I Assure You, I Know I Have an Appointment
I survived three cardiac arrests. My life revolves around follow-ups, imaging, and cardiology check-ins. I promise you, I’m aware of my appointment. So why does the medical system feel the need to remind me eight times in forty-eight hours?
Stop Calling It An Accident
We use the word “accident” like an emotional airbag. It cushions the blow, softens accountability, and blurs the line between negligence and chance. But most of what we label accidental is entirely predictable, and preventable.
The Legal Gladiator Lie
Hollywood sold us a fantasy: lawyers as warriors, justice as inevitable. What I learned after my motorcycle crash is that personal injury law isn’t a battlefield. It’s a ballroom, and the dance is already choreographed.
We Create the Problems
Human existence sometimes feels like an endless loop: we build systems, then build more systems to fix the systems we built. Meanwhile, the machine hums, and we call it progress.
Coverage Limits
There’s something uniquely brutal about watching your trauma converted into arithmetic. Brain bleed. Collapsed lung. Facial reconstruction. Months of recovery. And at the end of it all? Coverage limits. It isn’t justice. It’s math.
Justice Before Sunrise
At 4:30 in the morning, I’m not chasing vengeance. I’m chasing a word this country was built on: justice. If someone can make a negligent U-turn, nearly kill a motorcyclist, and walk away without so much as a citation, what does that say about liberty? About accountability? About fairness?
Resident Tranny
Somewhere along the way, I became the “resident transgender.” The person people call when policies need revising or when someone doesn’t know what to say to a transitioning employee. Yesterday, my former boss called. And for a split second, I almost didn’t answer.
Lawyers, Leadership, and Lips
What a fucking week. Lawyers talking numbers. Leadership finding its footing again. Surgery scheduled for the part of my face that never fully healed. Justice, it turns out, isn’t a courtroom ideal, it’s an insurance calculation. And I’m still learning how to live in the space between gratitude and anger.
We Keep Arguing the Wrong Fucking Things
We always argue about the loudest parts of the problem while ignoring the structure underneath it. Immigration isn’t the real debate. Federal power is. And nobody seems willing to talk about that.
Fuck Molds
People love molds. They love neat categories that let them stop thinking. And when you don’t fit, they don’t expand the mold, they try to shove you into a different one. That’s how freedom gets replaced by slogans.
I Have to Be at Work in the Morning
I have to be at work in the morning. I don’t have time to take a weekday off to remind legislators to get the hell off my Constitution. Yet somehow, I’m expected to defend my rights every single year from people who don’t understand them.
Guardrails, Guns, and the Slow Death of Plain Speech
At some point we stopped arguing about policy and started padding reality. When algorithms decide which ideas are too dangerous to even discuss and legislators criminalize lawful behavior in the name of “safety”, the problem isn’t guns or technology. It’s that we’ve forgotten the difference between being civilized and being spineless.
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.
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.
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.
Press Zero to Scream Into the Void
What used to be a frustrating automated phone system has evolved into something worse: a machine that argues with you, blocks access to real help, and turns essential care into a test of endurance.
The Case Of The Swollen Knee
I survived the crash. I survived the hospital. What I didn’t survive intact was the space between diagnosis and action. This is the story of how a system designed to save lives can still refuse to fix a problem while documenting, referring, billing, and delaying its way into absurdity.
A Liberty Kind of Night
Somewhere along the way, “small government” turned into selective government: loud, intrusive, and obsessed with legislating medicine. We already have licensed doctors, malpractice law, and ethical boards. Adding politicians to the exam room doesn’t protect anyone. It just erodes liberty and calls it governance.
3:00 A.M. and the Right to Repair Bullshit
Waking up at 3:00 a.m. has a way of stripping things down to their bones. No filters. No patience. Just clarity. Somewhere between insomnia and Instagram, I watched a politician pitch the so-called Right to Repair Act like it was liberation. It isn’t. It’s a dangerous sleight of hand that trades responsibility for regulation and calls it freedom.
When The System Isn’t Coming
There’s a moment in long recoveries where patience stops being responsible and starts being dangerous. Where the system keeps saying “wait,” and your body keeps saying “no.” This is what it feels like when trust finally breaks.