One Fucking Year
One year ago, an evening motorcycle ride left me broken on Cerrillos Road. Broken bones, surgeries, months of rehabilitation, and nights spent crying when nobody was watching. But somewhere in the hardest fucking year of my life, I found love, purpose, and something I hadn't truly possessed before: a sense of my own worth. I'm not grateful for the accident. I'm grateful I survived it.
The Fucking Cage
A car gets you from one place to another. A motorcycle puts you inside every fucking mile between them. The temperature, the wind, the smells, the landscape. You don't pass through the world. You enter it. Unfortunately, sometimes love and logistics mean climbing into the fucking cage anyway.
Get the Fuck Out of the Left Lane
The left lane isn't the “I'm going 68 in a 65, so I deserve to be here” lane. It isn't even the fucking speeding lane. It's the passing lane. Pass somebody, move the fuck over, and stop turning an incredibly simple traffic pattern into a clusterfuck for everyone behind you.
Apparently My Fucking Motorcycle Owes Albuquerque Money
Albuquerque says speeding is dangerous enough to justify automated enforcement, but apparently not dangerous enough to actually stop the fucking vehicle. Instead, a camera takes a picture, you keep driving, and weeks later the registered owner gets a bill. Ignore it long enough and eventually a debt collector comes looking for the money. Sorry, but I don’t fucking buy the safety argument.
The List
Almost a year after the motorcycle crash, I showed Dawna the list of everything that had been broken, torn, punctured, crushed, or otherwise fucked up that night. I expected her to understand what I survived. I wasn't expecting the fucking list to remind me how much of it I'm still carrying.
What the Fuck Happened?
A brutal three-hundred-mile motorcycle ride across southeastern New Mexico somehow turned into Texas liquor laws, government-mandated technology, individual liberty, and my general irritation with being protected from myself. I’m not entirely sure how the fuck we got here either.
Someone in My Corner
I thought this week’s lesson was going to be about surviving a new leadership role, monsoon commutes, and a shitty rear tire. Instead, I walked into the garage and found a clean motorcycle—and another reminder that I don’t have to do this fucking life alone anymore.
Florence Is Going to Be Fucking Fine
Arizona has decided lane splitting is reckless driving. I have a simpler question: who’s the fucking victim? A motorcycle doing something a Toyota can’t doesn’t make it reckless, and Florence being uncomfortable doesn’t make it a crime.
How Times Change
Five years ago, I walked out of a Santa Fe bar humiliated, furious, and absolutely certain I would never fucking return. Last night, I walked back through the same door with my wife. The place had changed. So had I. Apparently, some promises are worth breaking.
The World Feels Right Again
I pointed Nyx north because the woman I love needed me. Through darkness, wet pavement, thunderstorms, and entirely too many fucking deer, the mission was simple: arrive. And when I finally pulled into that parking lot and saw Dawna running toward me with that huge smile on her face, everything changed. I was there. She was there. We were together. And the world felt right again.
Fucking Waiting
I know exactly what I need to do. Pack my bag on Nyx, point north, and go get the woman I love. There's no complicated decision to make and no problem left to analyze. There's just one problem: somewhere in Santa Fe, a perfectly decent stranger is sleeping peacefully while my driver's license sits on his kitchen counter. And so I wait.
My Ship, My Responsibility
Riding with Dawna makes me want to slow down and savor the ride. But I've learned there's a difference between slowing down and becoming hesitant. When the woman I love climbs onto the back of my motorcycle, she's trusting me with her life. Sometimes protecting her means taking it easy. Sometimes it means twisting the fucking throttle and getting us away from the idiots.
TooTall
I have a biker name now. Not one I picked, because that's not how this shit works. Someone else looked at me and decided I was TooTall. And somewhere in that simple act was something much bigger than a nickname: acceptance. I walked into a gathering as an outsider and left with a name.
The Two Most Important Women in My Life
Dawna came to town, Nyx finally came back to life, and somehow I ended up crawling through Indian Market traffic with a clutch designed by Satan himself. Somewhere between the sore hand, stupid drivers, approaching rain, and a change of plans, I realized something else: the two most important women in my life are finally back where they belong.
She Brought Me Home
I got pulled over on my way home from pool league for doing what I always do on a motorcycle: getting away from traffic. But somewhere in the middle of arguing about speed, safety, and freedom, I mentioned the crash that nearly killed me. Suddenly, the traffic stop wasn't really about the traffic stop anymore.
The Responsible Thing
A friend suggested a motorcycle that sounded perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, reasonable and I have a complicated relationship. After spending decades away from riding because someone else was afraid of motorcycles, I came back to them after nearly dying and discovered something important: I’m not giving up the things that make me feel alive again.
One More Stop
If you've been wondering where I've been the last few days, don't worry. I was just paying the bill for my own life choices. Riding across New Mexico in triple-digit heat on a motorcycle with no windshield taught me something I should have figured out a long time ago: toughness isn't always about pushing harder. Sometimes it's about knowing when to stop for another bottle of water.
The Responsible Thing
I went to look at a used Indian expecting to find the dependable backup bike I need. What I found was something worse: a perfectly sensible motorcycle. It ran well, the price was right, and it was comfortable enough to do the job. It just didn’t try to rip my arms off when I twisted the throttle. Apparently, this is what responsibility feels like.
The Best Laid Plans
Sometimes the best weekends are the ones where absolutely nothing goes according to plan. A delayed motorcycle seat, a brutal ride across Colorado, missed events, and a chance conversation around a circle of folding chairs reminded me that life has a habit of changing the destination while you're still focused on the map.
Weaponized Windshield Fluid
Somewhere outside Denver, a driver decided to teach a motorcyclist a lesson by spraying windshield washer fluid straight backward into my face at highway speeds. Maybe they thought it was funny. Maybe they thought I was following too closely. What they almost did was blind someone balancing on two wheels in heavy traffic. Motorcyclists already accept enough risk from distracted drivers, weather, and wildlife. We shouldn't have to defend ourselves from people who intentionally make the road more dangerous.