Category: Blog

Keen followers may recall a particular post I made a few years ago where I attacked the ceramic cooktop and the implied lack of culinary appreciation their owners possessed.

…yikes.

To any and all who may have taken my comments to heart: I offer a sincere apology. The comments I made came from my own biased experiences with this sort of appliance. It turns out—and this might come as a shocker—my negative opinion of the ceramic cooktop stemmed from solely negative experiences with a ceramic cooktop.

In hindsight, as stupid, irritatingly obvious, and frustratingly satirical the feelings I had regarding the ceramic cooktop were, they—at the time—also felt like correct feelings. But in all honesty: I formed a negative opinion of the cooktop because it was different than what I was used to. I was unable to use it as effectively, no, as successfully, as what I was used to.

…yikes.

Why the change in attitude? Why the admission of ego‐based ignorance? My apartment now has a ceramic cooktop. And in learning how it behaves I’ve retroactively realized something odd: the first ceramic cooktop I was introduced to couldn’t have been real. It had to have been fake. A dangerous fake.

Back in 2011 I’d moved into a house with a ceramic cooktop. What I didn’t know then is someone must have taken a ceramic cooktop surface and installed it into the frame of a stove that was never designed for it. All the electronics and sensors that make it possible and safe for a ceramic cooktop to work were not there. This is why and how I would burn pots, ruin sauces, and eventually melt the glass surface itself. How could I have anything other than a horrible opinion of the ceramic cooktop? All the appliance did was ruin cooking I knew I could do better using any other sort of cooktop.

So how do I know the one at my old house was fake? Because my apartment now has the same cooktop, but this time it’s attached to the correct frame. It’s all electronically controlled. There are surface temperature sensors and rheostats designed for the ceramic elements. I hear them clicking away. Yes, there was a learning curve, but it’s one I’ve had time to appreciate and understand now that I’m not constantly burning everything. I can produce the results I’m expecting. I’m succeeding.

What are things people like in their life? Are they things that generate feelings of clueless and inept idiotic failure? Generally—no. The things people like in their life tend toward flattery. And I’ll admit it: I was little different in that regard when it came to the ceramic cooktop. Why have something in life that confounds when it can be ignorantly pushed aside under a flawed guise and have something comforting and familiar take its place instead. Sounds good, right?

Actually—no. Scale that thought up, warp severely with xenophobia, sprinkle liberally with racism, and that’s how genocide works.

…yikes.

I’ve written before on having nothing to write. And I’ve written a lot before about trying to write, about starting to write, and then… nothing. Nothing happens.

I’ve become the thing I dislike the most—words with no actions. I’ve talked a lot about words that I intend to write, and then don’t write them. Or I make it look like I’ve written them.

I’m still in Reykjavík—for fuck’s sake—still on my first day of a three week trip that I took almost two years ago. How does this happen? Well—it’s just a lot… And as I’ve often thought, I think that’s the point. Just pile on the lot—keep what can flourish buried under the lot…

Sometimes I think and feel a painter has it easy. They can paint for painting’s sake, their pigments looked upon as colours on a canvass, seen for the colours they might be, for the feelings they might evoke, for the scenes they might represent. Meaning becomes entangled in form, and interpretation fills in the gaps. Is it art? Of course it is—it’s a painting. It automatically qualifies. Is it saying anything? Well that’s the luxury of the media—even if it isn’t, or isn’t saying it well, it can be dismissed as “bad art” …but it still counts.

I paint with words when I write, the same way I paint with light when I take pictures. I put them on paper the way I do because they please me being in that order. The thoughts they evoke are a consequence of the arrangement. They are my notes, my music to my eyes.

---

I never knew
The sky could burn a hole into my empty head
I never knew
A smile could turn us into enemies instead
Oh, the never‐ending bliss of moments that you missed
Returning back like waves for second tries at luck
The luck you didn’t have back then but now that it don’t matter much
It’s easy love
And strangers acting like your oldest friends

It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna hold onto the innocence I got
It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna care for all the little things I got

I should have seen the signs
Clovers starting dying in the field
I shouldn’t be surprised
When all the sudden all of it is real
Oh, I tried to write a book but I misunderstood what I had seen
And so the story made no sense
And stories all depend on whose perspective you prefer
Is it an I or is it her
And does it matter in the end

It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna hold onto the innocence I got
It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna care for all the little things I got

I saw a film
And cried ’cause beauty has a way of crushing me
I took a pill
And sighed ’cause I’ve done things against which I believe
Oh, I think of you at night when my mind won’t stay quiet
And I’ve got someone sleeping peacefully at home
But peace don’t reach my bones
The sadness still remains and though I sing the same refrain
It all amounts to no one knows

It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna hold onto the innocence I got
It’s just a lot, it’s just a lot
I wanna care for all the little things I got

You get it right
You get it wrong
It never stops
It’s just a lot

---

I didn’t return to school this year because I couldn’t afford it. I’ve decided to tackle the mess of my past instead. The poor decisions I’ve made, the action and inaction that set my fate—all of it is getting clean up, piece by piece, debit by debit. I don’t care what that makes me. I don’t care anymore. I just don’t. The bonds, the constructions, the fabrications, the entire performance… The empire woven around me ceases to matter a little more as each day passes. And as each day passes, I know I’m one day closer to being free from it all.

As one of my impermanence biscuits says: Cleaning up the past will always clear up the future!

So, once more unto the breach, dear friends. Cry havoc—!

To the future—the undiscovered country—where there is treasure everywhere.

p.s. — Bonus points to all who know the context of the above…

I’ve heard of a picture being worth a thousand words—what about a picture of 23?

Breakfast has invigorated me—several cups of coffee did as well. I’ve walked back to a pond I passed by earlier in the morning before the city was awake. The sun is coming up, and I thought it might make for some good pictures.

Because of Iceland’s northern location on Earth and its trailing position within the time zone, the sun is not properly up until around 10:30AM. Local time tells me the day is just starting, but my near‐sleepless night on the airplane is telling me it’s still the middle of the night. The camera clock confirms it—4:35AM is what time it is back home, but here the birds are starting to chirp as night fades…

…and the ducks and geese are standing around on the ice looking cold.

I’m cold now as well, and as I turn to leave I see the spire of the church behind me catching the day’s first light. I’m not a religious person, but I do find religious buildings interesting as they are full of science and engineering—in this case the sunlight shining on the upper portion of the spire is demonstrating the curvature of the Earth.

And it’s also beautiful.

What’s kept me from posting anything in great detail about my trip is a new difficulty I’ve been facing on and off for a few years now, and that’s an inability to break down the steps needed to complete a large or complex task into clearly defined and achievable tasks. I used to be excellent at this, but I forgot somewhere over time that any and all things are finished not because one did everything at once, but because one did everything in sequence. How do I share almost three weeks of travel experiences and hundreds of pictures? The answer is deceptive in its simplicity: by sharing one story and one picture at a time. I read once solutions were easy—it was identifying the problems they solved that was difficult.

It’s now just before 6AM back at the end of January. I’m on a bus taking me from the airport in Keflavík to the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík. It will take about half an hour, and the same winds that were blowing the airplane around in the sky are blowing the bus around on the ground. I feel its crabwise motion down the road. The headlights of oncoming traffic dazzle in twisting chunks of sideways rain. We clear the storm and a quiet applause breaks out as we arrive at the bus station—our driver is congratulated on getting us all there in one piece.

The final leg of my journey is the 2.5 km walk I left for myself from the bus station to where I’d be staying. I’m prepared for it to be frigidly cold, but it’s not—maybe around 7 ºC—almost tropical with how warm and damp the air is. I vanish into the unfamiliar streets of city with only a vague sense of where I’m going based on the map I studied before, and then it hits me: I’m walking through the capital of Iceland at 7AM, and no one else is. I stop and look around. It’s just me. I scan the lit windows of buildings. Still just me. A brief moment of sleep‐deprived and disorientated panic spreads: no one else is here…

And then I hear something—something far away is slowly getting closer, a big, lumbering something: a street cleaner. I stare at it creeping closer to me, creeping closer down the empty and spotless street. There’s at least one other person here with me now. Panic fades. It starts raining and gusting wind. It’s the storm from the highway. I’m starting to notice I’m cold, tired, and hungry, but it’s still a few hours before where I’ll be staying is open, and at least an hour before anything else will be open.

I keep exploring the empty city as my legs grow officially tired of walking. My suitcase is too heavy now for either hand and I refuse to use the wheels built into the suitcase because the sound on the cobblestone everything is embarrassingly loud—although I don’t know why it matters as there is still no one outside to be embarrassed in front of—the rain no longer charming or tropical, it’s getting colder and aside from the operator of the street cleaner the only other people I’ve seen where warm and dry in a hotel dinning room eating breakfast.

Back home I know at any hour of any day I could find a coffee and croissant in most any neighbourhood of downtown Toronto. It may not be the best coffee or croissant or neighbourhood, but I know I could do it. As I’m thinking just that, I round another dark corner and find the block is bathed in the unmistakable omnipresent lighting found only in shops open 24 hours a day. It’s a convenience store, but with extra fancy things to eat and drink, including fresh croissants and fresh from the machine coffee, plus places to sit and watch Icelandic morning television. I am so happy to be warm, seated, and caffeinated.

Someone had left an English tourism magazine at my table, and as luck would have it there was an article on where to go for breakfast when visiting downtown Reykjavík. As double luck would have it one of the places in the article was down the street from where I was and would be open soon, so I waited and then headed over for second breakfast.

I’ve become one of those people who writes on their piece of fashionable technology in what at least looks like a fashionable place to eat breakfast and drink coffee.

After flying all night I found myself having walked for half an hour away from the bus station in Reykjavík with only a vague recollection of the way from there to downtown with the idea of watching the city wake up as I drink coffee and enjoy a croissant.

It’s 8:30AM and the sun is still two hours away from being up, and until around half an hour ago, the only people downtown were me and the guy driving the street cleaning machine—it would seem at least. I’m used to a larger capital city. It’s raining, but I find a 24‐hour grocery store after my third wander for something to eat. They have coffee and

…and that’s all I got down before my amazing breakfast arrived. More details are in this post from the day of. I did get a good picture of the restaurant, which to me felt like a mix of past and future breakfast nooks sprinkled with 70s decor via the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries. I like it.

The sun is just starting to come up as I’m finishing eating. The streets are filling with activity, but I’m not able to check into my room just yet. I’m tired, but I’m also on my third wind from my second breakfast, so I head out to get some of my first pictures.