I originally wrote these diary entries and sent them solely to my friends' email list. But I thought I'd share share them with everyone. I wrote them during a three-week trip to Australia this past August. It's long, so don't start reading unless you have a good 20-30 minutes to kill. It starts off slow, but picks up speed around Day 7.

We failed.

We spent the day resting, eating, and making fun of people who can’t dial phone numbers correctly. Mick and a creepy buddy of his—the guy squeezed my bicep after I made a half-ass joke—came out with us. My two cousins, Abi and Jay, met up with us just before eleven. Abi flew out from Adelaide; Jay lived in Sydney.

We entered Ivy, which had two floors, plenty of dark corners, pole-leaning space, and hundreds of single women. I dubbed it as “the best club I’ve been to since Mykonos.”

Highlights:

Jay drove, so he didn’t drink much and chilled on a couch the whole night.

Abi made fun of me.

Mick got lost in a mob, and we didn’t see him the rest of the night.

I never saw much of Mick’s creepy friend, who barely even got in the club for being so drunk. He probably hit on a chick and squeezed her collarbone after a pick-up line and got thrown out.

ODR went home with a cute chick (as he described her) and finger banged her. She was selfish though, and did nothing to ODR after her orgasm.

Axe took an $88 cab ride home—she paid—with a blonde Aussie. They fucked.

Me: A disaster. There were so many chicks that I got too picky and couldn’t settle on any one chick. I’d talk to a chick for fifteen minutes and develop an attraction and probable hook up. But then I’d leave to take a leak and simply forget about her on the way out because I’d hit on new chicks. My “Who are you” line was a massive bust. In a frustrating epiphany the next day, one girl I’d blown it with was a hot chick resembling Charlotte from Sex and the City who I’d gotten head from years ago in a Vegas bathroom. I was 99% certain it was the same girl. Overall results for the night: 0 for 40. First one home.

Day 3

The next morning, I was laughed at immediately. Mick picked us up at 1:30 for a sunny trip to the famous Bondi Beach. Since it was winter, the beach wasn’t nearly as packed as it would be in summer, but seeing Bondi was a must. Unfortunately the wind chill was so bad that I had to purchase a $50 sweatshirt from one of the beach shops. Abi and Jay—both stayed at Jay’s pad—continually missed us by an hour. They’d call us, ask where we were, say they’d be there in a half hour, then call us two hours later and ask where we were, promise they’d be there in half an hour, and repeat the same flaky trend two more times.

After a few hours at the beach we headed to a Rugby League game between Manly and South Sydney. We stood with the hooligan fans for the full experience. “Go MANLY!” “YOU FUCKING PINK IDIOT!” (Referring to the referee) “You fucking peasants!” The yells were endless. One guy got thrown out for chucking his nearly full beer can and hitting an old lady in the back of the head. 

Day 4

When we woke up, the joke was on me, again. At this point I was 0 for 90, making it one of my worst streaks in history. My hope rose slightly when I was placed next to a hot chick on the airplane for the first time in my life. But she wanted nothing to do with me, answering me with yes/no answers and not asking a single question. Then she looked out the window the rest of the plane ride. 0 for 91.

Brisbane. We rented a car for the week, which was scary considering none of us had driven on the left side of the road before. I tried first and succeeded. When we arrived at our hostel, I went for a “nap” at 7 p.m. When I woke up, it was 9 a.m. I had blown it. Again. Axe and ODR later informed me that I “really missed out.” Axe apparently met a hot Scottish chick in the Hostel bar and banged her in the bathroom. ODR said, “Oh man. Lotta chicks out last night. You may as well pack your bags and head back home.”

Day 5

ODR stayed behind to hang with his ex-girlfriend, who now lived in Brisbane. Axe and I drove to Surfer’s Paradise. Apparently there are no police cars in Australia—just guys who point at you if you’re going too fast. While rounding a school at eighty kilometers-per-hour, a man in a yellow jacket angrily pointed at me three times. Not knowing whether it was a signal for me to stop or just a warning, I slowed down and stopped around the bend. We waited for him to come running after me, but he never came so we drove on.

Surfer’s Paradise, supposedly “the heart of the Gold Coast,” reminded us of a California beach town. We explored the hostels and shops, and then failed at taking naps because an oily Tasmanian in our room named Zane snored while blaring Seinfeld on his laptop during his snooze.

We went out that night (a Monday) to find empty pubs and a lackluster club overloaded with British high school chicks. We headed back and crashed.

Day 6

ODR arrived via train and we checked into a three-bed hostel the size of a walk-in closet. Jerk-off sessions were in demand. The Internet was free, but they had firewalled all the porn sites to perfection. No loopholes. Our only source of jerk material was Axe’s Maxims or our imagination. In an enlightening break-through, Axe discovered the only loophole in the firewall: Google image search. He searched “busty blondes” on his iPhone and then took the two-inch by two-inch phone photo with him to the bathroom to rub one out. I can’t jerk to that; I use my imagination, which may or may not have involved rimjobs. Surprisingly, ODR was more secretive about his whacks. No one knows about him.

We spent the day on the beach reading and showing people how jacked and tan we were. The night went poorly—more eighteen-year-old British chicks. We decided we needed to get the fuck out of there.

Day 7 – Byron Bay

At this point, I had broken all kinds of records with my status currently at 0 for 128. And I’ll be honest, I was feeling a bit dejected. I mean, shit, at least a make-out session would have been nice. 0 for 128? A mute Seth Rogen could do better than that.

We made some changes. We left Surfer’s Paradise for Byron Bay, an hour drive south. The weather was too windy to enjoy the beach, so we all took successful three-hour naps. It was the best nap I’d had since May.

Before heading out, we pre-partied with other travelers at the hostel. We’d finally found a hostel that allowed alcohol in public, so we split a thirty-pack of Toohey’s New. We met some interesting travelers—a few cool Germans, a horny-but-hopeless Dutch girl, a whiskey-shot-taking dude from Melbourne who continuously called me “Jake Gyllenhaal,” and a guy who wrote the script of “The Illusionist.” During one conversation, we were compared to Mortal Kombat characters. Axe is Johnny Cage, ODR is Baraka, and I am Reptile.

After two to three hours of pre-partying, we headed to a restaurant-turned-bar called Cheeky Monkey’s. The place was awesome, loaded with women. It had all kinds of structure, posts, and walls to cloud my salamander ways. And you could actually hear people talk.

The great thing about being 0 for 128 was that rejection meant nothing; it was pretty much expected at this point. With that mentality, I walked up to arguably the hottest girl at the bar—black hair, blue eyes, nice tits, amazing figure and skin—and used my bread and butter line: “So why are you standing here trying to look all mysterious?” My inevitable rejection never came. I discovered she was a twenty-six-year-old Irish Brit named Kate who taught high school psychology. After impressing her with my new and improved psychology knowledge from recently reading “The Road Less Traveled,” my attraction grew exponentially. She bought us both Jager Bombs, and I fell in love her. On her way out of the bathroom, I pulled her in and we began making out nonstop for the next hour.

She’d come to Australia on some sort of tour, but luckily her tourmates weren’t cockblocky. We walked back to her pad, which was a picket-fenced boxy house in a place that reminded me of the Edward Scissorhands neighborhood. First, we hooked up on the porch. Then she got worried her roommates were spying on her, and we moved to the grass on the side of the house. She got worried that guys in the adjacent houses were watching, so we walked across the neighborhood to the edge of the forest to hook up in the grass. I had several bug bites the next day. Due to her overwhelming hotness, I went down on her for half an hour, and a blowjob followed. We didn’t have sex because she “doesn’t do one night stands.” We said our goodbyes and I walked home having finally trumped the worst slump in hook-up history. I spent my walk home smelling my fingers every twenty seconds because it seemed I’d forgotten what good pussy smelled like. 1 for 129. I was back.

Note: Apparently when Axe and ODR witnessed me go home with Kate, they hugged each other, high-fived, and toasted to me. For a few moments at Cheeky Monkeys on an August night in 2009, a “my-pathetic-friend-finally-hooked-up” celebration took place in the form of hugs, cheers, and smiles.

Since Kate’s apartment was in Hyrule, I got lost on the walk home. I called ODR twice for directions, but he was drunk, laughing, and incomprehensible. An hour later, I found the hostel. I also found ODR butt naked on the sixth stair step pointing to the heavens as if he were Babe Ruth calling his shot. 

ODR had a panel of four observers, and he moronically posed for pictures. If anyone knows girls who have a fetish for bald cave men, tell them they can expect to see ODR on the Internet very soon.

Somehow, ODR’s naked move sparked an attraction with one of the girls, and he went for a skinny dip in the ocean with a cute brunette German chick. They messed around some on the sand, but nothing below the waist.

Meanwhile, a half hour into my happy pass out, Axe walked into the room with another one of the German chicks. Unfortunately she was too young, so nothing ever really happened. It took me a while to fall asleep during their whispery skirmish. When I awoke the next morning, our room was chick-less.

Day 8 (Thursday) - Brisbane

Since I was giddy from hooking up with a hot chick, I drove and they slept the whole way. I miraculously got off the correct exit and found the same hostel as before. We got placed in the worst room in the hostel—right next to the automatic door entrance. They were doing construction: a dude came in and out of our building every fifteen seconds. Door slam, loud stomping, door slam, loud stomping, slam, stomp, SLAM, STOMP, SLAM!! STOMP!! Every fifteen fucking seconds. Our naps failed. Badly. We complained to the desk and switched rooms.

Axe was pumped about his Scottish chick, Dawn, the one he had fucked a few nights before. They were texting back and forth non-stop, but then he blew it after an over-aggressive phone conversation during which he was asked what he wanted to do when he saw her. His reply: “I don’t know—hang out, drink a little, fuck,” scared her into flaking. If it weren’t for a serendipitous run-in with her at the supermarket, Axe’s trip would have turned out much differently. Axe redeemed himself and had a mysterious bounce in his step that night. A girl-friendly night with Dawn lay ahead. Meanwhile, ODR and I went out to a bar area called The Valley. There had been a huge Brisbane holiday the day before, so all the bars are deserted. End of night.  

Day 9 - Night

After just six beers and two Cowboy shots, I was hammered out of my mind. I’d had a decent-sized dinner, so I was baffled how I got so fucked up off so little…I had no theories. Both Axe and ODR criticized me independently out of context, “Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?”

I vaguely remember Axe talking to a big blonde German chick, whom he later fucked at her place, while ODR was assigned babysitting duties on me by default. I was refused entrance at every club for my obvious intoxication, so ODR herded my stupid ass home. 

Day 10

With a 7:00 a.m. flight to Cairns looming ahead the next morning, ODR and I went out for only an hour or two.

We arrived back at our hostel to find a naked and laughing Axe answer the door. “I’ll pay you both twenty bucks to give me thirty more minutes,” he pled.

            “Yeah right,” I immediately replied. Thirty minutes encompassed twenty-five-percent of our sleep. We needed to wake up in two hours.

            “Okay, give me twenty seconds,” said our chuckling friend, scrambling to put on his basketball shorts.

The moment we walk in, a gust of post-period vagina hit us in the face. ODR literally gagged and then puked in his mouth (seriously). “Oh dude, it smells like pussy in here,” he said, eyes watering. Axe chuckled underneath his covers. I was used to bad smells, so it didn’t bother me. I hopped in bed and passed out instantly. 

Days 11-12 - Cairns

Despite a five-minute delay from Axe’s lagging, we made our flight. We were zombies with a combined 3.5 hours of sleep between us, which can lead to crankiness, grogginess, and horniness.

When we arrived, we rented a car in “perfect condition,” so they said. We were annoyed, since we were obviously going to get scratches or something on one of the panels.

It was a short drive into town, but we couldn’t check into our hostel until two and it was only ten. We parked in the hostel garage and walked to the beach to lounge and nap, which failed. At this point Axe had become obsessed with going to Thailand and returning to Brisbane—rather than Sydney—to be with Dawn. He found free Internet and began the first of many hours on his stressful flight-switch-save-money quest.

Engulfed in perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky, Cairns was beautiful, a perfect amount of people and cars. We’d see one car would drive through a quiet town road, and at least thirty seconds until the next car passed. It had to be one of the cleanest beach towns I’ve ever been to. Newport is polluted by traffic; Hawaii is polluted by tourists; L.A. beaches are polluted by smog. The list goes on. Good beach towns are slowly being discovered and bombarded by us leeches. Get in on Cairns while it’s still innocent.

We checked in to a popular backpackers joint called “Gilligan’s.” Axe and I went upstairs to take successful naps. Downstairs, ODR began one of liveliest, most extravagant displays of partying, dancing, outlier status, and sexual discovery of all time. Having slept just over an hour the night before, ODR skipped napping to begin drinking at the downstairs outdoor bar. He didn’t stop until 9:00 a.m. the next day.

Meanwhile, Axe I brought home no girls and ended up in bed before 3 a.m. Weak sauce.

When Axe and I woke up, ODR’s bed was empty. He'd never arrived; his sheets were still folded neatly on the mattress. We packed his shit for him and took it down to the car. Considering his state of intoxication, we could only come up with two plausible places ODR could have been:

1)      Jail

2)      At the bar, still dancing

He called us from an unknown number a little before eleven. When he found us at a free Internet joint, it was obvious something epic had happened to him. He explained his story, and the smiles and laughs commenced. While waiting on the couches for Axe to check his flight shit, ODR looked at me every ten seconds, began nodding, then smiling, and then ending in a hysterical laugh. People were chilling three feet away, minding their own business, and he continued to repeat different parts of the story, not a care in the world. He smiled and laughed and laughed. Nothing could thwart his bliss, not even hunger or fatigue. I have yet to experience the twenty-four hours ODR had.

 ODR’s account of his night:

“Since my worthless friends, Axe and Dave, pussed out and decided to take naps, I thought: fuck that! I’m in Australia; I’m partying. The downstairs bar had a bungee line ride where you get harnessed into a contraption and go flying across the pool and bar for free. It was awesome. They even let me do it twice. After that the beer drinking began, and a live cover band came on. When they played Brown-eyed girl, I went nuts. I started dancing and continued to do so for five hours—sometimes with chicks, sometimes by myself. Fuck yeah, I didn’t give a fuck. Axe and Dave “talk” to chicks when they party. I just danced and the girls came to me. Less work, more fun!

“Before I knew it, it was nighttime. I saw my friends approaching me with that you-blew-it look. What the hell do they know? I’m a fucking outlier. They snatched me from the bar and convinced me it was a good idea to eat dinner. On the way there, Dave gave me his gay economics of alcohol spiel, which I ignored. Axe was silent, giving me his you’re-drunk look. These guys were morons. ‘Hey, you know what? I’m going to prove to you fuckers that I sure as hell won’t blow it tonight. I’m a fucking outlier. You guys blew it by taking naps,’ I told them. They didn’t believe me, which gave me more incentive to keep stepping on the gas.

“After dinner, the three of us headed back to Gilligan’s and ordered pitcher after pitcher. We made fun of people. I felt great. Unfortunately, the live band was finished, so the music now sucked and no one was dancing. And the chicks were all too young, rejecting me left and right.  We headed to an Irish Pub a little after 1 a.m. There is a Manchester United game on, so no one was partying, just watching the stupid game.  Axe headed back to the hostel, and a short while later, Dave and I went back to Gilligan’s and ordered Jager Bombs. Dave wandered off, and I didn’t see him the rest of the night. He obviously turned in another 0-fer. I continued to drink, and drink. And dance. And drink.

“At around four in the morning, I was tired and craving a cigarette. After this cigarette, I planned to head to bed. I went outside and asked a dude for a cigarette. “Cigarette? Yeah, I’ll give you a cigarette, but you should come with me to The Woolshed,” he said. He had conviction so I went with him.

“The dude was right. The Woolshed was jam-packed, and I danced. An hour went by. I noticed a super slimy dude being overly aggressive with a chick—putting his arm around her, playing with her hair, caressing her face. She wasn’t into him. When opportunity is a’knockin ODR starts a’ rockin’. And that’s exactly what I did. When she separated herself from the dude, I went in. ‘Who is that guy? He was being super sleazy with you,’ I asked her. She hopped aboard my sleaze train and our conversation escalated from compassion to laughs to trust to kisses.

“We headed outside where a mischievous playground awaited. I hopped on top of a play-alligator and did my best Steve Irwin impersonation: “I’m gonna stick my finga up his bum; he’s gonna get real mad!” We laughed. Suddenly she wasn’t alone anymore. Two chicks and an ugly fat dude with a mole the size of a quarter on his forehead joined us. The group invited me to a post-party at my chick Sarah’s place. I agreed, obviously.

“It’s about a ten-minute ride to her apartment. The two new girls were both hot, much hotter than Sarah. Dave saw Sarah later and described her as the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2. One of the girls had a boyfriend, but fuck it, my goal was to fuck Sarah, who, regardless of what Dave said, was attractive.

“We drank Jager bombs and smoked pot. Finally! I’d been in Australia nearly two weeks and finally had my first bong rip. Life is good. One of the hot chicks, Amy, got antsy, and suddenly Sarah was antsy as well. Neither of them liked the fat guy who was intruding on the party, and they managed to persuade the chick with the boyfriend to get his fat ass out of there. They succeeded. I had no idea where they went or how they got there, but I was glad to see them depart. It was just the three of us and I hoped Amy wouldn’t cockblock me.

“The two girls headed to the bedroom, forgetting me, so I followed them into the bedroom and discovered them making out with each other at the foot of the bed. Oh man! I let them go at it for a bit, but then I got monstrously horny and decided it was time to intervene.

‘Hey, what about me? I want a kiss too,’ I said, insulted. Sarah left Amy to kiss me, and we all lay down. Amy kissed me. Sarah didn’t get mad! Oh man, this is could not be happening! I got overly excited for a moment, but my subconscious reminded me about something I read awhile back about a dude who got too aggressive and blew a threesome. Dave! I can’t fuck up like he always does. I needed to stay poised, like Tom Brady.

“I kept my cool, lay back and let the girls do the work. Our clothes came off. The threesome began. Oral sex, sex, fingering, taking turns, tugging, squeezing, sex, more sex, sucking, cunnilingus, girl-on-girl, the whole deal. It’s what dreams are made of.  Yes, I, ODR, have successfully completed a threesome.

“Told you I was an outlier, motherfucker.”

And there you have it: ODR, a guy who once puked in his hand and stuffed it in his pocket. ODR, a guy who once masturbated while driving. ODR, a guy who once put a tree branch inside his shirt because the party’s theme was “jungle.” ODR, a guy who once got so drunk at the fraternity house that he had to be pinned down and hog-tied to prevent total destruction. ODR, a guy who gets in threesomes.

After lunch, we booked a boat tour to the Whitsunday Islands a couple days later, and then we drove three hours north to see Cape Tribulation, a beach famous for its rain forest that grows right down to the ocean’s edge.

ODR managed to stay awake for the first hour of the breathtaking beachside car ride, but then he passed out for the next two-and-a-half hours.

Post-ODR-pass-out, Axe and I stopped at a pristine beach, no hint of civilization anywhere, with a sand bar nearly a quarter mile out. I’ve been to many beaches in my lifetime, but that nameless beach had to be one of the best I’d ever set foot on. And we had it to ourselves, not a soul in sight. I used to think that every great beach in the world was infested with tourists. Those cool pictures on travel brochures only look isolated because they closed off the beach for an hour. This trip to Australia changed my mind. It was incredible. 

The Cape was cool, but Axe and I both agreed the other beach was better. After Cape Tribulation, we drove back to Cairns, arriving at 8:30 p.m. It was Monday, so the nightlife was dead. The drive to Airlie Beach, the beach from which our Whitsunday boat tour left, was an eight-hour drive. Even though the tour was still a couple days away, we decided to have a nighttime driving adventure through the Australian countryside. We even spotted a few Kangaroos on the side of the freeway.

Exhausted around midnight, we pulled over at a rest stop to set up camp. ODR had brought his three-person tent for times like this. Axe and ODR set it up while I stood around uselessly.

The tent was cozy, but since the freeway was just twenty meters away, the passing big rigs sounded like airplanes taking off. The noise lulled us to sleep eventually. 

For me, this day was easily my favorite one of the trip. When I look back on my life, I will not remember all the chicks I banged or the comfortable beds I slept on. I will remember the road trips: driving for hours upon hours with my friends, and camping out in a place with the freeway on one side and sugar cane fields on the other. While driving on long roads in the middle of nowhere, friendships bloom.

Day 13

Airlie Beach was like a younger sibling to Cairns—the same beauty but smaller. While Axe did his flight-change shit, ODR and I searched for hostels. We’d agreed that we’d have one night where we “went big” and got a nice hotel. That idea had waned over the past week, but we did stumble across a nice suite for $120 ($40 each), making it our most expensive stay of the trip. There were three beds, a nice bathroom, a fridge, kitchen, and patio.

Later, after a couple hours of bar hopping, I was making out with a blonde nineteen-year-old Aussie with a sexy, clear-skinned face but disastrous body. She looked like one of those myspace chicks that only posted neck-and-above pics, while the rest of her unseen, behemoth body looked like it had no business being attached to her head. On this night, however, her attractive face was worthy enough for a boner. I had seen her earlier and sat with her on a couch at an upstairs bar. Other than that, I have no recollection of where, when, or how I met her. Drinking nonstop for two weeks does this.

The two of us returned to our suite to find Axe--blacked out for over an hour now--already in bed with a girl. We didn’t care and went at it on my bed before moving to the bathroom. Deepthroating ensued and then we revisited my bed. Conveniently, Axe and his chick left, so FaceChick and I stayed and fucked. When I tried to fuck her up the ass, she said, “Only if you have lube.” I tried shampoo—of course—but she didn’t let me. Normal sex it is. To my delight, she left immediately after. On a side note, this chick was awesome in bed. Even though she was fat, I’d probably do her again. I’m beginning to like thick chicks.

Moments later, Axe and his girl came stumbling into the room, crashing onto his bed. I heard rustling, but no smooching. Five minutes into the rustle, the girl suddenly got up and yelled, “You are ridiculous!” As she walked to the door, Axe sat up and fired back, “Good luck finding someone better!” Then he slammed his head back into his pillow. I blurted out an “Uh!” to which Axe replied, “Shut up!” I silently laughed before we both fell asleep.

Day 14 – Boat Tour

We boarded the boat in the afternoon and I immediately noticed out of twenty-three people, there were no cute girls, except three French sisters who clearly had never had a one-night stand. The cook was cute, but she was too into her job. Interesting stories for this boat would be hard to come by.

Axe quickly got labeled as “the drunk guy,” by being loud and obnoxious and interrupting the crew while they gave their spiels. When ODR and I introduced ourselves to people, they’d all ask, “Oh, so you’re friends with the drunk guy?” 

That night we sailed through the islands and stopped somewhere between two islands to anchor. Lights out was at midnight. I was out by eleven.

Day 15

We woke early because the boat stopped at Whitehaven Beach, another famous beach. We spent an hour and a half there walking through the reef and stepping on the softest sand we’d ever set foot on, so fine you could use it to brush your teeth. The beach was even more beautiful than the one from a couple days ago, but it was overloaded with tourists. I’m pretty sure that when I dream of beaches like this it won’t include pale flabby chicks walking around taking pictures of each other. I guess I’m selfish when it comes to tropical beaches; I want it to myself.

After the dive, a brief snorkel, and a few jumps off the top of the boat, we boarded the boat again. About 3 p.m. ODR cracked open his bottle of whiskey and began a plunge into the darkside. Instead of making a drink, he would take a giant swig and chase it with a bottle of Coke Zero. For the next six hours, ODR had his whiskey in one hand, Coke Zero in the other. Iceberg straight ahead.

Shortly after dinner, one of the crewmembers, Rowan, led an educational drinking game that involved a map. Still wearing only his board shorts, ODR decided to sit right next to him, practically on the map. For the game, Rowan would tell us information about the islands—either where we’d been, names of islands, or historical shit—and he’d occasionally feed us false information. If we could spot his lies and yell, “Bullshit,” we’d get to paddle him. If we were wrong, we’d have to pound our drinks. A couple times ODR yelled out bullshit and was wrong, but we didn’t let him drink.

Over the course of the game, ODR either interrupted or asked a stupid question time after time. Had he been one of my students, I would’ve thrown him out of class after the second outburst. I admire Rowan’s patience. Finally, Rowan snapped, “You know what, ODR? You are really starting to annoy me! I’m not sure you should be playing this game.” The whole ship went silent. ODR got up and left. ODR is officially the first person I’ve ever seen kicked out of a drinking game.

After the game, several of us headed back to the cabin to play King’s Cup and some game involving dice. Axe and I were interrupted by one of the crewmembers, who asked, “Have you guys seen ODR yet?” they asked.

            “No, why?” I questioned.

            “He got hurt,” he replied.

I’m still baffled about what ODR was trying to accomplish. He even explained it to me, but it just made me more confused. Apparently, in an effort to prove his might and impress an imaginary chick, ODR decided to run toward the deck rail, grab the middle rail, swing his body over the side of the boat, and then heroically do a 270-degree pull-up and climb back aboard.

He failed. ODR missed the rail completely, toppled over, busted his lip open on a ledge, slammed his leg on another ledge, and went tumbling into the Pacific. Neither Axe nor I saw, but we’d have paid good money to get that on video. It would’ve been a bestseller on YouTube.

ODR was then summoned to the ladder and dragged back onto the boat, blood streaming from his lip. ODR now has a lateral lightning bolt gash just above his upper lip. The scar will likely be there for life.

ODR, Man Overboard.

Day 16

ODR’s upper lip looked like a salmon sashimi as he morosely walked around the boat with a pack of ice on his lip. He realized that his chances of hooking up the rest of the trip had been handicapped, big-time. He was angry at himself and got mad at Axe and I when we cracked jokes because it hurt him to smile and laugh. His face reminded me of Tom Cruise after he fucked his face up in the movie “Vanilla Sky.”

ODR missed out on the early-morning snorkeling in an awesome spot. He sat on the boat alone, ice pack pressed to his lip, trying to figure out what went wrong.

We headed back to Airlie Beach to say our goodbyes. There was a post-party with the crew that night, but ODR and I needed to make the eight-hour drive back to Cairns to catch our flight to Sydney the next day. Axe stayed behind: his flight to Brisbane left from Airlie.

Feeling sorry for ODR and his lip, I drove the entire way. We only stopped twice, for gas and food. When we arrived in Cairns a little past nine, the streets were bustling with Friday night partiers. We checked into Gilligan’s, took showers, got ready, and hit the bars.

ODR was feeling self-conscious about  his upper lip, which looked like herpes in the dimmed lighting. I lied to him, “Dude, I can’t even see it. Seriously.” Then he got drunk and forgot about it.

ODR and I embarked on a doomed quest to find his pigeon lady. ODR’s one-minute payphone calls to her sent us down a cloudy trail of doubts. During the hunt, we moronically paid $5 covers at four different bars, one of which turned out to be a gay bar. When we finally found her, she was accompanied by four of her “guy friends.” Outmatched, ODR moved on. We finally ended up at The Woolshed, the same place ODR’s threesome was conceived. On this night, however, ODR would not have a repeat; he wound up with a respectable lip-gashed 0 for 20.

After a dozen or so 0-fers, I talked to a twenty-nine-year-old English chick. She had a cute face, but the rest of her body was suspect; she had marshmallowy arms and disgustingly scaly hands that reminded me of some of the female math teachers at my school. In other words, she was a 6.

Because I’d been drinking now for over two weeks, my memory of dialogue is irretrievable. All I remembered was making out with her after five minutes of conversation. A half hour later, she made sure her friends were OK, and we left the bar and headed back to my room.

With the exception of a little fingering, squirting action and then being interrupted by our two Irish hostel-mates, we had a non-psycho fuck in my room. Unfortunately, she spent the night with me on my miniscule twin bed, waking me up every hour to caress my chest. She left sometime after dawn, finally.

Day 17-20 

The next day (a Saturday), our flight landed in Sydney around 10:30 p.m. We didn’t get to our hotel until close to midnight. We went out that night, but only because we felt like we were obligated, it being our last Saturday night and all. I met a tall brunette at a bar, developed a great connection, and we made plans to hang out Monday and Tuesday (my last two days). But since Axe took the phone with him, I had no way of getting her phone number. Pens were nowhere to be found, so I texted our phone from her phone, and planned to call Axe the next day to get her number.

It didn’t work out. Axe lost the phone in a cab, I failed to find her on facebook, and she was out of my life forever. What a waste.

The following night, lip-gashed ODR somehow managed to hook up with a cute blonde. She liked him so much she quit her job the next day to hang out with him on his final day. ODR swore he’d “definitely see her again.”

ODR flew home the day after, and I followed the day after that.  

The day I got home I had an emotional reunion with www.youjizz.com. Traveling is fun, but sometimes it feels good to sit down in your own room, at your own computer, and have a nice quality jerk. I missed my friends. I missed my family. I missed a healthy diet. I missed exercising. I missed teaching. I missed the California summer breeze at dusk. I missed my toilet seat. And now, I missed Australia.

Creatures of habit we all are.