How else could you explain the startling, pitch-black hair that confronted me two Fridays ago when my hairdresser experimented with a color called "amethyst"?

"Morticia Addams!" I choked, staring at my eye-popping image.

"Elvira!" my husband brightly greeted me a few hours later.

Of course, the most unnerving part was that everyone I consulted had the same basic reaction. "Keep it!" they enthused. "We like it better than your last color!" (Huh??)

As I stared forlornly in the bathroom mirror, it occurred to me that it had been a week of color-related surprises: First, there was the angry public outcry over the vivid "graffiti art" that a local woman painted (with the owner's permission) on the protective plywood covering Steinbach's windows.

Then there was Frank D'Alessandro's biting editorial in the Coaster mocking the removal of the "pigmented plaster" that "[deluded] out-of-state revisionists" call Tillie, and Tillie's temporary resting place in "the crapper" (a.k.a. the Asbury Park sewer plant).

Then came the frantic calls saying that Madam Marie's distinctive fortune-telling booth on the boardwalk had been unceremoniously painted over. "Madame Marie's Falls to [Asbury] Partners' Brush??" blared the headlines on a local website that routinely criticizes everything related to beachfront redevelopment. "Did Marie do it? Who ordered the destruction of yet another destination point?"

Drum roll, I thought: Enquiring minds want to know. "What next?" I sighed, collapsing across the bed as the dog sniffed suspiciously at my hair.

Come to think of it, I mused, color has always been a defining issue in Asbury Park - whether it be basic black and white or the multicolored stripes of a rainbow flag.

Founder James Bradley certainly paid great attention to it: Not only were black vacationers banished from the boardwalk, but he vigorously fought well-meaning efforts by Mayor Frank Ten Broeck (of Library Square fountain fame) to hire boardwalk bands with "ethnic-looking" members.

"It makes a difference how a man appears," Bradley pompously proclaimed, seeking to guard his investment. "I don't want a band on my beach that has musicians who in appearance are distinguished from others."

So much for my accomplished Italian grandfather - or Frank's, for that matter - playing his mandolin, guitar, piano or banjo in our bandshell. Bradley and his colleagues would have gladly excluded all working-class people from the audience.

And as far as "revisionist" history goes, there seems to be a lot of it going around: For example, not only did city bandleader Arthur Pryor never perform in the Arthur Pryor Bandshell - he died about 20 years before it was built - but he and Bradley probably would have been horrified by the wacky, space-aged design of the whole Howard Johnson pavilion.

"So why does it always come to this?" I wondered.

Why did all those adults on the Internet, in the newspapers, and at a city council meeting brutally and indignantly lambaste the well-meaning, 20-something Steinbach artist - whose ultimate dream is to establish a colorful Asbury Park butterfly preserve - when a few tactful words to her on the side would have sufficed? (And, yes, she immediately whitewashed her pilloried artwork.)

Ironically, one of her most acid detractors at the city council meeting was someone whose own historic home showed up in the Coaster that week - for significant code violations stretching over 15 years.

Why mercilessly mock the well-meaning Save Tillie crew (again), particularly since they have generously contributed to the bottom line of everything from city merchants, to the Boys & Girls Club, to the public library? After all, dismissing Tillie as nothing more than "pigmented plaster" isn't much different than dismissing someone's cherished love letters - or even Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" - as nothing more than ink blots on paper. The value comes from the individual.

And what about those under-appreciated city employees who make their living by working in "the crapper"? How must they and their families feel about all those sly, disparaging comments, which also appeared on the Internet?

In Madame Marie's case, it turned out that the famed, 90-year-old fortune-teller herself was happily having her booth repainted, in anticipation of re-opening on the boardwalk.

"But why would she update it?" one upset caller asked me. "Doesn't she know it's valuable?"

"Maybe she thinks that she's valuable too," I speculated. (And yes, her restored booth features those same iconic designs on a new base of blue.)

Not all of us care about the same causes in Asbury Park, whether trivial or profound; nor need we. But I have to believe that the Universe is shaking its head in despair over the energy we put into attacking each other's innocent and well-meaning efforts while so much good remains to be done.

Collectively, we have the power to create miracles here - and miracles are already occurring - but you'd never know it to read much of the caustic Internet chatter or to hear the endless "gotcha" commentary at every public meeting.

No doubt, the Universe will keep sending us trials until we realize that everyone's impractical dream is part of what makes Asbury Park unique. And the real problems aren't going to be solved until we stop the fighting and join together to solve them.

Then anything will be possible, and every one of us just might get our wish.

And, yes, I think I'll keep the wacky black hair for a while. The dog seems to like it.