Coachella Weekend 2008: Seen and Heard

A glut of dust
A naked man doing a cannonball
Hella. many. Uggs.
A tortilla being used as a coaster for a popsicle
Two grown men riding a six-foot-tall donkey-shaped piñata off a roof into a pool (N.B.: donkey piñatas apparently sink snout last in dramatic slow-mo)
A live donkey
Bangs in spades
Snow-covered mountaintops rising above 100-degree desert valleys
The entire Cathedral City police department being brought to bear on a harmless little pool party [halo]
A girl eating a popsicle while pumping gas in a bikini (come to think of it, that was me)
"Stars are just like Us! They pump gas!"
Many swimsuits cut rather shockingly high or low, many worn with fanny packs
"You're leaving? You're Ghandi?"
Acres of tents in which I was very glad not to be sleeping
Superlative lighting and art installations
Portishead and Prince
Mustaches transcending irony into another category I can't even name
Something about gladiator man-sandals paired with a Speedo?
A giant-size Gold's Gym T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves worn by a woman in a look that so poignantly and freakishly evoked my junior-high years it nearly made me turn into a pillar of salt to gaze upon
A lawn turned entirely to mud that will need to be resodded for sure
Copious beans and rice
Churros
Only one small puddle of barf, surprisingly
"It doesn't make sense to set up an ancillary towel camp poolside, when we have our base camp here on the grass." (Not my words in this case, but words I would have said because, hello, it's strategic.)
A man covered in paint and neck tattoos wielding a mallet
"This dive is called 'Call 911.'"
"This dive is called 'How We All End Up in Tomorrow's Paper.'"
My odometer flipping to 10,000 miles
Insane amounts of good clean fun

Thanks for the memories, Coachella 2008!