you have a backyard, pull greens from trees and plants to use as fresh, unusual filler — or even as the mainstay of a bouquet with a few flowers scattered throughout. Much of the impact of florist bouquets comes from the novelty of the greens they use. Unexpected greens make your arrangements less expensive and more artistic.
Continue reading “10 Tips for Making Florist Style Bouquets from Grocery Store Flowers” →

Outside Lands Style 2013, Eline and Matt

Eline, I can see that you thought about what you wanted to wear and put that shit together. So how do you make it look so effortless? “Just my Golightly shades with an oversized rose sweater, maybe some shorts, grandma boots, and it’s cold so… blazer. No bigs.” Dang.

Also, three cheers for the girls who can wear camel. I keep trying, and people keep asking me if I feel sick. Maybe if I change lipstick? Again?

Heeeey, Matt. You’re playing it cool with those suspenders, but my mama says you’re trouble.

All photos by my show buddy, Mai Le of Fashionist