You’re Fucking Welcome
Pride wasn’t born out of comfort. It was born out of survival. This is about Michael. About blood. About hiding. About violence. About what it actually cost to make today safer. And about the complicated gratitude that comes with inheriting freedom.
Free Enough to Complain
I rode all day in freezing sun, hands numb, coffee in my veins, donuts as fuel. And downtown? Protestors. Two years later, still marching like the sky fell. Here’s what I actually saw: a free country loud enough to complain inside it.
What Would You Say?
If I ever sat across from the woman who hit me, what would I say? I’m not sure I’d say anything at all. I think I’d just hand her the story and let her decide who she wants to be next.
Goddamned Appointments
I survived the crash. I survived the hospital. Now I’m just trying to survive the goddamned appointments long enough to get back to being me.
What Harley Is Actually Selling
Harley-Davidson doesn’t sell motorcycles. If they did, Honda would win every time. What they sell is muscle, grit, and the permission to make a machine your own. And sometimes, they forget that.
Don’t Fall Back Asleep
It’s easy to fall back asleep. Not literal sleep, the slow kind. The creative kind. The “I’ll do it tomorrow” kind. And one missed morning can turn into a year if you’re not careful.
I’m Making Heat Again
After my crash, my body stopped running hot. Rooms felt cold. Nights needed blankets. Riding felt different. I think my body redirected every spare ounce of energy toward survival. But tonight, in the middle of the night, one leg kicked out from under the covers, I realized something simple and powerful: I’m making heat again.
Torque Therapy
Four days of throttle therapy. Mild workouts, no routine, and a chrome-plated monster named Aurora reminding Santa Fe what torque feels like. Now I’m staring at camshafts like a junkie looking for the next hit.
Nyx Becoming
Before the accident, I had two bikes I loved. After, I felt stripped bare. This weekend, installing parts in my living room and standing back to stare at Nyx, that feeling finally came back. This is what restoration looks like.
Two in the Morning, and Not Done Yet
The lawyers are done. The insurance companies ran their formulas. The paperwork closed. But four months after nearly losing my life, my body isn’t finished. Healing doesn’t move at the speed of settlements. It moves at the speed of scar tissue. In the meantime? I build.
The Bell
Motorcycles and superstition go hand in hand. From sailors to submariners to bikers, we all carry rituals into the unknown. I never bought my own gremlin bell, that’s not how it works. It has to be gifted. Lilith didn’t have one. Nyx does. And whether you believe in energy, God, tradition, or simple human love disguised as metal, sometimes protection sounds like a tiny bell ringing against the wind.
Love, Red Chile, and the Second Amendment
I walked into a diner drenched in pink and red hearts wearing a black Second Amendment tank top and boots. Best red chile in town on the way. Valentine’s Day might be a corporate fever dream, but freedom? That’s real. And sometimes the most absurd breakfast scene says more about pluralism than any political debate ever could.
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.
Strength Training, or: How Weakness Feels Before It Feels Like Progress
Last night I lifted ten-pound dumbbells and they nearly wrecked me. This morning I’m sore, smiling, and absolutely certain of one thing: strength doesn’t come back all at once, it comes back honestly, rep by rep, when you finally decide to start.
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.
Two Tons of Inattention at Fifty Miles an Hour
This happens two to three times a day when I ride. Not once in a while, every day. Two tons of inattentive driving versus a human body, and the only reason I’m still here is because I ride like everyone else is trying to kill me.
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.
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.