No-Filter Photography: Quechee Is Full of Hot Air
Checking out the hot air balloons released from the 34th Annual Quechee Hot Air Balloon and Craft Festival. © 2013 Deanna Michalopoulos.
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You Guys, I Contacted a “Nice Guy” on OKCupid Today! (Oops)
Here is this Nice Guy broadcasting the most charming words to the OKStupid community, and there I go, Shallow Girl, messaging him to mirror his saccharine sentiment. God, I ruin everything! Poor guy was probably just seeking some comfort from Hot Chicks begging to prove him wrong, right? I mean, I get his point. It’s different when he comments on our bodies; I don’t even have to explain why, it just is, OK? And it’s pathetic when, in return, a woman needs a man to pack some muscle tone in those skinny jeans. Girls, stop being so Shallow and be Nice to the Nice Guy!
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Brooklyn Stumps: Christmas Tree Edition
My maiden cab ride into Manhattan was speeding (and often curtly braking) to a two-bedroom Avenue A apartment I’d share for three months with four other Medill magazine interns. There was a lot to see from that cab’s dust-crusted windows, but the very first thing I noticed about New York City was the death of Christmas. It was the start of 2004, and dried out firs, pines and spruces were unceremoniously heaped into evergreen tombstones along the curbs. Branches once reverently adorned with lights and glass now snapped under the weight of errant taxi tires, foot traffic and trash bags.
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Having an Argument With Myself Reading Men’s Health Magazine
Everyone stand up. Click on this Men’s Health feature and read it. Now sit down if you’re offended. (This construct kind of worked for Tina Fey in Mean Girls, and I’ve been meaning to try it out.) In all honesty, I do want to talk to those still standing because I’ve been having a point-counterpoint discussion in my head since I first read Lindy West’s thoughtful Jezebel essay shredding it to pieces. The write-up in question is an aggregation of research™ illuminating the 11 qualities that stack up to the “Perfect Woman.” (Spoiler: She’s stacked.)
She is also a tall brunette with tiny feet. She smiles a lot and laughs at her dude’s jokes. She’s “adequately” educated, and my favorite part, she’s particularly smokin’ when she’s successful — “but not TOO successful.”
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Tickets to Batman: Worst Date Ever
Dread begins pooling in my gut following an uncomfortable email exchange in the hours leading up to my fourth date with Jeremy. It is too late to cancel, so I decide to give it the ol’ Protestant try — sweep stomach-gripping reservations under the rug long enough to keep the evening as tension-free as possible. If it doesn’t go well, I can end it the next day with a phone call from another burrough.
To be fair, he meets me at the subway station, a rare chivalrous gesture in New York City, and he holds my hand as we walk several blocks to a restaurant uptown. I make the obligatory complaints about the sweltering heat before my hand goes limp and I let go.
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Rustic Chic (and Cheap!) Christmas Tree Ornaments
Let me just say that this tree is my spirit animal. Wait, what? We’re not saying that anymore? Fine, but still, the tree is awesomely rad. Thanks to my burgeoning skills in free association, this Frasier fir is named Kelsey Grammar (a lady though, due to her lovely pear-shaped form), and she’s objectively majestic in stature and fragrance. The charm, however, dangles from metallic accoutrements my friend Logan and I picked up on Black Friday, when we scoured Bed Stuy’s dollar stores and Home Depot’s hardware aisle in search of inexpensive (but inspired) tree trimmings. A stiff budget seems to result in a burst of creativity, so I wanted to share the fun cross section of farm, industrial and gilded ornaments that add up to a silhouette for the ages. Or at least for the next month.
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No-Filter Photography: Cross Section Skyline
From residential Bushwick to the twinkling Freedom Tower downtown, this is Thanksgiving. © 2012 Deanna Michalopoulos. -
Golden Hour: The Story of Fall
Sometime in October, I sat in my makeshift window seat with a sketchpad on my lap and discovered the depths of my dorkiness. Enjoy my first foray into drawing! (LOL.)
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Dispatch from New Dorp, Staten Island
Around noon on Saturday, November 2, five days after Hurricane Sandy devastated pockets of the East Coast, my friend Matt drove across the Verrazano to pick me up and take me back to his place on Staten Island. His apartment was unscathed, but as we all know many others in his burrough weren’t so lucky. Along with his two friends, Brad and Audrey, and an SUV packed with donations from my friends, we set out to do something. It was still early in recovery efforts, and I’m learning that they evolve from day to day in the wake of a natural disaster — trashing, demolishing, rebuilding, yet always supporting and supplying.
Before seeing this firsthand, I don’t think I could have so deeply understood the President’s emotional words to his campaign staff following the election. “… work I did in those communities changed me more than it changed the communities. Because it taught me … the grit and the resilience of ordinary American people.” Below are vignettes from our day.
These aren’t great photos, but I felt uncomfortable snapping pictures while I was there to help. Notice how high waterline appears on that home (right). -
No-Filter Photography: Big Mountains, Bigger Sky
An ethereal stretch of sunset en route to Boulder on 470. © 2012 Deanna Michalopoulos.
