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.
Fifty-One Fucking Percent
The government can stop me, detain me, accuse me of wrongdoing, drag me into court, and seek money from me; and apparently “more likely than not” is enough. Maybe that’s legally sufficient. I’m increasingly unconvinced that legally sufficient and just are the same fucking thing.
Stand the Fuck By
I’m sitting at home instead of going to work because today I have to defend myself against an allegation made by the government. We’ve become so accustomed to traffic stops that we rarely stop to consider what they actually are: temporary government detention.
Justice for Whom?
Santa Fe can find the money, technology, and political will for speed cameras and noise sensors, yet when a driver made a U-turn across my path and nearly killed me, the system somehow couldn’t manage basic accountability. So I keep coming back to one question: Who the fuck is the victim?
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.
Apparently, I'm a Victim Now
Apparently, writing about shitty things that happen to you means you've embraced a victimhood mentality. Except there's a pretty fucking important difference between acknowledging what happened and surrendering your agency because it happened. Sometimes you're a victim of circumstance. Sometimes somebody genuinely does something shitty to you. That's where the story begins. What you do next is the part that matters.
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.
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.
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.
Motorcycles Aren't the Problem
Motorcyclists are constantly told to wear more gear, ride more defensively, and take more training. We do. But maybe it's time we stopped treating riders as the problem and started asking why nearly every piece of motorcycle safety equipment exists to protect us from everyone else.
Maybe I Should Give Up Motorcycles
Last year, a woman turned left in front of me and nearly killed me. She didn't get a ticket. This year, I got a mandatory court appearance for riding the way I do to stay alive. Somewhere along the way, we've decided it's acceptable to endanger motorcyclists, but apparently not acceptable to be one.
The Loudest Guy in the Room
Sometimes the loudest guy in the room isn't the smartest. He's just the one who can't stand being ignored. After one too many encounters with men who mistake ego for competence, I found myself wondering why confidence so often replaces capability, and why the people worth listening to rarely have to raise their voices.
Competence Isn't Amazon Prime
Watching the morning crowd shuffle through a hotel breakfast got me thinking about something bigger than powdered eggs and mediocre sausage. Somewhere along the way, we've stopped learning how to do things for ourselves. We've outsourced competence, and I think we've lost something important in the process.