Debra Galant Explains the Universe

Water Finds its Own Level

At a bat mitzvah over the weekend, and happened to be placed at a great table, with some close friends, and other people I want to know better. I don't know exactly how the conversation got there, but I discovered, at one point, that the women to my left and right, like me, bite their nails.

I have to find out if the other two women at the table do as well.

Perhaps this will be my new criteria for choosing friends.

Barista's Christmas Greeting

Merry Christmas from the Barista of Bloomfield Ave.

Why I Thank God I Live in a Blue State

A present from my art director, Jan Yamanaka. Go send her freelance work so she can pay for this.

The war gets personal

Over at Baristanet.com, where I spend most of my online time, I created quite a storm with a post about Army recruiters showing up at the high school during lunch. So far, the 36-word post has attracted 33 comments -- and only three, as far as I can tell, are from my daughter.

I'd say Glen Ridge High School is probably a low-yielding proposition for the US Army, but the very idea of it creeped most of the locals out.

And not just the locals. Roxanne, whose niece is going off to Iraq, had (to put it politely) a strong reaction too.

Going to Extremes

I don't know if you can trust the news headlines on AOL Instant Messenger, the supermarket tabloid of the internet, but it sounds like this guy really took the election hard.

Shiva Call

Shiva call tonight. Brian O'Reilly's mother. After the service, around the dessert table, the subject gets around to the election, of course. Marge Grayson tells me that she went to the Cheese Shop for lunch on Wednesday and it was like a shiva call.

Conversation with Bill at Carla's 50th birthday party. Walk with Lori on Saturday. Liza on the phone. Brunch with Mom and Dad. Wherever you go, whomever you talk to, it's just completely assumed: we're in mourning. Lori even described it as like after 9/11, but I think that's going it a bit. However, I did have an awful 9/11 kind of dream last night, in which our whole family was caught in a building that was blown to smithereens. Nuclear blast too. Only two of us got out. I woke up and felt like there was a hole in my heart that could have been made by the trunk of an oak. That sickness didn't go away, even after I realized it was a dream.

Remembering 9/11

I may have been the only person in the entire metropolitan area who missed the whole thing when it was happening. I was driving down to Camden to cover jury selection for the rabbi murder trial, and when I got out of range of WFUV, I turned on the CD player and listened to music for the rest of the ride. One of the songs I listened to was Shawn Colvin's "Another Plane Went Down," which gave me a weird feeling. But then that song always gave me a weird feeling. Did I have some sixth sense somewhere that all the molecules in the universe had cataclysmically rearranged themselves? I like to think I did. But at the time, I dismissed all my misgivings as nervousness about getting to Camden and finding the courthouse.

I got to Camden and parked; court was in session; jury selection was going on. I took notes assiduously and was blissfully unaware that the whole world had turned upside down. Then, about 11, the judge asked the lawyers whether they wanted to go ahead in light of the day's news and the thousands of people who'd likely died.

Off to camp

It was hard enough to send him off to camp for two weeks. How do mothers ever send their sons to war?

Does that mean I have to have the nightmare too?

Or have someone drill implants into my brain? Or have Mommy kiss me on the lips? No thank you.

I'll sign up for the Dangerous Liaisons game, though, the one where John Malkovich calls me up and whispers sweet nothings....

The Barista Rides Again!

Raymond Helfrich took this picture of my son and I riding in the Baristamobile in yesterday's Independence Day parade in Montclair.