“It’s a fresh look, based on Google’s material design. The design is responsive… see? It adjusts to your mobile or tablet device, so the site looks as good on your phone as on your computer. It’s social, so you can share it on facebook and twitter, add it to readers like Instapaper or Pocket, And it still maintains the design elements of the old site, including the stone background and torn paper but with improved material shadows and buttons…”

My agent and manager, Tor Rabban, looked at me like I was insane.

“The design is beautiful, Oscar,” he said. I thought, however, that I caught a nervous hint about his tone. “Excellent touches, really. I especially like how you ditched the old wax imprint logo and used the ink splotch instead — it’s so much more consistent with the rest of the site.”

The evening plan had been to finish up some chinese food left over from last night’s study session and then get back to the thesis and some other papers and projects that have kept me away from here for so long. The last few days had been a maddening bout of regression analyses on historic confidence levels of congress, interacting terms and sometimes even a quadratic, hoping to make sense of something in the data available.

As I started to sit up from the couch to head to my desk I saw an email come up on my phone, and just before the notification screen went dark it showed me the name. “Ben?” I thought, “haven’t seen him since high school…I wonder if he’s in town or something. That’d be nice…”

It was useless to stand on the United frequent-flyer blue carpet thing. The Onepass-Mileage-Plus-Platinum-something-something was the only line into the jetway; one of those flights that is filled to the brim with elite access and star alliance gold members — business travelers only. Right, I thought. Who the fuck else would fly to Tulsa this early on a weekday?

I had been coming in regularly every week from New York, for several weeks. Flying out of Laguardia at five in the morning on Monday like some kind of midnight rat, and then ducking out on Thursday afternoon, depleted and bored and still having to face a connection at O’Hare.

I’ve delved into the old ways again. But this is not a confession.

Like mountains hanging above the horizon, I simply am what I am — without apologies, even though it causes a lot of confusion. For months I’ve been out on the road in crazy ways, in the air, seemingly everywhere — just like old times.

A few weeks ago I crossed the Atlantic Ocean four times in as many days. Or was it a few months ago? Whenever; it was for logistical reasons, and I learned the hard way that the human body cannot cross the Atlantic Ocean that often without violent consequences. The dry air of the airplane cabin cracks your lips and sucks all moisture from your pores until there is no water, just oil. Sometime after the first twelve hours your skin starts to smell like cannola and your hair becomes weighed down, thick and disgusting to the touch. In the fun house mirrors of those tiny airplane bathrooms, you realize your facial hair grows at an alarming rate at altitude and that there is no amount of water you can throw on your face to feel awake. So you go back to your seat and ask for another scotch…

Yeah, those other two are off trying to write a book like two right hands with one pen between them. No word yet how long they’ll be.

And I wish them luck, of course. Writing a story is a daunting task if you want it to be even remotely readable, let alone good. For me, though, the great and all untouchable novel is an animal I’d rather not have to deal with no matter how much coffee I drink. I can’t imagine taking on that amount of work voluntarily.

So they’ll be gone a while. But that doesn’t stop the ugly and the weird from showing up in the world of government, politics and economics. And shit, that’s my turf. So let’s get started.

I put my drink back down on the little plastic foldaway airplane table. In the dark of the cabin, the thin golden liquid disappears into the blackness, which is enriched and deepened by the contrast of the bright screeen staring back at me. I’ve sifted through hundreds of channels beamed in via satellite, live voices telling me things, none of which carry even a whiff of importance, a mild fart of novelty.

The sky beneath us was distant. A falling ocean, a waterfall of plumes and sprays, with murderous roars muffled by the thick glass of the airplane windows.

It doesn’t matter what you think of MSNBC or Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann or their sometimes annoying little band of political correspondants selected to agree with them on the air. It doesn’t matter that they use the same news show equations as Fox News or that they have their own moments of embarrasing journalism, no different from Bill O’Reilly’s or Sean Hannity’s except that the left is a bad comeback to the right and tends to be more infantile and less condescending.

But never mind all that.

The trouble is mounting on something already too twisted and cold to grasp without gloves. Much like yanking thick ivy off a wrought iron fence on a cold morning, finding any trace of actual public service under the hack and filth of the new health care bill will be a job no American will want to take. Truth is, even before the votes are all in it’ll be just as heavy. Chances are, of course, that it won’t fall on you, and you’ll be able to safely ignore the damn thing without looking odd and out of place like a sexless jack rabbit in spring. Soon enough the congress will round up to vote on the health care bill they’ve been talking incessantly about and we’ll answer once again that old question: if a politician votes no on a necessary piece of legislation and no one from his state has been paying attention, will the affair make any noise at all?

“What $550?” I asked Shane, who had called me from some shit hole in Wyoming.

“$537, actually,” he corrected me. “Direct. Barcelona to JFK, round trip.” His voice was covered in static through the mobile.

“That’s incredible. Truly increíble, man. Did you know a ticket from Amsterdam to Barcelona would cost me just as much?” I didn’t believe it when I was looking for a ticket to go meet up with him, and it still didn’t make any sense, even two days later.

Nothing behaves as irrationally as a cornered beast. Believe me, I know. At the moment, I am one of them.

There are few things as dangerous as a mammal that has lost all other options and is faced with no choice other than the grim and vaguely disturbing idea of fanatically hopping a four-hour train along the coast of New England at two in the morning. To do so after twenty hours of no sleep and going the next 72 on less than three — well, there are people that would say that’s just plain stupid. And I would agree with them, if there had been any element of choice in the matter whatsoever.