Liberty Is Dead
Liberty didn’t die in some spectacular coup. We surrendered it incrementally, one reasonable exception, one permit, one court decision, one camera, one sensor, and one fucking compromise at a time. Eventually, you look down and realize there’s almost nothing left in your hands.
The New Fucking Tea
Someone shot up Santa Fe’s shiny new automated enforcement cameras, and apparently an old friend’s first thought was to ask whether it was me. It wasn’t. But his question got me thinking about cameras, government power, consent of the governed, and what happens when “public property” stops feeling like it belongs to the fucking public.
This Is Us
After weeks of turmoil, Dawna is finally here. At three in the fucking morning, with her asleep beside me and our new life beginning to take shape, I realized something wonderfully simple: my heart is full, my world is quiet, and this feels right.
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 Left the Building
I spent the last week watching people navigate a judicial system I once naively believed existed to protect justice and individual liberty. What I found instead was calendars, forms, unanswered calls, endless waiting, and a bureaucracy that seemed to have forgotten the enormous responsibility entrusted to it.
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 Algorithm Was Clearly Written by Men
ChatGPT keeps trying to murder the American paragraph. When I finally called it out, the resulting conversation was fucking hilarious, and inadvertently proved that artificial intelligence has mastered another distinctly human skill: admitting you’re right without ever actually apologizing.
Show the Fuck Up
Writing is as important to my soul as riding. But if I’m serious about making it as a writer, inspiration isn’t enough. Eventually, I have to quit fucking around, open the manuscript, and do the fucking work.
No, You Don't Get a Comment Section
You are completely free to disagree with me. You're free to complain about me, tell your friends I'm an asshole, or buy a domain and write an entire fucking dissertation explaining why I'm wrong. I'll defend your freedom to do it. What you're not entitled to is space on my website to do it. I paid for my little corner of the internet. I built it. I fill it with my words. And I'll decide what fucking goes there.
Holding Pattern
You can be excited about where you're going and still grieve what you're leaving. Both things can be true. Right now, we're somewhere between what was and what comes next, surrounded by hotel coffee, storage units, trucks, and shitty Wi-Fi. The emergency has passed. The rebuilding is beginning. And we're doing it together.
Apparently, Talking Isn't Always Helping
I fucking love this woman, and when she's frustrated, every instinct inside me wants to fix things. Turns out, sometimes helping isn't solving. Sometimes helping isn't talking. Sometimes helping is finding some shade, drinking some fucking water, and shutting the hell up. Apparently, loving someone means learning that too.
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.
Balance (A Guest Blog by Dawna Russom)
What does safety actually feel like after a lifetime spent fighting for freedom, autonomy, and the right to make your own stupid decisions? Maybe it feels like sitting beside a powerful river without fearing the current. Maybe it feels like finally being seen and loved. And maybe, sometimes, it feels like having enough room in your life to get really fucking pissed off about a crappy mechanical pencil.
Bare to the Elements
I spent fifty-four years learning how to protect my heart. I built walls, learned to stand alone, and eventually convinced myself I preferred it that way. Then Dawna came along, and somehow the walls disappeared. Now she's gone back to Colorado, the house feels fucking empty, and I'm discovering the other side of letting someone completely into your heart.