A sad sight from Friday the 13th. My first-ever car being towed away. I sold it for scrap to an auto parts dealer for a measly $600. A casualty of a hit-and-run driver while innocently parked at 14th and South Van Ness in the Mission.

Although I’m not a car person, I will miss it/her. In fact, I used to pride myself on not owning a car and being a bike and public transport kind of guy. That little vehicle was bought in 1999 after I made a blind move down to LA for a promotion. Nine months later, I returned back to SF and that was the only (s)car from the experience.

Without it, I would have never been the athlete I became, driving to triathlons, trail runs and early morning workouts. It was my chariot to my job in Berkeley, a shuttle for countless visitors to SFO or OAK, and many surprise rides home for my boyfriend and his bike from the pool.

I survived for four weeks vehicle-less. The first week entirely on BART and my bike. The following three weeks were a combination of a co-workerer’s kind carpool (allowing Janie Sparkles to come to the office), inline skates or my bike to BART.

Honestly, it wasn’t too difficult. Not being able to drive the dog to a park was the only downside. I enjoy riding the train to work. I like the time I get to knit and listen to music or books (any suggestions for my next audible.com download?). It’s been a means to get to know JH better and I’ll always welcome another dog-owning friend! It felt nice to reconnect to the City. Instead of orbiting freeways in my aluminum pod, I was part of the urban fabric.

Last Friday, the day of the sorry photo above, I picked up my new car. (No, I won’t post photos. That’s just silly.) I drove to work every day this past week, although I did carpool with JH and drive multiple co-workers home. It’s not a return to the gas-guzzling status quo. I’ll use it judiciously. So far, Janie Sparkles has enjoyed a park visit, a beach romp and many days at the office. I relish the freedom of being able to come and go as I please.

However, yesterday was such a lovely day, I decided to walk my ass all over town, through the Castro, to ImagiKnit, into a (new to me) hip, lil’, custom graphic apparel shop (My Trick Pony), and I had a surprise run-in with a friend’s girlfriend as I walked back home.

That’s something I hadn’t done for months. Note to self: take more walks, not just with the dog. It felt great to reclaim this town and the distances between my home and favorite neighborhoods as my own.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 5:06 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.