I Had to Tighten My Left Boot Today
Recovery doesn’t always announce itself with milestones and applause. Sometimes it shows up in the smallest, most unassuming ways, like the moment you realize your left motorcycle boot is finally loose. After months of swelling, loss, replacement, and rebuilding, tightening that boot became proof that healing is still happening.
3 a.m. Metrics
Waking up at three in the morning is my new normal. It’s when my mind is sharpest, and also when it gets trapped, chewing on the bullshit metrics we’re told define a successful life: job, money, love. Somewhere between a foggy Minnesota road and the imagined violence of someone in a hurry to go nowhere, it became painfully clear: our priorities are broken, our patience is gone, and the math we’re using to measure a life doesn’t add up.
Dress Codes, Double Standards, and the Eagles of Santa Fe
They call it a club, but it’s really just a private bar where people get overserved without breaking the bank. The place reeks of weed, the drunks slur their way through the night, and nobody bats an eye. But somehow, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was a black tank top. On me.
A Good Fucking Day
Today didn’t fix everything. I’m still not the same person I was before the accident, and maybe I never will be. But for the first time in a while, my brain showed up, my bike plans snapped into place, and something I built actually landed exactly right. Some days aren’t about healing or closure. Some days are just about momentum. And today? Today was a good fucking day.
Compliance Is Not Care
I went into my medical records looking for information. I came out pissed off. At the top of every UNM Health record it says my name, my birthdate, and then, predictably, male. No way to fix it. No place to correct it. Meanwhile, the Catholic hospital somehow got it right. This is a story about that moment, and about the systems that insist on explaining themselves instead of listening.
Freedom Requires Responsibility (And Other Uncomfortable Truths)
We’ve reached a bizarre moment in American culture where saying freedom comes with responsibility is treated as cruelty, and expecting people not to shit on public sidewalks is somehow controversial. This isn’t about lacking compassion. It’s about refusing to lie to ourselves about personal agency, work, and the choices that shape a life. Responsibility isn’t oppression. It’s the price of dignity.
Learning the Shape of the New Me
Coming back to work after the accident taught me something I wasn’t ready to learn. The hardest part wasn’t the schedule, the exhaustion, or the logistics. It was realizing my mind doesn’t work the way it used to. This is about grief, fear, and learning what it costs to survive.
Standards Are Not Cruelty
Somewhere along the way, enforcing laws became “heartless” and lowering standards got rebranded as compassion. A society without shared rules isn’t kind, it’s chaotic. This is about public decency, selective enforcement, and why refusing to talk about facts is destroying any chance of real discourse.
Too Many Voices, Not Enough Thinking
We used to filter ideas through editors, facts, and effort. Now we filter them through comment boxes and megaphones. Somewhere along the way, liberty got confused with volume, and thinking became optional. This is a rant about noise, freedom, and how shouting isn’t the same thing as being right.
When Did Dignity Become a GoFundMe?
I grew up poor in farm country Minnesota, back when dignity mattered more than comfort and work was how you solved your own problems. You didn’t crowdfund hardship. You handled it. Somewhere along the way, that changed. Now every setback comes with a digital tip jar, and we call it community instead of what it really is: the quiet death of personal responsibility. This isn’t about cruelty. It’s about what we lost when work ethic gave way to electronic begging, and why that should scare the hell out of us.
Four Months
Four months can hold a lifetime. Concerts. Bikes. A brand-new tire that never got its second chance. Hospital photos I didn’t remember taking, but my body remembers living. Trauma doesn’t change you slowly, it rewires you overnight. You wake up different. And then one day, you have to walk back into your life and see who’s still there.
Sometimes You Get to See the Ripple
We don’t always get to see the impact we have. Sometimes it takes another person, someone coming up behind you, to name it out loud. In that moment, you realize the doors you fought through didn’t just open for you. They stayed open.
Distractions
We are fucking distracted, all the time. Phones, social media, twenty-four-hour outrage, and convenience engineered to keep us numb. We’ve built entire industries to compensate for our inattention, and then act surprised when manipulation becomes effortless. This isn’t accidental. It’s the system working exactly as designed.
Shut the Fuck Up and Move the Line
I don’t mind waiting. I don’t mind lines. What I mind is being held hostage by someone who needs an audience while a dozen people stand behind them wondering why basic social awareness has become optional. This is not your one-person podcast. Finish your transaction and leave.
When the Fuck Did Everyone Get So Mad?
When the fuck did we get this mad? Every intersection has become a toddler tantrum wrapped in two tons of steel. People aren’t driving anymore, they’re piloting their feelings. And the cars, packed with sensors and safety nets, have quietly replaced responsibility with entitlement. The result? Rage, near-misses, and a society that’s forgotten how to fucking behave.
Going Back
We’re taught to see work as a necessary evil, something to survive until retirement finally sets us free. But when your life is violently interrupted, you learn something different: meaningful work isn’t a trap. It’s a tether. And when you’re finally cleared to return, it doesn’t feel like obligation. It feels like coming home.
The Case of the Swollen Not-Knee
I didn’t need a mystery solved. I needed fluid drained. Instead, I got bureaucratic gymnastics, a five-figure invoice, and a surgical plan I never agreed to. This is the story of how American healthcare almost turned a simple fix into an expensive, invasive mistake, and how I walked out and fixed it myself.
RIDEST is Live
RIDEST is live. Born out of a crash, recovery, and a refusal to accept unfair systems, this initiative is about making New Mexico biker-friendly and biker-safe — with fairness, accountability, and freedom at the center.
I Don’t Hear “No,” and I Don’t Quit
Everything about the crash was unfair: the insurance, the testing, the accountability. So instead of letting it go, I decided to do something about it. This is the origin story of RIDEST, and I don’t quit.
Reclaiming MY Normal
After months of hospitals, recovery, and forced stillness, I finally felt like myself again, not because I was healed, but because I was seen. This isn’t a story about rushing back or pretending nothing happened. It’s about reclaiming the version of “normal” that keeps my mind alive, my sanity intact, and my life moving forward.