The Part I Can’t Remember Still Won’t Let Me Go
I don’t remember the accident. That’s the part that still eats at me. The details are gone, but the questions aren’t, and every new inference feels like reopening a wound that never fully closed.
It’s Never Fucking Done
I’ve called And So, She Rose “done” three different times. Broken wrist. Proofreader hired. Names changed. BFF feedback incorporated. And now the cover artist is working, which means “done” isn’t done until I say it is and publish the damn thing. Welcome to the chaos of self-publishing, where the writing ends and the real work begins.
The Keeper of the Speed
Fresh from cardiology, defibrillator checked and heart cleared for duty, I rolled into my subdivision only to be greeted by the self-appointed Keeper of the Speed. Apparently retirement now comes with hand signals and moral authority. I had thoughts. My exhaust had volume.
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.
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.
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.
I Think I’m Afraid of the Dark Now
I don’t remember the accident, but my body does. And when the sun goes down and the headlights start moving faster than trust can keep up, the dark doesn’t feel neutral anymore.
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.
Between Torque and Grief
My bike is finally done, brighter and louder and harder to ignore than ever. And somehow, that joy exists right next to grief, anger, and the quiet realization that my life has been reduced to a number in someone else’s legal game.
I Had to Tighten My Left Boot Today
Recovery doesn’t always announce itself with milestones and applause. Sometimes it shows up in the smallest, most unassuming ways, like the moment you realize your left motorcycle boot is finally loose. After months of swelling, loss, replacement, and rebuilding, tightening that boot became proof that healing is still happening.
3 a.m. Metrics
Waking up at three in the morning is my new normal. It’s when my mind is sharpest, and also when it gets trapped, chewing on the bullshit metrics we’re told define a successful life: job, money, love. Somewhere between a foggy Minnesota road and the imagined violence of someone in a hurry to go nowhere, it became painfully clear: our priorities are broken, our patience is gone, and the math we’re using to measure a life doesn’t add up.