"I'm trying to get closer, but I'm still a million miles from you." -Bob Dylan

I haven't yet left the house today. Plenty to do right here, in and around the mountain cabin, aswirl in the strong scent of smoke, the acrid odor of people losing so much of what gave them comfort. Now they'll have to find it in themselves and each other -- which is, I believe, the bottom line.

Truth is, I'm not in the mood to see the Camry's odometer flip over to 50,000. We're 11 miles away from that milestone, she and I. We've been down many a road these past 44 months -- to the day -- since my bro K and I found her on a Toyota lot that crisp, crystal February afternoon in 2000.

I had a grand to put down on a brand new car; I'd never bought fresh off the assembly line. I wanted elegant and reliable. I wanted comfort and economy. I wanted unassuming safety. I wanted practical style. I wanted room without taking up too much. I'd narrowed it down to Japanese, to Nissan and Toyota. K brought the requisite male energy to my quest; he'd prevent me from making a girly decision ("ooh! fur-lined cupholders!") and would smoothly negotiate the deal. After taking an uninspiring spin in Nissan's Maxima and Altima, we broke for burgers at Carney's -- then to North Hollywood to peruse their automotive wares.

I almost remember the name of the salesman who spotted us, a nattily-dressed Middle Eastern man with a smooth voice and easygoing smile. As K and I ran down the list of requisites, he steered us right to the dark silver (valets mark it grey, Toyota calls it "sage") Camry with the new body style, the rear that pissed off Mercedes because it looked too much like theirs. This was a CE, not an LE, so the seats were velour, not leather. Yes to automatic windows, no to a multi-CD changer. Yes, of course, to That New Car Smell -- an intoxicating scent that stayed with her for almost a year. A heady $23,000 perfume.

The three of us took her out on the 134, and her pickup made me laugh out loud, after years of lumbering or chugging up thousands of on-ramps in the used '88 Voyager, the used '82 Volvo, the very used '69 VW minibus, the extremely used '68 VW fastback, and the first car I ever bought on my own, the '70 Datsun, stolen the week after I'd made my last payment on the loan.

Did K have to steady my hand as I signed the papers for the biggest single purchase I'd ever made? No, I gave autographs and initialled little boxes just like a big girl -- a starry-eyed, giggly big girl.

Her odometer read 21 miles at purchase. I hadn't even gotten to 100 miles when I gave a friend a ride out to Monrovia to retrieve his Saturn from the dealership...and, backing out of my parking space after he'd blithely driven off, I tapped a car that had parked too closely behind me, giving the Camry her first tiny dent. I called my friend to weep. He laughed. Now is not the time to tell you what a metaphoric moment that was.

The Camry's been dinged a number of times since then, by thoughtless car doors and runaway shopping carts. The bottoms of her front bumpers are scraped from miscalculated curbs. I've long since stopped crying over such inevitabilities -- just as I've learned to limit my weeping over other ineluctable life changes.

There are scads and scads of sage 2000 Camrys on the roads of LA...I defy you not to see at least one a day in your travels. But this one's got a tasteful pearl rosary and unobtrusive new age crystals hanging from the rear view mirror, and a yin/yang bumper sticker to differentiate her from the rest in the lot. And a determined redhead behind the wheel, singing at the top of my voice with whomever's playing on the soundtrack du jour.

This Camry's taken me to beloved friends, to Starbucks and Trader Joe's, to UCLA doctors, Hollywood dentists and Beverly Hills lawyers, to LAX and Burbank, to eat & shoot downtown, to emergencies and rescues, to the beaches of Malibu, Santa Monica and Venice, to the San Gabriel hiking trails. She's also been to the Emmys a few times, and the Grammys, and Spago and The Ivy and the Four Seasons and Casa del Mar. She's been to Vegas in the heat and the sleet, she's been up the coast to a Santa Barbara wedding, down to the Queen Mary for a memorable post-funeral lunch. She's heard forty-four months of loving laughter and angry tears, witnessed all the sorrow and joy, protected me through all the close calls -- and abided the fur and muddy paws of precious pooch Lulu. This conveyance of steel and fiber has been home on rubber. And has been, admittedly, a comfort to me.

And there are 16 more months left on the lease.

Ok, then -- let's flip it over. Where to next?