You Choose ACL. I Choose Life.

Top ten things I won't miss about Austin City Limits Music Festival:
10. My makeup running down to my chin.
9. Standing behind 50 people in the water line so I can fill up my two allowed water bottles.
8. Paying $10 for a turkey leg.
7. The emotional roller coaster of deciding which band to watch (because the really good bands play at the same time at different stages).
6. Port-a-potties
5. Eating, breathing, snorting, being bathed in, dust from the stampede of fans.
4. Tasting the hair of the person in front of me.
3. Long hikes back and forth across Zilker.
2. Waiting in line to be sprayed for five seconds by a fine mist.
1. Lying spread eagle on my back in the one remaining inch of shade from the only tree at the park.

Austinites who live in the central part of the city are pretty much stacked up and smooshed together like, I don't know, bales of hay in a barn. But we've got this careful, tight, working little system of transportation and facility use.

The ACL Festival is quite an upset to the system, arriving much like a rock thrown in the middle of an ant bed. There's nothing we can do about it but diligently work around it until it goes away. It's here this weekend, so for the past week, nobody has been able to jog around the lake. No one has been able to practice on the practice fields at Zilker Park. And traffic is crawling even more slowly than usual.

And can I say that even though there are some really rad artists playing, like Tom Petty, Massive Attack, The Shins (shall I go on?), I'm staying home. (Actually, I saw The Shins last night, so I'm not really suffering, am I?) I've been to ACL three times. Last year I decided I'd had enough. Because "You don't have to live like a refugee."

If you brave the transporation storm alone, you will likely park two miles from the festival and walk in the 100-degree weather. That's not so bad until you have to walk back in the 100-degree weather after having the day I am about to describe. If you decide to take a bus, you will wait in line with hundreds of other festi-attendees, cram into seats and get your sweat on before arriving at the park.

When you arrive and find the stage where you want to be for the next two hours, you either worm your way in to the front part of the sticky crowd or you hang back and watch the band on screens (and hear both their music and the music coming from another stage). The actual concert is pretty fun, but afterwards, you join this huge stampede to the next headliner show. Or you can just wait at the same stage for the next band to come on. Let me illustrate why this isn't a good decision.

Two years ago, my friends Eric and Amanda wanted to see Dashboard Confessional (mostly Amanda because she's pretty much a punk kid). So we fought our way to the front-ish. We got pelted on our heads with empty water bottles, but we stuck it out because Modest Mouse was playing next and we wanted our spots. After the concert, we decided to sit down amidst the crowd. In the dirt. For an hour. I've never felt so disgusting in my entire life. We had dirt on our faces, in our hair, on our clothes...we were thirsty, sweaty, extremely hot...I had short hair at the time, and it blew up like cotton candy. It was nothing Modest Mouse could repair.

Last year, I wore cut-off shorts, a tank top and tennis shoes (for all the walking and being stepped on). Because I couldn't sit down due to my sticky shorts, and because my shoes were making me about 10 degrees hotter than I would've otherwise been, I had to go to one of the vendor booths and buy a sarong and flip flops just so some air would circulate around my body.

I'm getting hot, sticky and tired just thinking about it. Neighbor Nadege is already there. Cassie's getting ready. I'm probably going to go swimming in an ice cold pool for free. Oh, and did I mention the tickets range from $50 a day to $130 for three days? Yeah.