about me

I’m 27 years old, and I live in the Pioneer Valley, Massacusetts with my cat, Kai.

I like fog, the seashore, Lindy Hop, video games, moshi, sushi, science fiction, fantasy, cyberpunk, bright colors, falafel, Swedish ivy, colors, green tea ice cream, kites, board games with lots of little pieces, horror movies, cribbage, molasses cookies, Nintendo, animals, hot baths, harassing cats (mine in particular), my PowerBook, polka dots, vintage clothing, hammocks, sweet tea, bamboo, lists, and many other things.

about blistered avalon

The phrase “blistered avalon” is a lyric from a Smashing Pumpkins song called “To Sheila”.

Twilight fades
Through blistered avalon
The sky’s cruel torch
On aching autobahn
Into the uncertain divine
We scream into the last divide

For me, the phrase “blistered avalon” sums up human life in all its complexity, as most of us poor unenlightened fools experience it. Everything is beautiful at its root, serene and peaceful - if you know how to see it - like the mythical island Avalon. But no life is perfect once you get past this silent core, and that’s when you see the scars, the pockmarks and the blemishes, as well as the blisters and calluses formed from rubbing up against the same irritants over and over. Pain and joy cannot help but coexist, or to quote the Tao Te Ching:

When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.

So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.

The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.