Excommunivacation, part one.
Sunday, August 18th
So as many of you know by now, Alyssa and I have left the 518, with no intentions of ever coming back. At some point I'm sure I'll have to come get my car and the few belongings I've stored in it back my Aunt's house, but I'm otherwise very dedicated to never returning. We will once again be living in our car--a 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe--and traveling around the country. We expect and hope to be doing this for far longer than the three months we did it for last time, and if all goes well, at the end of it we will settle somewhere new that is better than, and far away from, Albany/upstate New York. We will of course be making plenty of travel blog posts on our accounts that we hope y'all will enjoy as much as many of you seemed to last time.
The toxicity and misery of this area and many of the people in it has become too much for either of us to endure on a mental and emotional level, and as much as we hate admitting defeat and will miss the many friends and allies we've made here, we must take care of ourselves and find something fulfilling, fun, and positive to do with ourselves. At this point, as it has for me many times in my adult life, travel seems like the best (or only) option. It is something I can afford with or without money and makes every single day an adventure. We both are too aware of our own mortality, have been spending far too much time dealing with our own mental health issues, and we're sick of wasting our days lying in bed whenever we're not working, obsessively mourning the loss of what we were once able to do here. If my life is going to involve so much struggle, it might as well be in the name of freedom and fun.
Needless to say, we have gone through a lot since we returned here back in December. I had to watch my mother die and at the same time began receiving notice that I was being accused of emotional abuse, rape, pedophilia, and even animal cruelty, all while mostly living in a car in a Market 32 parking lot in painfully low and cold temperatures. Alyssa came back here for me, despite not wanting to, and stuck by me through all of this, and the guilt of feeling like her anchor was difficult to handle at times. We almost broke up because of this. Still, both of us tried to remain focused and energized, with the goal of returning to regular activism and community organizing while fundraising in hopes of opening our own vegan non-hierarchical community center. It was the first long-term goal I'd ever had in my adult life, and I really did sincerely (and in retrospect, naively) believe we could pull it off. In the end, the fundraiser failed because we lacked a capable or dedicated team, already had little to no resources to our names, and no one wanted to give us any money.
We accepted we'd have to begrudgingly keep relying on the Social Justice Center as the space in which we put on our events since we weren't paying money to book events there, and we were able to do another Really Really Free Market and a huge vegan chili cook-off, but it wasn't long before people contacted them and the rumors about me saw their second phase in the form of a zine written all about me being copied and distributed in physical and digital formats all over the city. A highly coordinated campaign against me had been waged by worthless cool kids and slacktivists with enough social capital to meaningfully ruin my reputation throughout the capital region. I lost a lot of supporters, acquaintances, and Facebook friends, was asked to stop putting on events in the area, and in the end was banned from the Social Justice Center, thus making most of what we did here impossible since we couldn't afford anything else.
We'd come back here to try and continue all the good we'd started in a city we knew really needed the things we were doing. We wanted to bring people together, spread information, change minds and lives, and help as many people as we could with their immediate needs in ways we didn't see being done by non-profits, religious organizations, and liberal political groups. We accomplished so much while we were able that I will always be proud of, and became two faces so many people recognized around town. But I was banned from doing that anymore, and in turn so was Alyssa and several others by association. We had our purpose stolen from us by pathetic, disgusting people who contributed little to nothing to the community they were robbing. As a result, we spent the last couple of months pretty stagnant, just working to save up money and lying around in bed watching movies. I felt completely powerless and defeated, I felt so bad for Alyssa for having to watch my demise and suffer alongside me, and the overall injustice and hypocrisy of everything that had happened made me feel more than ever before that the world I lived in was mostly bad and beyond fixing.
I feel very guilty about this, but I more or less stopped attending others' events because the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing who hated me and thought I was a rapist was overwhelming. For those out there who are busting their asses to still try and make change here, I am so sorry I've disappeared. For those of you who think I'm capable of overcoming this, I'm sorry to admit that I'm just not strong enough to try anymore, nor am I interested in investing any more emotional energy than I already have into this area. I know so many people have been rooting for me and have stuck by me throughout all of this, but the reality is that you don't have the same power or pull to save my status here as a person, activist, or organizer. The damage has been done and is irreparable, or maybe I'm justifiably unwilling to fight back anymore. I know many of you want me to stay positive and be patient, but I'm telling you I simply can't. I need to accept what has happened, and you all need to accept that some situations really are hopeless sometimes. I hope you all understand and support this decision.
I know leaving is the right thing to do. We both would have preferred that the decision to travel again had been an organic one that came about on our own terms, rather than as a last-ditch effort to maintain sanity as I was excommunicated from my own city, so it isn't a totally great feeling to be leaving under these particular conditions, but it's time I finally leave the city that I've hated and felt suffocated by for so long.
Thanks to those of you who were able to come say goodbye in person at Blowfish the other night. Thanks to everyone who thought me worthy of building a friendship with. Thanks to anyone who helped in any way at any of the events we'd put on. Thanks to all who let us sleep at their house, sent us money, trusted us to watch their place or animal companions, and stood by me during my lowest times. I have made some of the best friends I've ever had these past two years and leaving y'all is the only part of leaving the 518 that is at all difficult. I'm gonna miss a lot of you so fucking much. Special shout-out to Michelle Lisboa for basically being our mom this year and unquestioningly, unconditionally giving us a stable and incredibly comfortable place to live free of cost while being an endlessly supportive friend--you've helped us more than you can know and we will never forget it. And shout-out to Tobi Warwick, Michelle Montepagani, Dan Kelly, Heimdall Imbert, Byron DelSignore, Abby McCormick-Foley, Abby Jones, Colleen Jordan, Jed and Susan Civic, Audrey Goodemote, Lisa and Jeff Redd, Riley Lucille and Tony Henri, Stephanie Levay, Kate Skwire, Katie Jensen, and Jean Daniels, for always being especially supportive and what I consider good friends. There are many others I could include, and I assure you all the lack of a tag does not mean you're not in my thoughts.
And so it began...
453 miles.
DAYS ONE and TWO
Saturday, August 17th - Sunday, August 18th
We both got up early and started preparing the car for long-term rubbertramping. The sun was beating down hard and flies flew around us like we were hiding a rotting corpse. I was very tired and stressed out about leaving on time, which we didn't. We created another impeccably cozy and cushy bed, set up the bike rack, and organized everything we were bringing between compartments inside the car, the rooftop cargo carrier, and boxes and bags we'd keep in the back.
We'd both saved up some money in preparation for traveling, and I obviously received some measly disability checks every month, which would cover eating at vegan spots and whatever else, though most of what we'd be doing would be free--we would be scheming free ways through everything else. We planned on delivering for the DoorDash app when possible to make money for gas, and would otherwise beg for it like we did last time. Our bed was layered in two memory foam pads and a giant blanket with a lion on it that we dumpstered from the college dumpsters the year before, two bed sheets of Alyssa's, a huge comforter we found outside next to a 'free' sign in San Francisco while there, a two-person below-zero sleeping bag we'd bought from someone on Craigslist for $75, and some pillows (all of them vegan, because down was awful). We had two fans both from dumpsters, a portable battery for charging things via USB which we dumpstered, and some kitchenware and appliances underneath the bed we'd gotten from Really Really Free Markets or dumpsters. We got the brand new bike rack for $20 off someone on Facebook Market and Alyssa got her bike from Troy Bike Rescue. It was cool to realize how much we were able to accumulate secondhand and mostly for free. I had to deposit money in the bank and drop some more belongings off at my Aunt's, and then we were officially off, headed south toward the city. We were both very excited to be turning our backs on the 518. It was bittersweet, but mostly just sweet.
Our first stop was set to be Long Island. I'd never had a reason to go there before, but since we were there, it only made sense to eat at Long Island's only all-vegan restaurant for dinner, 3 Brothers Vegan Cafe. It wound up being one of the best vegan spots either of us had ever gone to. Our waitress told us we gave off really good and positive vibes, which was nice and totally unusual for me to hear since I was definitely giving off negative vibes at all times. Maybe the people in Long Island were just rude to service workers and set the bar nice and low for us to outdo? We were shocked when presented with a basket of fresh, warm, complimentary bread with vegan butter, and doubly shocked when we were asked if we wanted seconds. Needless to say, it was rare a vegan restaurant gave you complimentary anything. For appetizers, we got their spanakopita (phyllo pastry with spinach, dill, homemade feta, and lemon) served with a side of tzatziki sauce, and their oyster mushroom calamari served with sides of tartar sauce and marinara. I'd never had either before and was blown away. The breading on the calamari was soft and flaky and the marinara was possibly the best I'd ever had. As an entree, I got their seitan parmigiana with a side of pasta, which was perfect in every way. The wait was kinda long, likely due to everything being made fresh and from scratch, and the prices matched their fanciness, but the quality and portion sizes far exceeded our expectations, and they earned every penny we gave to them. I complimented them on our way out and the nice waitress who made note of our vibes gave us a free order of garlic knots! I'd always wanted to go to a 100% vegan Italian restaurant, and up until recently there had been only one or two in the country, so this was very exciting, and it was the best possible first stop on this new trip of ours.
Traffic down the Montauk Highway was genuinely frightening, as cars zoomed by me on both sides going 30 over the speed limit, seemingly ready to die if it meant getting to their destination one second faster. The fog thickened the closer we got to the Hamptons. Everyone strolling out and about looked like they were on their way to an event or wedding or something. The reason we were there, of all places, was because I'd gotten us tickets to see Philip Glass a month earlier for Alyssa's birthday. Philip Glass was her favorite modern composer and a big influence on her as a musician, and she'd never gotten to see him perform live. He was also one of my favorites, particularly as a composer of film scores and a player of synths. I was able to use money made from delivering Chinese food to get us expensive seats ten feet away from the stage with clear view of his fingers on the keys. The show was two hours with an intermission, and Philip Glass, who was then in his 80s, played three pieces while other compositions of his were performed by pianists Jenny Lin and Anton Batagov. I got to hear "Truman Sleeps" from the score to Truman Show and a piece from the score to Errol Morris's Thin Blue Line, and watched all three play together for a rendition of "Opening" from his masterpiece album "Glassworks". More recent compositions of his from the last decade were played and I couldn't believe how great his writing still was. Jenny Lin shredded with her quick fingers, and Anton Batagov made very animated facial gestures as he passionately played along. Piano will always be very magical to me. It might sound corny, but watching such gifted musicians play just came off as people speaking fluently in another language to me.
It made me so happy to make Alyssa so happy, and it was cool to see one of the greatest composers of the last two centuries perform in real life, and in such an intimate setting. The show had sold out, but the venue was small. I was glad I had searched on a whim to see if he'd be playing anywhere near us when I did. An old crotchety man and his wife sat next to us. At one point, he came back to his seat with a pack of Reese's Cups and nonchalantly threw the package on the floor when he was done with it. So we followed him outside and I handed it back to him, saying, "Excuse me, sir, you forgot this." Unsure how to react, he responded, "Oh, thank you," while his wife stood by looking mortified.
Even though it was dark, we still tried to see a few things. We pulled down the block Alyssa's father grew up on--Club Drive--to stare in awe (or disgust) at the giant, luxurious homes there. At the beginning of it, there was a life-size statue of a man riding on the back of a giant lobster, standing in the trees and bushes of someone's yard and made visible to the road with its own light. Unsure if we'd be able to see it, we also went out of our way to see The Big Duck, which a Long Island radio show had dubbed "one of the city's seven wonders". Impossible to miss off the side of the road, it stood at 20 feet tall with two glaring red eyes made from the tail lights of a Ford Model T. As cute as it was, it was originally built in the '30s to sell more of the flesh and eggs of farmed ducks from the store built inside of it, and it was successful until its closing in the '80s. It had since become a gift shop, and cherished just for being the big Pekin duck that it was amidst a bustling but bland upscale area of the Hamptons.
I drove us to Philadelphia from there while surrounded by more threatening drivers, many of whom seemed drunk or genuinely suicidal. I spent at least a half hour straight clenching my hands on the steering wheel and bracing myself for impact. Thankfully, we made it to Tia's by 3. We stayed up until sunrise, catching up and chatting before falling asleep on the foldout bed in her living room.
The next day, we slept in, and then met up with Tia during her lunch break for smoothie bubble teas at Vegan Tree. I got a strawberry and Alyssa got a coffee-flavored one. Most places we intended on visiting were closed because of Sunday, but we were able to stop at Wooden Shoe, the anarchist bookstore, and Dottie's, the vegan doughnut shop, before heading to a Walmart to rack a screen protector for her new phone. For dinner, we had cheesesteaks and root beer barbecue wings at Blackbird, the all-vegan pizza place. I wondered how much we could stick to only eating out at 100% vegan businesses.
True.
New Rochelle, someone added this nice raccoon.
Holy shit, was Long Island traffic full of douchebags.
3 Brothers Vegan Cafe!
A night with Philip Glass.
Why?
The Big Duck!
Tia and a nice strawberry smoothie bubble tea!
Dottie's!
A yarn-bomb creature I can only assume is completely made-up.
Walmart is prepared for it all.
Blackbird!
Yes.
This 7-11 discovery was so good.
DAY THREE
Monday, August 19th
I slept until Alyssa whined for me to wake up. We brought our bikes on this trip, and mine had spent the entire winter on the side of Tobi's house. Needless to say, it needed a tune-up. I brought it to South Philly Bikes, a very affordable and fair bike spot I'd gone to in the past. In the end, I needed a new chain, a new brake line, two new tubes, and my handlebars rewrapped.
While waiting, we went to Grindcore House, which I thought was the coolest cafe in the country. Aside from being unapologetically vegan, it was also just the coziest cafe I'd ever loitered at. I got an iced lavender latte with oat milk and their new Italiano hoagie, which used deli meat from the Herbivorous Butcher and Chao cheese! We sifted through their radical library and read through two great zines, which both criticized "representation" and posed that to aspire to representation within the mainstream media, and hence capitalism, was counterintuitive and only led to our identities being used against us.
My bike repairs came to only $60, which was covered entirely by donations from several very kind friends online. We walked to the post office so Alyssa could mail out something she sold on eBay, and we got there just in time to see some cranky old asshole tell the guy behind the counter to go fuck himself because he was told he needed to purchase postage to send mail back to someone. Then came a brief but powerful rain. We went back to Tia's house to relax a little before heading back out to Walmart so I could rack a new set of clippers to shave my head with, since I had apparently forgotten mine back in Voorheesville. It was suffocatingly humid out.
We spent the rest of the day on South Street. We stopped at Mutt's and got some graffiti utensils and then got dinner at Tattooed Mom, whose "Meatless Mondays" had their entire veggie sammies section priced at half-off. This meant burgers and wraps for like $3-5 each! So we got two chubbsteak wraps (steak, mushrooms, cheese, tots, and sriracha ketchup), one blackened chicken sandwich, and an order of cheesy tots for only $26. Much was left over.
Waiting for Tia to get off work, we took a stroll down to the end of South Street since Alyssa had never gone that far. We stopped in Condom Kingdom so she could see the smiley sperm fountain inside. A woman had fifty or so pieces of framed art, mostly of adorable black mermaids, along the outside of an abandoned building and said, "Welcome to my gallery!" Down at Penn's Landing where the sculpture "The Stroll" towered over us and the highway zoomed beneath, a lone man with a ponytail played saxophone to no one.
Back at Tia's, I shaved my head, which resulted in ugly and embarrassing groove lines in the stubble. It made me feel even more self-conscious than I already did. Life wasn't fun when you had to walk around looking like Leonard Mudbeard from the Angry Birds movie. The four of us played some pretty brutal Super Smash Bros on N64.
Grindcore House! Read Becoming Unrepresentable for free here!
A stream of happy sperms.
Tattooed Mom!
DAY FOUR
Tuesday, August 20th
After way too long of each of us scrambling around, we finally walked outside into the sun in hopes of going for a bike ride together. I put my legs over my bike and immediately realized my seat was unreasonably high all of the sudden, to the point that my feet couldn't even stay on the pedals--and thus began a half hour of me trying to figure out how the fuck to lower it. Several Allen wrenches later, I was hitting the seat with a rubber mallet, all to no avail. So we changed plans and got in the car.
First, we went to check out V Marks the Shop, Philly's premiere 100% vegan convenience store. I'd already seen them slinging snacks at a few vegfests and events at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, but I didn't know their brick and mortar had finally opened until that day. Apparently, they'd been up and running since December. Full of the goodies you expected of any convenience store, it went above and beyond that. They had jerky, chips, dried fruit, gummies, candies, crackers, baskets of produce, a whole wall of hot sauces, chocolates, candy bars, a section just of baking needs, a cooler of ice creams, cheeses, butters, puddings, edible cookie dough, dips and sauces, pickled foods, mayos, hotdogs, tofu, deli meats, a case of artisanal meats from the Herbivorous Butcher and baked goods from Vegan Treats, seafood, frozen pizzas and burritos, breads, frozen meats, condiments, packaged to-go meals of mac and cheese and wraps and lasagnas, cold brews, kombucha, energy drinks, seltzers, dried goods like noodles and rice and soy curls, canned meat, milks, frozen bags of fruits and veggies, pet food, cleaning products, and still so much more. And when I say they had these things, I mean they had them from multiple brands and in an especially comprehensive variety. In addition, they had a space in the back where you could sit, relax, and heat something up in the public microwave. They even accepted food stamps! Even more importantly, this place was owned and operated by good people who were very plugged into the community and doing so much for not just animal rights but also human social justice issues. We spoke with the woman working the register and found out about so many cool projects being born in Philly, like a vegan flea market and a horror movie screening fundraiser for animals called Texas Chainpaw Massacre. We only snagged a couple snacks for the road, but we knew we'd be back.
From there we started heading toward Glen Mills about 45 minutes outside of Philly in hopes of exploring an abandoned school for wayward girls called the Sleighton Farm School, which had been officially abandoned in 2001 and spanned a couple hundred acres amongst rural upper-middle-class houses. A few of us had tried to explore it a while back, but got stopped by a security guard paid to patrol it, so I was hellbent on getting in this time around. The property itself had been through several different iterations since its inception in 1826, but had always in one form or another served as a facility for juvenile delinquents. It began as the Philadelphia House of Refuge, founded by the Quakers and the Pennsylvania Prison Society. 70 years later, it collaborated with the notoriously abusive Glen Mills Schools to create a separate entity for boys. It wasn't until the first decade of 1900 that it developed into the Sleighton Farm School, an intentional rebranding with a "family setting". Nine dormitory cottages were built, as well as a greenhouse, a cannery, a powerhouse, an administrative building, a chapel, and agricultural centers. It was all girls until it went co-ed in 1975. Financial trouble was ultimately their demise in 2001.
We pulled into the park next door, which was littered with construction for a new oil pipeline being built. A small trail took us through some of the shrubbery to the first building we saw, which was the Farm Office Building that was once used by agricultural faculty. It was easy to get into through a loose board over a doorway and was mostly full of scattered papers from gutted filing cabinets damaged by both water and fire. Graffiti warned us about a big hole in the floor. There was no dead body inside the giant chest we opened. We went up into the attic, which was cleaner than expected aside from the predictable dicks spraypainted everywhere. Someone had hung up a fire hose leading from a rafter and out the window, I can only assume as a way for explorers to get in and out at one point. Across from it was a long red shed full of dusty desks, rusted machinery, furniture, and old mattresses. We followed the trail from there. We passed by the Stone Barn, which was once used as an office and mechanical repair facility, but it was mostly collapsed on the inside and left very little to be found. A garage next to it showed no way inside. The greenhouse was very eerie and beautiful. While it appeared completely hidden in shrubbery from the outside, the leaves still allowed light inside. Plastic pots still filled the flowerbeds. The Gray-Trent Vocational Center had originally been used as an army barracks during the first World War before being relocated to Sleighton as an education center. We went inside a spacious garage at the end of it because it was wide open. We entered the Campbell Cottage through the back, where a door was missing. We found a lot of documents lying around with meticulous logging of goings-on, ranging from fights between students to phone calls made, almost every half hour. Profiles of each student were typed out, and even by 2001 it was easy to become "committed" there for simply being uninterested in school or not particularly outgoing. We found a hall of dorm rooms on the first floor and they were identical to prison cells. Upstairs wasn't much different. Showers were cramped stalls. In the end, we went to the John Sergeant Administrative Building most visible from the road, where we had been "caught" last time. The original way inside had been tightly boarded shut, unfortunately.
After dinner plans, and backup plans, were ruined by several places' arbitrary decision to be closed on Tuesdays, we settled on a place neither of us had been to before: P'unk Burger. We weren't expecting much, but in the end we were all very into the place. I got the P'unk Beyond Burger, which was a Beyond patty stacked with Daiya mozz, avocado, special sauce, and onion rings, and we shared a side of shoestring fries and onion rings. Both my burger and the onion rings were among the best of either I'd ever had. For dessert, we got pretty little pastel shakes. I got the blueberry special, but because the base was coconut, it just tasted like coconut. I asked to replace it with the birch beer vanilla shake that Alyssa got, which was way better. Oh, and there were free refills on Maine Root sodas, including their glorious blueberry flavor.
This annoying, beautiful bike.
V Marks the Shop!
Exploring the Sleighton Farm School.
P'unk Burger!
DAY FIVE
Wednesday, August 21st
First things first, I went back to the bike shop to get them to lower my goddamn seat. Even they struggled with it, which relieved how pathetic I felt for not being able to do it myself. I got gas, and a boy no older than 12 asked if he could pump it for me for a dollar. I told him he could and gave him $5. I asked him some questions and he told me it was his only way of making money and that he'd been doing it all summer. I asked him if people were nice to him and he looked down and said, "Sometimes. A lot of them ignore me."
Back at Tia's, we decided to take a long bike ride down the Schuylkill River Trail. I'd always wanted to ride it, but never had. I was stoked to be getting back on a bike, but was also pretty intimidated. The weather was being described as "dangerously" hot.
It would also be my first time back on my bike in at least a year; owning a car and staying somewhere rural and far away from everything else made me very dependent on driving. The ride was really nice, and so were the views as we passed reflective skyscrapers in the sky, graffiti under train tracks, old and beautiful bridges towering over us, and sculptures. At one point, the tops of museums, gazebos, and even millionaire mausoleums in a cemetery overlooked us. I had never seen these hidden parts of Philadelphia before. Eventually, though, around three-fourths of the way to our end, my body started to hurt. It began with a subtle but sharp pain in my left calf muscle. We took a break underneath a bridge at a stone table and drank our waters. As we continued onward, that pain began in my other calf muscle, and soon enough it was shooting up into both my thighs. My ass was also killing me. I felt weak and pathetic and frustrated, and worried I was an inconvenience to Alyssa and Tia, who were riding perfectly fine. Maybe it was because I was on a single speed and they had multiple gears, maybe it was because I hadn't been on a bike in a while, and maybe it was just because I was a fat piece of shit--or all three. I powered my way to East Falls Bridge with them, compelled forward exclusively by stubbornness and shame. We took our time going back to take pictures and they both patiently dealt with my worthless broken body and short, insecure mental breakdowns. The (vegan cruelty-free) sunblock on my face melted down my forehead, mixed with sweat, and burned my eyes. I stopped for a nice dip in the Fountain of the Sea Horse and we sat and watched geese and an adorable family in the grass nearby. Thankfully, we got home right before another summer storm erupted.
After that, we drove an hour away through rain and rush hour traffic to a town called Malvern so we could regain all calories previously burned by the bike ride at a vegan Chinese buffet. We'd actually planned to eat at Sutao Cafe the day before, but they were one of many restaurants annoyingly closed on Tuesdays. We ate with reckless abandon, and I myself went through three full plates of food, a small one of apple pie, and a tiny bowl of fruit. And all for only $13.50! Some things I stuffed my face with included steamed kale, kidney bean salad, tofu skin, Chinese spicy noodles, hot and sour soup, sautéed collards and veggies, tofu with tomatoes, sweet and sour veggie meatballs, breaded chicken, steamed veggie dumplings, vegetable pancakes, spring rolls, veggie lo mein, vegetable fried rice, General Tso chicken balls, fried chicken with cabbage, peppers, and onions, and some other things I never even tried to identify before I put it in my mouth.
Back at the house, we watched a canceled Mike Judge cartoon called The Goode Family, which was basically the liberal version of King of the Hill, since the sole season that aired had been uploaded to Tubi. The family in it was vegan and the moral conclusion from each episode seemed to be that everyone was an awful hypocrite. It was fucking hilarious.
Bike ride on the Schuylkill River!
Radical graffiti everywhere in Philly.
Sutao buffet!
So as many of you know by now, Alyssa and I have left the 518, with no intentions of ever coming back. At some point I'm sure I'll have to come get my car and the few belongings I've stored in it back my Aunt's house, but I'm otherwise very dedicated to never returning. We will once again be living in our car--a 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe--and traveling around the country. We expect and hope to be doing this for far longer than the three months we did it for last time, and if all goes well, at the end of it we will settle somewhere new that is better than, and far away from, Albany/upstate New York. We will of course be making plenty of travel blog posts on our accounts that we hope y'all will enjoy as much as many of you seemed to last time.
The toxicity and misery of this area and many of the people in it has become too much for either of us to endure on a mental and emotional level, and as much as we hate admitting defeat and will miss the many friends and allies we've made here, we must take care of ourselves and find something fulfilling, fun, and positive to do with ourselves. At this point, as it has for me many times in my adult life, travel seems like the best (or only) option. It is something I can afford with or without money and makes every single day an adventure. We both are too aware of our own mortality, have been spending far too much time dealing with our own mental health issues, and we're sick of wasting our days lying in bed whenever we're not working, obsessively mourning the loss of what we were once able to do here. If my life is going to involve so much struggle, it might as well be in the name of freedom and fun.
Needless to say, we have gone through a lot since we returned here back in December. I had to watch my mother die and at the same time began receiving notice that I was being accused of emotional abuse, rape, pedophilia, and even animal cruelty, all while mostly living in a car in a Market 32 parking lot in painfully low and cold temperatures. Alyssa came back here for me, despite not wanting to, and stuck by me through all of this, and the guilt of feeling like her anchor was difficult to handle at times. We almost broke up because of this. Still, both of us tried to remain focused and energized, with the goal of returning to regular activism and community organizing while fundraising in hopes of opening our own vegan non-hierarchical community center. It was the first long-term goal I'd ever had in my adult life, and I really did sincerely (and in retrospect, naively) believe we could pull it off. In the end, the fundraiser failed because we lacked a capable or dedicated team, already had little to no resources to our names, and no one wanted to give us any money.
We accepted we'd have to begrudgingly keep relying on the Social Justice Center as the space in which we put on our events since we weren't paying money to book events there, and we were able to do another Really Really Free Market and a huge vegan chili cook-off, but it wasn't long before people contacted them and the rumors about me saw their second phase in the form of a zine written all about me being copied and distributed in physical and digital formats all over the city. A highly coordinated campaign against me had been waged by worthless cool kids and slacktivists with enough social capital to meaningfully ruin my reputation throughout the capital region. I lost a lot of supporters, acquaintances, and Facebook friends, was asked to stop putting on events in the area, and in the end was banned from the Social Justice Center, thus making most of what we did here impossible since we couldn't afford anything else.
We'd come back here to try and continue all the good we'd started in a city we knew really needed the things we were doing. We wanted to bring people together, spread information, change minds and lives, and help as many people as we could with their immediate needs in ways we didn't see being done by non-profits, religious organizations, and liberal political groups. We accomplished so much while we were able that I will always be proud of, and became two faces so many people recognized around town. But I was banned from doing that anymore, and in turn so was Alyssa and several others by association. We had our purpose stolen from us by pathetic, disgusting people who contributed little to nothing to the community they were robbing. As a result, we spent the last couple of months pretty stagnant, just working to save up money and lying around in bed watching movies. I felt completely powerless and defeated, I felt so bad for Alyssa for having to watch my demise and suffer alongside me, and the overall injustice and hypocrisy of everything that had happened made me feel more than ever before that the world I lived in was mostly bad and beyond fixing.
I feel very guilty about this, but I more or less stopped attending others' events because the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing who hated me and thought I was a rapist was overwhelming. For those out there who are busting their asses to still try and make change here, I am so sorry I've disappeared. For those of you who think I'm capable of overcoming this, I'm sorry to admit that I'm just not strong enough to try anymore, nor am I interested in investing any more emotional energy than I already have into this area. I know so many people have been rooting for me and have stuck by me throughout all of this, but the reality is that you don't have the same power or pull to save my status here as a person, activist, or organizer. The damage has been done and is irreparable, or maybe I'm justifiably unwilling to fight back anymore. I know many of you want me to stay positive and be patient, but I'm telling you I simply can't. I need to accept what has happened, and you all need to accept that some situations really are hopeless sometimes. I hope you all understand and support this decision.
I know leaving is the right thing to do. We both would have preferred that the decision to travel again had been an organic one that came about on our own terms, rather than as a last-ditch effort to maintain sanity as I was excommunicated from my own city, so it isn't a totally great feeling to be leaving under these particular conditions, but it's time I finally leave the city that I've hated and felt suffocated by for so long.
Thanks to those of you who were able to come say goodbye in person at Blowfish the other night. Thanks to everyone who thought me worthy of building a friendship with. Thanks to anyone who helped in any way at any of the events we'd put on. Thanks to all who let us sleep at their house, sent us money, trusted us to watch their place or animal companions, and stood by me during my lowest times. I have made some of the best friends I've ever had these past two years and leaving y'all is the only part of leaving the 518 that is at all difficult. I'm gonna miss a lot of you so fucking much. Special shout-out to Michelle Lisboa for basically being our mom this year and unquestioningly, unconditionally giving us a stable and incredibly comfortable place to live free of cost while being an endlessly supportive friend--you've helped us more than you can know and we will never forget it. And shout-out to Tobi Warwick, Michelle Montepagani, Dan Kelly, Heimdall Imbert, Byron DelSignore, Abby McCormick-Foley, Abby Jones, Colleen Jordan, Jed and Susan Civic, Audrey Goodemote, Lisa and Jeff Redd, Riley Lucille and Tony Henri, Stephanie Levay, Kate Skwire, Katie Jensen, and Jean Daniels, for always being especially supportive and what I consider good friends. There are many others I could include, and I assure you all the lack of a tag does not mean you're not in my thoughts.
And so it began...
453 miles.
DAYS ONE and TWO
Saturday, August 17th - Sunday, August 18th
We both got up early and started preparing the car for long-term rubbertramping. The sun was beating down hard and flies flew around us like we were hiding a rotting corpse. I was very tired and stressed out about leaving on time, which we didn't. We created another impeccably cozy and cushy bed, set up the bike rack, and organized everything we were bringing between compartments inside the car, the rooftop cargo carrier, and boxes and bags we'd keep in the back.
We'd both saved up some money in preparation for traveling, and I obviously received some measly disability checks every month, which would cover eating at vegan spots and whatever else, though most of what we'd be doing would be free--we would be scheming free ways through everything else. We planned on delivering for the DoorDash app when possible to make money for gas, and would otherwise beg for it like we did last time. Our bed was layered in two memory foam pads and a giant blanket with a lion on it that we dumpstered from the college dumpsters the year before, two bed sheets of Alyssa's, a huge comforter we found outside next to a 'free' sign in San Francisco while there, a two-person below-zero sleeping bag we'd bought from someone on Craigslist for $75, and some pillows (all of them vegan, because down was awful). We had two fans both from dumpsters, a portable battery for charging things via USB which we dumpstered, and some kitchenware and appliances underneath the bed we'd gotten from Really Really Free Markets or dumpsters. We got the brand new bike rack for $20 off someone on Facebook Market and Alyssa got her bike from Troy Bike Rescue. It was cool to realize how much we were able to accumulate secondhand and mostly for free. I had to deposit money in the bank and drop some more belongings off at my Aunt's, and then we were officially off, headed south toward the city. We were both very excited to be turning our backs on the 518. It was bittersweet, but mostly just sweet.
Our first stop was set to be Long Island. I'd never had a reason to go there before, but since we were there, it only made sense to eat at Long Island's only all-vegan restaurant for dinner, 3 Brothers Vegan Cafe. It wound up being one of the best vegan spots either of us had ever gone to. Our waitress told us we gave off really good and positive vibes, which was nice and totally unusual for me to hear since I was definitely giving off negative vibes at all times. Maybe the people in Long Island were just rude to service workers and set the bar nice and low for us to outdo? We were shocked when presented with a basket of fresh, warm, complimentary bread with vegan butter, and doubly shocked when we were asked if we wanted seconds. Needless to say, it was rare a vegan restaurant gave you complimentary anything. For appetizers, we got their spanakopita (phyllo pastry with spinach, dill, homemade feta, and lemon) served with a side of tzatziki sauce, and their oyster mushroom calamari served with sides of tartar sauce and marinara. I'd never had either before and was blown away. The breading on the calamari was soft and flaky and the marinara was possibly the best I'd ever had. As an entree, I got their seitan parmigiana with a side of pasta, which was perfect in every way. The wait was kinda long, likely due to everything being made fresh and from scratch, and the prices matched their fanciness, but the quality and portion sizes far exceeded our expectations, and they earned every penny we gave to them. I complimented them on our way out and the nice waitress who made note of our vibes gave us a free order of garlic knots! I'd always wanted to go to a 100% vegan Italian restaurant, and up until recently there had been only one or two in the country, so this was very exciting, and it was the best possible first stop on this new trip of ours.
Traffic down the Montauk Highway was genuinely frightening, as cars zoomed by me on both sides going 30 over the speed limit, seemingly ready to die if it meant getting to their destination one second faster. The fog thickened the closer we got to the Hamptons. Everyone strolling out and about looked like they were on their way to an event or wedding or something. The reason we were there, of all places, was because I'd gotten us tickets to see Philip Glass a month earlier for Alyssa's birthday. Philip Glass was her favorite modern composer and a big influence on her as a musician, and she'd never gotten to see him perform live. He was also one of my favorites, particularly as a composer of film scores and a player of synths. I was able to use money made from delivering Chinese food to get us expensive seats ten feet away from the stage with clear view of his fingers on the keys. The show was two hours with an intermission, and Philip Glass, who was then in his 80s, played three pieces while other compositions of his were performed by pianists Jenny Lin and Anton Batagov. I got to hear "Truman Sleeps" from the score to Truman Show and a piece from the score to Errol Morris's Thin Blue Line, and watched all three play together for a rendition of "Opening" from his masterpiece album "Glassworks". More recent compositions of his from the last decade were played and I couldn't believe how great his writing still was. Jenny Lin shredded with her quick fingers, and Anton Batagov made very animated facial gestures as he passionately played along. Piano will always be very magical to me. It might sound corny, but watching such gifted musicians play just came off as people speaking fluently in another language to me.
It made me so happy to make Alyssa so happy, and it was cool to see one of the greatest composers of the last two centuries perform in real life, and in such an intimate setting. The show had sold out, but the venue was small. I was glad I had searched on a whim to see if he'd be playing anywhere near us when I did. An old crotchety man and his wife sat next to us. At one point, he came back to his seat with a pack of Reese's Cups and nonchalantly threw the package on the floor when he was done with it. So we followed him outside and I handed it back to him, saying, "Excuse me, sir, you forgot this." Unsure how to react, he responded, "Oh, thank you," while his wife stood by looking mortified.
Even though it was dark, we still tried to see a few things. We pulled down the block Alyssa's father grew up on--Club Drive--to stare in awe (or disgust) at the giant, luxurious homes there. At the beginning of it, there was a life-size statue of a man riding on the back of a giant lobster, standing in the trees and bushes of someone's yard and made visible to the road with its own light. Unsure if we'd be able to see it, we also went out of our way to see The Big Duck, which a Long Island radio show had dubbed "one of the city's seven wonders". Impossible to miss off the side of the road, it stood at 20 feet tall with two glaring red eyes made from the tail lights of a Ford Model T. As cute as it was, it was originally built in the '30s to sell more of the flesh and eggs of farmed ducks from the store built inside of it, and it was successful until its closing in the '80s. It had since become a gift shop, and cherished just for being the big Pekin duck that it was amidst a bustling but bland upscale area of the Hamptons.
I drove us to Philadelphia from there while surrounded by more threatening drivers, many of whom seemed drunk or genuinely suicidal. I spent at least a half hour straight clenching my hands on the steering wheel and bracing myself for impact. Thankfully, we made it to Tia's by 3. We stayed up until sunrise, catching up and chatting before falling asleep on the foldout bed in her living room.
The next day, we slept in, and then met up with Tia during her lunch break for smoothie bubble teas at Vegan Tree. I got a strawberry and Alyssa got a coffee-flavored one. Most places we intended on visiting were closed because of Sunday, but we were able to stop at Wooden Shoe, the anarchist bookstore, and Dottie's, the vegan doughnut shop, before heading to a Walmart to rack a screen protector for her new phone. For dinner, we had cheesesteaks and root beer barbecue wings at Blackbird, the all-vegan pizza place. I wondered how much we could stick to only eating out at 100% vegan businesses.
True.
New Rochelle, someone added this nice raccoon.
Holy shit, was Long Island traffic full of douchebags.
3 Brothers Vegan Cafe!
A night with Philip Glass.
Why?
The Big Duck!
Tia and a nice strawberry smoothie bubble tea!
Dottie's!
A yarn-bomb creature I can only assume is completely made-up.
Walmart is prepared for it all.
Blackbird!
Yes.
This 7-11 discovery was so good.
DAY THREE
Monday, August 19th
I slept until Alyssa whined for me to wake up. We brought our bikes on this trip, and mine had spent the entire winter on the side of Tobi's house. Needless to say, it needed a tune-up. I brought it to South Philly Bikes, a very affordable and fair bike spot I'd gone to in the past. In the end, I needed a new chain, a new brake line, two new tubes, and my handlebars rewrapped.
While waiting, we went to Grindcore House, which I thought was the coolest cafe in the country. Aside from being unapologetically vegan, it was also just the coziest cafe I'd ever loitered at. I got an iced lavender latte with oat milk and their new Italiano hoagie, which used deli meat from the Herbivorous Butcher and Chao cheese! We sifted through their radical library and read through two great zines, which both criticized "representation" and posed that to aspire to representation within the mainstream media, and hence capitalism, was counterintuitive and only led to our identities being used against us.
My bike repairs came to only $60, which was covered entirely by donations from several very kind friends online. We walked to the post office so Alyssa could mail out something she sold on eBay, and we got there just in time to see some cranky old asshole tell the guy behind the counter to go fuck himself because he was told he needed to purchase postage to send mail back to someone. Then came a brief but powerful rain. We went back to Tia's house to relax a little before heading back out to Walmart so I could rack a new set of clippers to shave my head with, since I had apparently forgotten mine back in Voorheesville. It was suffocatingly humid out.
We spent the rest of the day on South Street. We stopped at Mutt's and got some graffiti utensils and then got dinner at Tattooed Mom, whose "Meatless Mondays" had their entire veggie sammies section priced at half-off. This meant burgers and wraps for like $3-5 each! So we got two chubbsteak wraps (steak, mushrooms, cheese, tots, and sriracha ketchup), one blackened chicken sandwich, and an order of cheesy tots for only $26. Much was left over.
Waiting for Tia to get off work, we took a stroll down to the end of South Street since Alyssa had never gone that far. We stopped in Condom Kingdom so she could see the smiley sperm fountain inside. A woman had fifty or so pieces of framed art, mostly of adorable black mermaids, along the outside of an abandoned building and said, "Welcome to my gallery!" Down at Penn's Landing where the sculpture "The Stroll" towered over us and the highway zoomed beneath, a lone man with a ponytail played saxophone to no one.
Back at Tia's, I shaved my head, which resulted in ugly and embarrassing groove lines in the stubble. It made me feel even more self-conscious than I already did. Life wasn't fun when you had to walk around looking like Leonard Mudbeard from the Angry Birds movie. The four of us played some pretty brutal Super Smash Bros on N64.
Grindcore House! Read Becoming Unrepresentable for free here!
A stream of happy sperms.
Tattooed Mom!
DAY FOUR
Tuesday, August 20th
After way too long of each of us scrambling around, we finally walked outside into the sun in hopes of going for a bike ride together. I put my legs over my bike and immediately realized my seat was unreasonably high all of the sudden, to the point that my feet couldn't even stay on the pedals--and thus began a half hour of me trying to figure out how the fuck to lower it. Several Allen wrenches later, I was hitting the seat with a rubber mallet, all to no avail. So we changed plans and got in the car.
First, we went to check out V Marks the Shop, Philly's premiere 100% vegan convenience store. I'd already seen them slinging snacks at a few vegfests and events at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, but I didn't know their brick and mortar had finally opened until that day. Apparently, they'd been up and running since December. Full of the goodies you expected of any convenience store, it went above and beyond that. They had jerky, chips, dried fruit, gummies, candies, crackers, baskets of produce, a whole wall of hot sauces, chocolates, candy bars, a section just of baking needs, a cooler of ice creams, cheeses, butters, puddings, edible cookie dough, dips and sauces, pickled foods, mayos, hotdogs, tofu, deli meats, a case of artisanal meats from the Herbivorous Butcher and baked goods from Vegan Treats, seafood, frozen pizzas and burritos, breads, frozen meats, condiments, packaged to-go meals of mac and cheese and wraps and lasagnas, cold brews, kombucha, energy drinks, seltzers, dried goods like noodles and rice and soy curls, canned meat, milks, frozen bags of fruits and veggies, pet food, cleaning products, and still so much more. And when I say they had these things, I mean they had them from multiple brands and in an especially comprehensive variety. In addition, they had a space in the back where you could sit, relax, and heat something up in the public microwave. They even accepted food stamps! Even more importantly, this place was owned and operated by good people who were very plugged into the community and doing so much for not just animal rights but also human social justice issues. We spoke with the woman working the register and found out about so many cool projects being born in Philly, like a vegan flea market and a horror movie screening fundraiser for animals called Texas Chainpaw Massacre. We only snagged a couple snacks for the road, but we knew we'd be back.
From there we started heading toward Glen Mills about 45 minutes outside of Philly in hopes of exploring an abandoned school for wayward girls called the Sleighton Farm School, which had been officially abandoned in 2001 and spanned a couple hundred acres amongst rural upper-middle-class houses. A few of us had tried to explore it a while back, but got stopped by a security guard paid to patrol it, so I was hellbent on getting in this time around. The property itself had been through several different iterations since its inception in 1826, but had always in one form or another served as a facility for juvenile delinquents. It began as the Philadelphia House of Refuge, founded by the Quakers and the Pennsylvania Prison Society. 70 years later, it collaborated with the notoriously abusive Glen Mills Schools to create a separate entity for boys. It wasn't until the first decade of 1900 that it developed into the Sleighton Farm School, an intentional rebranding with a "family setting". Nine dormitory cottages were built, as well as a greenhouse, a cannery, a powerhouse, an administrative building, a chapel, and agricultural centers. It was all girls until it went co-ed in 1975. Financial trouble was ultimately their demise in 2001.
We pulled into the park next door, which was littered with construction for a new oil pipeline being built. A small trail took us through some of the shrubbery to the first building we saw, which was the Farm Office Building that was once used by agricultural faculty. It was easy to get into through a loose board over a doorway and was mostly full of scattered papers from gutted filing cabinets damaged by both water and fire. Graffiti warned us about a big hole in the floor. There was no dead body inside the giant chest we opened. We went up into the attic, which was cleaner than expected aside from the predictable dicks spraypainted everywhere. Someone had hung up a fire hose leading from a rafter and out the window, I can only assume as a way for explorers to get in and out at one point. Across from it was a long red shed full of dusty desks, rusted machinery, furniture, and old mattresses. We followed the trail from there. We passed by the Stone Barn, which was once used as an office and mechanical repair facility, but it was mostly collapsed on the inside and left very little to be found. A garage next to it showed no way inside. The greenhouse was very eerie and beautiful. While it appeared completely hidden in shrubbery from the outside, the leaves still allowed light inside. Plastic pots still filled the flowerbeds. The Gray-Trent Vocational Center had originally been used as an army barracks during the first World War before being relocated to Sleighton as an education center. We went inside a spacious garage at the end of it because it was wide open. We entered the Campbell Cottage through the back, where a door was missing. We found a lot of documents lying around with meticulous logging of goings-on, ranging from fights between students to phone calls made, almost every half hour. Profiles of each student were typed out, and even by 2001 it was easy to become "committed" there for simply being uninterested in school or not particularly outgoing. We found a hall of dorm rooms on the first floor and they were identical to prison cells. Upstairs wasn't much different. Showers were cramped stalls. In the end, we went to the John Sergeant Administrative Building most visible from the road, where we had been "caught" last time. The original way inside had been tightly boarded shut, unfortunately.
After dinner plans, and backup plans, were ruined by several places' arbitrary decision to be closed on Tuesdays, we settled on a place neither of us had been to before: P'unk Burger. We weren't expecting much, but in the end we were all very into the place. I got the P'unk Beyond Burger, which was a Beyond patty stacked with Daiya mozz, avocado, special sauce, and onion rings, and we shared a side of shoestring fries and onion rings. Both my burger and the onion rings were among the best of either I'd ever had. For dessert, we got pretty little pastel shakes. I got the blueberry special, but because the base was coconut, it just tasted like coconut. I asked to replace it with the birch beer vanilla shake that Alyssa got, which was way better. Oh, and there were free refills on Maine Root sodas, including their glorious blueberry flavor.
This annoying, beautiful bike.
V Marks the Shop!
Exploring the Sleighton Farm School.
P'unk Burger!
DAY FIVE
Wednesday, August 21st
First things first, I went back to the bike shop to get them to lower my goddamn seat. Even they struggled with it, which relieved how pathetic I felt for not being able to do it myself. I got gas, and a boy no older than 12 asked if he could pump it for me for a dollar. I told him he could and gave him $5. I asked him some questions and he told me it was his only way of making money and that he'd been doing it all summer. I asked him if people were nice to him and he looked down and said, "Sometimes. A lot of them ignore me."
Back at Tia's, we decided to take a long bike ride down the Schuylkill River Trail. I'd always wanted to ride it, but never had. I was stoked to be getting back on a bike, but was also pretty intimidated. The weather was being described as "dangerously" hot.
It would also be my first time back on my bike in at least a year; owning a car and staying somewhere rural and far away from everything else made me very dependent on driving. The ride was really nice, and so were the views as we passed reflective skyscrapers in the sky, graffiti under train tracks, old and beautiful bridges towering over us, and sculptures. At one point, the tops of museums, gazebos, and even millionaire mausoleums in a cemetery overlooked us. I had never seen these hidden parts of Philadelphia before. Eventually, though, around three-fourths of the way to our end, my body started to hurt. It began with a subtle but sharp pain in my left calf muscle. We took a break underneath a bridge at a stone table and drank our waters. As we continued onward, that pain began in my other calf muscle, and soon enough it was shooting up into both my thighs. My ass was also killing me. I felt weak and pathetic and frustrated, and worried I was an inconvenience to Alyssa and Tia, who were riding perfectly fine. Maybe it was because I was on a single speed and they had multiple gears, maybe it was because I hadn't been on a bike in a while, and maybe it was just because I was a fat piece of shit--or all three. I powered my way to East Falls Bridge with them, compelled forward exclusively by stubbornness and shame. We took our time going back to take pictures and they both patiently dealt with my worthless broken body and short, insecure mental breakdowns. The (vegan cruelty-free) sunblock on my face melted down my forehead, mixed with sweat, and burned my eyes. I stopped for a nice dip in the Fountain of the Sea Horse and we sat and watched geese and an adorable family in the grass nearby. Thankfully, we got home right before another summer storm erupted.
After that, we drove an hour away through rain and rush hour traffic to a town called Malvern so we could regain all calories previously burned by the bike ride at a vegan Chinese buffet. We'd actually planned to eat at Sutao Cafe the day before, but they were one of many restaurants annoyingly closed on Tuesdays. We ate with reckless abandon, and I myself went through three full plates of food, a small one of apple pie, and a tiny bowl of fruit. And all for only $13.50! Some things I stuffed my face with included steamed kale, kidney bean salad, tofu skin, Chinese spicy noodles, hot and sour soup, sautéed collards and veggies, tofu with tomatoes, sweet and sour veggie meatballs, breaded chicken, steamed veggie dumplings, vegetable pancakes, spring rolls, veggie lo mein, vegetable fried rice, General Tso chicken balls, fried chicken with cabbage, peppers, and onions, and some other things I never even tried to identify before I put it in my mouth.
Back at the house, we watched a canceled Mike Judge cartoon called The Goode Family, which was basically the liberal version of King of the Hill, since the sole season that aired had been uploaded to Tubi. The family in it was vegan and the moral conclusion from each episode seemed to be that everyone was an awful hypocrite. It was fucking hilarious.
Bike ride on the Schuylkill River!
Radical graffiti everywhere in Philly.
Sutao buffet!