Life List How To: It’s Just a Phase

If you couldn’t make Camp Mighty this year, this is me bringing a little taste to your laptop. (Mmm. Tastes like achievement. And gin gimlets.) For increased verisimilitude, please wear a paper party hat while you watch this video I filmed in my hotel room.

While we’re in Palm Springs, Olay is giving Alice Bradley of Finslippy a grant to cover the head shots she needed for her work as a freelance writer. She’s having them taken here at the Ace, and it’s our first foray into wish granting. [Ed note: Between you and me, Alice totally asked for more wishes. Which? Pro move. Now I’m sad that I’m not a genie. But mostly because I want to wear harem pants around without people asking me why I’m in my pajamas.]

If you haven’t requested an invitation to the Go Mighty beta yet, please go do that so you can enter to win a grant too. We’ll send a note to your inbox as we grow.

I’m doing a series of these videos, so please let me know in comments any questions you’d like answered about Life Lists. And then I will attempt to answer them. If you’d like to comment on my appearance, my sexuality, or my relative idiocy level, I think you’re supposed to do that on YouTube? So maybe click through. I don’t really know how it works.

Ready? Go.

Thanksgiving! Feeeed me.

This post is sponsored by Safeway stores-Safeway, Dominicks, Tom Thumb, Vons, Randalls. Tastier for the holidays!

I need recipe advice, Internet.

I love the idea of having a set of traditional recipes I make every year for Thanksgiving — the quintessential stuffing, the heart-attack mashed potatoes, the restful pie. I want a cute apron and a calm demeanor borne of certitude (and the glass of red wine I’m drinking while I cook). Unfortunately, I don’t have many recipes passed down the family tree.

But you there. In the apron, with the red-wine mustache. What do you make every year? Anything that’s…

• Super quick and still delicious? I am willing to add bacon to anything to make this happen.
• So perfect you don’t care how long it takes because in the end your guests want to dump the leftovers on the floor and roll around in them?
• Easy to make ahead so all your prep doesn’t land on the same day? I prefer to enjoy the party rather than play caterer.

I have collected a few irreproachable recipes for my arsenal. Let’s have an old-fashioned recipe swap. Was that ever a thing? Let’s say yes.

Here are mine:

Winter Vegetable Soup
You can make it up to a week ahead, and freeze it. The sweetness of the squash and apple are offset by the cayenne. The mild kick in the aftertaste is a nice surprise.

Bourbon Brined Turkey
OK, so the most intense part of the meal I have down. I cannot recommend this recipe enough. Simple, and a result that will have guests calling for years after to ask for the recipe every time they’re in the presence of a raw bird.

Cranberry Relish
So good, and ludicrously fast — the caveat being that you’ll need a food processor. Very fresh, but definitely not a cranberry sauce. Great accent for the rest of a holiday meal.

All right, your turn. Here’s what I still need:

• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes
• Yam or sweet potatoes
• Gravy
• Something green – Brussels sprouts or green beans maybe
• An alternative main dish for vegetarians preferably vegans. (I’m not being twee here. This comes up almost every year.)
• Pies. For the love of all that is holy. Pies.

Open your recipe box unto me, that all of us may partake in your Thanksgiving bounty.

She said. Wholesomely.

Will you help me with something, please?

Hank gave me this card for Mother’s Day last year, just before I overflowed and spilled all over the floor.

“Look, mama!” he said, oblivious to my ectoplasm pooling around his tiny sneakers. “It’s all your favorite things. Fireworks, and stars, and me! And this is what you always say to me, ‘You are perfect, Hank!'”

Oh. My friends, I had no idea I’d been saying it out loud. And yet, I could not deny it was true.

Camp Mighty is this weekend, and before we arrive, we’re raising $20,000 for charity: water. (We’re currently about $6,000 away.) The charity: water offices and half the staff are based in New York, so much of the staff was temporarily displaced by Hurricane Sandy, just as they’re trying to plan one of their largest fundraising events of the year.

Campers are doing all kinds of fund raising projects (more on that tomorrow), so here’s mine, inspired by a certain perfect five year old. I am auctioning:

20 PERSONAL LETTERS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
One to each of the highest donors here
with the notation “Maggie Mason finds me attractive.”
Donation minimum of $10

All the proceeds go to benefit charity: water and The American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief.

To bid, donate $10 or more here with the notation “Maggie Mason finds me attractive.” If you’re one of the top 20 bidders, you win a custom letter to cheer you in the face of a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, or a note that outlines your intrinsic perfection. Stipulations:

  • The letter may be for yourself or a as a gift to someone else.
  • You may choose the subject of the letter.
  • You may choose one phrase that must be incorporated therein and does not subject me to legally binding or illicit activities.

Or! You can leave me to my own devices. Please note, I am quite encouraging on the whole, and have years of experience in the field of championship.

If anyone bids a ludicrously generous amount (say above $100), I will also send you a small package of interesting items I no longer want, and descriptions of said items that make them seem more exciting. I will then briefly reconsider whether to dispense with these items, as they now seem more sentimental than they once did, but in the end will relent because I am grateful to you and value your generosity.

If you don’t want a letter or a box of unspecified objects, you can make a donation in any amount to the Go Mighty charity: water page (Leave my name in the comment field, please). If you’re broke, or just helpful, please include a link to this post on Twitter and Facebook with the hashtags #campmighty #charitywater. I’ll choose one of you at random, and send you a letter too.

Thanks, you guys. You are perfect.

The Results Are In

The election is over. It’s time for our shoulders to leave their months long position by our ears and relax. No matter if your candidate won or lost, we can all agree that the ability to cast a vote is something worth celebrating. Plus, we all got stickers. Doesn’t that make 6-year-old you smile?

Also, worth celebrating is the number of you who participated in our challenge in partnership with Bing to spread the word on Election Day and encourage others to vote. We have randomly chosen four winners from those who gave us a #gobing #gomighty #govote shout on Instagram and Twitter.

Congrats to Sarah Oubre, Lindsay Goldner, Amanda MacArthur, and Kristin Vanderhey. We’ll be in touch soon, ladies.

Enjoy your robocall-free weekend, team.

When are Fruits in Season?

If you’ve been following along on my quest to taste 1,000 fruits, you’ll know that I’m a fan of this Seasonal Fruit poster by The Sweettooth Co. It tells you when you should be eating what, which is easier here in California where everything grows, but harder information to come by when you don’t have fruit stands every few feet. Do not bother with the December strawberries, team.

I’m a sucker for useful info graphics like this. Do you have a favorite one? If so, give a link in comments, and if we get enough of them I’ll make a Pinterest board.

Vote! For it is your civic duty. Also, cash.


Image by Matt Rourke

Citizens! I have an idea. If you’re voting in the U.S. election today, spread the word by posting to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, so your fellow citizens will be all “Oh yeah! My nation. I shall cast a ballot to preserve my hard-won freedoms.”

Right now, Go Mighty and Microsoft Bing are getting out the vote in partnership. Give us a shout with #govote #gomighty #gobing, and we’ll reward your patriotism by entering you to win one of the following:

A. A FREE PASS TO CAMP MIGHTY (If you already have one of these, we’ll reimburse you that cash.)

B. A $200 donation in your name to charity: water.

C. A $200 donation in your name to the American Red Cross.

D. A $500 grant to help you cross something off your Life List.

Just add #govote #gomighty #gobing to any entry encouraging friends to vote today and you’ll be entered to win your prize of choice. So easy! So American.

I have a mail-in ballot, which I forgot to mail in. So I’ll be heading to my polling place to drop it off shortly. If you don’t know where to go to vote, you can look it up on Bing Elections, and play along with us. Check back in here on Thursday to find out who won. You know, I always hope it’s you.

Happy Election Day, team. Nationalism! Woot.

#GoVote. #GoMighty. #GoBing.

The Best Parts of A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

“He’s rigged a tiny cassette player with a small set of foam earphones to listen to demo tapes and rough mixes. Occasionally he’ll hand the device to Mindy, wanting her opinion, and each time, the experience of music pouring directly against her eardrums — hers alone — is a shock that makes her eyes well up; the privacy of it, the way it transforms her surroundings into a golden montage…”

“I should go, Dad,” Chris said. Bennie let him out of the car and hugged him hard. As always, Chris went still in his embrace , but whether he was savoring it or enduring it Bennie could never tell.”

“Yet each disappointment Ted felt in his wife, each incremental deflation, was accompanied by a seizure of guilt; many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan, and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed: her ropy arms and soft, generous ass. Then he folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied… Susan was baffled at first, then distraught… but eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape.”

“I looked down at the city. Its extravagance felt wasteful, like gushing oil or some other precious thing Bennie was hoarding for himself, using it up so no one else could get any. I thought: If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.”

“What he felt for Sasha was love, a safety and closeness like what he’d had with Stephanie before he’d let her down so many times that she couldn’t stop being mad.”

“‘I go away for a few years and the whole fucking world is upside down,’ Jules said angrily. ‘Buildings are missing. You get strip-searched every time you go to someone’s office. Everybody sounds stoned, because they’re e-mailing people the whole time they’re talking to you.'”

Vocabulary

sinsemilla – highly potent marijuana grown from the female plants, which are intentionally kept seedless to produce a high resin content

indolent – 1. causing little or no pain, slow to heal or develop 2. habitually lazy

badinage – playful repartee, banter

demimonde – 1. a class of women on the fringes of respectable society supported by wealthy lovers, the world of prostitution 2. a distinct circle or world that is often an isolated part of a larger world; especially one having low reputation or prestige

descry – 1. to catch site of 2. to find out or discover

deliquesce – dissolve or melt away

Life List: Squeeze all the juice out of the 2012 holiday season.

I sometimes delay Fun until it magically becomes Not Fun — particularly around the holidays. For example, I love choosing presents, but I wait until the twelfth hour and abracadabra. I’m at the Container Store on Christmas Eve beating someone senseless with a Keepsake Shadowbox.

Last year, I realized there are a things I must do during the holiday season, or I feel under-celebratory — like I missed everything and I’m starting the New Year off-kilter. So I posted my 12 Holiday Resolutions on Go Mighty.

Is there anything you can’t skip or it just doesn’t feel like the holidays?