Images of college graduation night 2004

• An orange three-quarter moon and a sultry breeze.

• Hundreds of girls dressed in the height of Paris-Hilton-and-Nicole-Richie fashion. (Paris and Nicole deserve our sincere thanks, I think, for bringing out the exuberant side of usually fashion-underachieving Americans. Nevertheless, a lot of the clothes--on them and on their imitators--are startlingly ugly.)

• Cosmopolitans and Miller Lites. Jager Bombs.

• Jeeps with college mascot stickers and personalized license plates, screeching down the hill on their way out of town.

• I like the way you move
I like the way you move
I love the way you move
I love the way, I love the way...

• One melancholy girl in a halter-neck dress who spends most of the night in the stairwell with her ear pressed to her cell phone. Is this her one last chance to meet a friend before everyone disperses forever in whatever directions their lives will take? Will they find each other?