IT Paranoia

What is in it for people in the IT profession to make things easy for those of us who have to use their systems? Nothing. I'll explain. In the college I teach at, the set up as to how one enters grades or gets a class roster is so non-intuitive that it takes phone calls and trouble-shooting to resolve, sometimes several times before figuring out what you need to do. Not to mention the fact that one's email rarely works because you have to change your password every month or two. Who can remember passwords that change that often? Not me.

But the object of IT people is to keep their jobs. And they do that by keeping us a captive audience and adding ridiculous steps to what should be simple. We NEED them.

It's the same with exterminators, perhaps. They don't kill all the bugs--just some of them. Why? Because obviously they want to be able to come back next month. There is no incentive to get rid of every roach for once and for all. So with IT. If they make it hard, we all have to call and they can prove their importance to the administration. "Look how many problems we had to solve..."

Weeping Beech Trees

New Work by Julia Healy

Weeping Beech Trees are obsessing me right now. I’m doing them in lots of media: large oils, medium-sized oils and watercolor, gouache and acrylic on paper. I’m painting some at night and most of them in winter. Sometimes branches from neighboring trees almost touch. I love the tension that creates. 

Art Is Where You FInd It...Dan's Stairs

Men in Aprons

Men in Aprons....an on-going project in which I ask men to put on an apron. Some vamp, others act serious and still others check themselves out....

Black Walnut Stump

The big, beautiful tree that graced my backyard for many years was rotten to the core...a squirrel condo of sorts. Here are the remains. Now I know why all the branches kept falling down: it was hollow! Literally. Sorry to see it go, but happy it had a long life. The sun in the yard is blinding, but I'm not complaining...

Still Life Photograph--Julia Healy

Sometimes the still life set-up in my class works well as a photo in its own right and this, I think, is a case in point.

Photos from Tom's Service--3/18/2012

Pi Day

The crossword puzzle reminded me that this is Pi Day. In the past, my son would make a pie to take to school on Pi Day. I carry the sweet memories of those days in my heart, when I was too busy, trying to keep everything afloat and my kiddos were doing the best they could in the semi-confusion that was home.

Tomorrow is the Ides of March, Friday is the anniversary of my friend Donna's death and this has been a difficult week overall, with yet another friend cut down too soon.

As I ready my annual Ides of March missive, I find it is very dark and full of sadness, whining and worry. I have tried hard to perk it up and make it sound more like the Christmas letters my sisters send, but it's still dark and not cutesy-happy like theirs are.

I keep trying to tell myself that Donna would give anything to have one day of my sucky life. That is important to remember as I wallow in my own trivial concerns, regrets and sadnesses.

The photo is of my daughter and Donna and is the last photograph Donna let me take of her. She was sick in this photo, but got much worse in the end. I miss her on a daily basis.

Tom With Garbage I Found For Him

Dear, Dear Tom...

Ceramics Extrordinare

This is in the Museum of Whatever It's Called: Design? Crafts? It used to be called the Crafts Museum. Anyway, this piece is made of luster glazed clay. Yes, clay.

Detail of Boys Will Be Boys

Boys Will Be Boys

This is not my bedroom...

This is just one corner of "strata decorating" that I photographed in the summer of 2010. I will not say where or exactly when to protect the guilty.

Juxtaposition: California Garden

Photographed in Berkeley, California by Julia Healy...

92 and Counting...

When I'm this age I want to be as sharp as Robert's Grandmother, Mamie. She doesn't miss a trick. Macy's has been paying her a pension for God-knows-how-long.