The Experiment

Yesterday was a mixed bag, for sure.

The day started with breakfast with a friend I hadn’t seen since before the accident, and honestly, it was exactly what I needed. We talked and talked and talked, then ate and ate and ate, and then talked some more. I’ve been craving community lately, and she’s someone I genuinely respect and admire within the queer community.

Now here’s the deal with the queer community. There’s always a fucking “deal,” isn’t there?

I’ve spent most of my life feeling like a square peg trying to fit into somebody else’s oddly shaped ideological hole. Because politically, I don’t really fit anywhere. I’m a libertarian. Not in the weird internet cosplay sense. Not in the “taxation is theft while I scream shirtless into a webcam” sense. I mean in the foundational sense: I believe liberty matters. I believe government should stay the fuck out of people’s bedrooms. I believe adults should largely be left alone. I believe freedom comes bundled with responsibility and consequence. And I believe government is generally horrible at solving deeply human problems.

That tends to make me politically homeless.

Democrats lost me years ago once they stopped masking their attempts to come after my guns. Shame on them for that. Republicans lost me because a disturbing chunk of the party seems emotionally invested in hating people like me. Well, I’m queer as fuck, and after a lifetime of self-hatred, I’m not about to participate in that politically anymore. So libertarianism became the closest thing I had to a philosophical home. Not because the party itself is perfect. Good lord, it absolutely is not. Half the time it feels like a rehabilitation center for exhausted Republicans who discovered weed and personal autonomy at age fifty-three. But the underlying principles still resonate with me: liberty, limited centralized power, personal freedom, human agency.

And yet every time I dip my toes into queer spaces, especially around Santa Fe, there’s this quiet expectation that all queer people must share identical political software. And I don’t. I don’t believe government can legislate morality. I don’t believe laws can force people into becoming decent human beings. I don’t believe screaming at political opponents fixes anything. Sometimes your candidate loses. That’s how a federal republic works. That’s not oppression. That’s the system functioning exactly as designed. But somewhere along the way, politics stopped becoming civic participation and started becoming tribal identity performance.

Anyway, I’m drifting a bit.

The important part is this: my friend isn’t like that. She’s more “live and let live.” More grounded. More human. And I realized over breakfast just how much I missed her.

We eventually said our goodbyes, and I rode up to Los Alamos for the Memorial Day service.

To me, these ceremonies matter deeply. Honoring the men and women who died preserving our way of life should not feel optional in a healthy society. At least once a year we should be capable of setting down our ideological weapons long enough to collectively acknowledge sacrifice. This should be a solemn holiday, not just burgers and beer and lake trips.

So I rode north beneath a beautiful New Mexico sky and arrived absurdly early because every military veteran operates under the same broken internal clock. If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, your ancestors feel shame.

I parked Nyx near the cemetery and just sat there for a while soaking in the quiet. Eventually I wandered toward the seating area and, naturally, selected the chair farthest away from other humans.

And for whatever reason, the ceremony hit me hard emotionally.

Twice I found myself fighting back tears. Maybe it was the setting: towering pines, American flags, young scouts quietly handing out programs and bottled water, sunlight filtering across gravestones. Something about it cracked through my armor a little. As it probably should.

The 21-gun salute nearly launched my soul out of my body, but otherwise I just sat there reflecting quietly.

Though honestly, I was disappointed by the turnout. And I hate saying that. But how quickly does a society forget? Is civic pride dying? Is community dying? Has partisan identity completely replaced shared national identity? What happened to the spirit we saw after 9/11 when Americans briefly remembered they belonged to something larger than political teams?

Did twenty years of distant war simply become background noise? Did social media and outrage culture finally fracture the idea of shared sacrifice beyond repair? How do entire generations grow up during two decades of war and feel almost no emotional connection to the people fighting those wars? How the fuck did that happen?

After the ceremony I rode over to the Elks Lodge where they were hosting the reception afterward. And there I saw another beautiful friend. One of those people who acts like social glue in every room they enter. Warm. Engaged. Present. The kind of person who instinctively sees the bigger picture and quietly helps hold communities together.

I mostly just stood nearby talking with her when she had moments free between greeting people and organizing things. I didn’t eat. Wasn’t particularly hungry. Honestly, it just felt nice standing beside someone good.

Eventually though, I needed to head home.

Clouds had rolled in while I was inside and rain had started falling across the valley. And if you know me at all, you know I’m not exactly scared of weather on a motorcycle. So I fired up Nyx and headed south toward Santa Fe.

And honestly? That ride sucked. 😂

By the time I rolled into my garage, I was soaked clear through to the bone and cold as hell. Clothes came off. Hot shower commenced. Consciousness temporarily ended.

Later that evening I wandered back out into the garage, cleaned and polished Nyx, pulled on still-damp leathers, and went back out for one final ride beneath the cooling evening sky. By the time I returned home, the leathers had dried.

And somehow that quiet little ride became the perfect punctuation mark for the entire day.

And now here I sit.

Three o’clock in the goddamned morning.

Reflecting.