On a dull day in Santa Barbara, like today for instance, I like to torture myself by recalling things I loved about living in other places, and how much better my life was then. Today, I'm thinking about San Francisco, where I enjoyed, along with conveniences like all-night corner markets and strip clubs, I didn't have to own a car.

I complained about the MUNI system along with everyone else, but I relied on it to get me downtown to work, and every month would fork over forty bucks or so for a pass. When I finally, toward the end of my time there, bought a car, I realized that what I really wanted was a personal driver, on call at all times, who’d drop me off and then park the car somewhere where I never had to think about it. I miss those car-free days, and I missed them especially the other day, when I walked out to discover that my car, left parked on the street, had been rammed by another vehicle. I don't know what kind of vehicle--I'm imagining a bright metallic orange Hummer, the ugliest car imaginable, uglier even than the Pacer, or Rosie O’Donnell’s Aztek--but whatever it was, it hit hard. Whoever hit me, knew it. The car’s front bumper was smashed in on the left side, and the light busted out. The impact cracked the front grill.

Etiquette governs street parking as much as any other sector of social life, and I think it’s generally accepted that a slight nudge is OK, when fitting one’s car into a space. Setting off the alarm is not really OK, but sometimes inevitable, and a minor abrasion is tolerable. But what happened to my car is none of those things—it’s an actual crash, and as such requires, according to my typically idiosyncratic and stringent rules, an apology note. That there was no such note on my windshield probably goes without saying.

I wish I could believe in some kind of karmic payback to the anonymous crasher. Sadly, I believe that what you wish on others comes back three times as hard on you, so I won’t wish him or her a terrible accident or spontaneous limb detachment. Maybe a way around it is to wish the crasher perfect self-awareness, so that he will wilt in the harsh light of his misdeeds. If I thought my own conscience could stand that kind of scrutiny, I’d go that direction, but really, there’s nothing I can do. As they say: Snakes on a plane.

In pretending to be big about it, I sunk deep into comfortable denial, and pretended the dented car no longer exists. Then, I bought another car. Limiting myself to a reasonable budget meant that I had approximately $38 to spend, but the Keelhauler found me a suitable replacement. It’s exactly like my old car, but it’s black instead of gold, for that goth appeal, and to maximize the inherent bad-ass character of the Volvo 940 wagon. Sexy.

It seems appropriate that my horoscope today reads, “The truly important things in this life have absolutely nothing to do with work, money or how nice your car or house is. It's time to start paying attention to the things that matter rather than giving them lip service.”

With that in mind, I’ll start my list of Things That Matter with this picture (blurry, my fault), and a little explanation:

Picture

Explanation
This photo depicts a small fragment of the coast in Carpinteria, California. It was taken from the parking lot of the brewery owned by some friends, and on the day I took the picture, the sky seemed unbearably beautiful and rich with color and texture. Life here along the coast is suffused with color, the range and variety of which is unimaginable. I drive along the 101 freeway by the ocean, assessing the hue of the sea and sky. It is rarely the same from day to day, or hour to hour, and the changing palette inspires me in a way I can’t quite articulate. I feel like I am hungry for color. It might be the relative uniformity of the architecture—the terra cotta tile roofs, the sun-bleached walls—that add to the sense of blandness, but when I turn my car onto the 101 headed north, I enter a stunning plein air painting devoid of houses, rich with greens and blues, the hazy islands across the channel. (It is not necessarily the lack of development that makes the landscape so gorgeous—there’s something about the light and combination of the colors that makes even the shadowy oil platforms dotting the horizon seem beautiful and natural.) The few minutes that take me along the coast are my favorite times of each day, and no matter how monotonous my job, how trite my conversations, the landscape from Rincon Point to the Ventura County Fairgrounds offers a fresh perspective.

Star of the day. . .Wayne Thiebaud