His birthday came and went in a week of irresponsibility, and debauchery.  His self imposed moratorium on sex made him hit the bottle harder than ever.  Tequila spiced with Lihing Mui flavoured the kisses he was still giving to the pillow-lipped girl, but his mind was was marinated in self-doubt. Could he maintain happiness, self-determination, ambition, and eros all at once?  Only time would tell.

As the world rejoiced the return of Christ from the abyss, he laid on his back in thick green grass, and watched the bloated clouds float by.  The sunlight warmed the chill in his bones, and healed him.

His mother called with a list of problems that made him look like someone complaining about someone cheating at tetherball.

Cracker W. Honkey threw his problems out of his ever open window, and snuggled with his studies.   

So his apetites continue to rule him.  On Thursday a young vixen seduced him, and left him feeling dirty and polluted.  He escaped to the bar and tried to drink away the ever-expanding hole in his heart.  It didn't work.

The sun rising on Friday didn't help him either.  Where did it come from?  From illusions of grandeur to the pits of hell in less than a week.  He once again spent the evening trying to drink himself into oblivion.  Then to his suprise, the soft-lipped girl came to his rescue.  With kisses and pity, she pulled him out of a sea of self-destruction.  He realized that he desired her more than any of the other girls, and that, in all reality, he didn't really care if he harpooned her or not. Then he thought, "What the hell am I doing".  The next day was spent throwing spears at chicken-wire-and-hay mastadons, while listening to experimental rock.

Strange dreams again.  This time he and his father protecct their house in Hawai'i.  Very vague.  He couldn't remember much.  He woke up and went to class.  His economics teacher was being bitchy and refused to teach the class anything because no one was doing the readings.  He asked a question and everyone stared at him blankly.  He heard the professor left class last week. He didn't know this first hand because he slept in that day.  However, it seemed to him that the teacher was going to try and leave again.  He kept throwing buckets of guilt and shame over them.  However, that kind of stuff didn't affect him anymore (thanks mom). So when he asked if they had anything to say, our hero raised his hand and asked the teacher the question he had asked the class earlier-- the question that no one had answered, and that had set him off on his hissy fit.  The whole class gasped at our hero's audacity. A moment of uncomfortable silence.  Then the teacher answered, and went on teaching like nothing had ever happened.

This evening, while our hero was working on a paper. He got an IM from a girl who made a list of the top four reasons he should fuck her.  #1 She wanted him to #2 She shaved today-- and not just her legs.  Our hero didn't even bother reading the rest of the list.  She went over to his room at 11:30 and left at 1:20. Then he talked to the soft-lipped girl. He thought of ignoring her for a while. Y'know... Play hard to get...  If it didn't work, he said he wouldn't care anymore. He had work to do. Speaking of which... 

A strange day tainted with lethargy.  Even stranger dreams.  He dreamed of hugging his long lost father, then traveling through china on a flatbad truck, where a gunfight broke out and he saw a man get killed.  He had to duck beneath the bullets.  He then went swimming in a polluted pond, and decided to leave china.  First he wanted to charter a floating desk chair with an outboard motor, but in the end decided to opt for a plane ticket.  He then found himself on the top of a skyscraper in a multi colored trampoline room, where there was a raging party.  He was bouncing on the trampoline with his buddy, but we went too high, and the others reminded them of deaths in the past.  The party was then inexorably subdued, and the vibrant colors dulled.

Strange. He woke up late, and missed all classes.  He made further moves to make the soft lipped girl love him.  No luck.  But no giving up.  How could he?  She said if he asked her now, she would say no, but didn't know about the future.  His mind instantly told him "Stop already. Don't waste so much energy on a lost cause", while his heart screamed "It's a test! Keep striving! She can't avoid loving you!!!"  His heart got him into a lot of trouble.

A phone call in the morning.  The love from the past was rejuvenated with the coming of spring.  Her fears had been laid to the wayside.  She asked if he'd kissed any girls lately, and he said no.  He didn't even bother asking her. He missed her though, and his weak heart still desperately clutched her like a declining imperial power clutches on to an established but rebelious colony. 

The night was an adventure into Japanese policy and politics.  Prime Minister Koizumi and the implications of his failure to reform Japan's structural problems.  He squandered any chance that he ever had.  More on that later though.

His friend had come in last night from Rhode Island.  They drank heartily with girls on their arms. This morning he woke up after dreams of mansion parties with his teachers, and sun bathing on cruise ships in the Persian Gulf.  No hangover; just happiness.  The phone rang and a voice from the past pleaded for redemption.  He granted her request then went back to sleep, in a feeble attempt to dream about the girl from the night before.  The girl with the softest lips in the world...