How to clean a cooktop

So, is your cooktop so filthy that someone should take a culture of it in order to see what nasties reside on it? Is it throughly and horrifyingly crusted in unidentified burnt on cooking goo? Is it haunted by suppers past? If so, I have a solution that doesn't involve killing it with fire.

1) remove any removable parts, knobs, those heavy metal things that pots rest on while the burner is going, soak in kitchen cleaner, baking soda and warm water.

2) brush away any loose debris, stray incinerated pasta, etc from cooktop onto floor. Sweep away.

2)thoroughly spray 409 on bare cooktop.

3)sprinkle baking soda over 409.

4) wait 20 minutes, clean soaking stove top parts, let dry.

5) with paper towels, wipe away now loosened grime. Depending on how bad off your stove top was, this may require some scrubbing.

6) sweep away remaining baking soda.

7) finish off with light coat of 409 and polish.

8)put knobs and parts back on the stovetop.

Your cooktop is like new.

Hat tip, my old roommate Anthony. If it's a lifehack, he knows about it.

That was some odd, odd yoga.

I tried Kundalini yoga for the first time this morning. Expanding on yesterday's theme of stretching oneself, I decided to try a different style of yoga than I usually do. I was in luck cause there was a free class today at the bookshop I work at. Kundalini is more breathing focused than it is stretch focused, but there's still plenty of challenging movement. Sometime mid class I found myself completely zoning out in some sort of deep state. I know I wasn't sleeping, there weren't dreams, but my thoughts were vivid and lifelike. Yeah, I'll do that again.

Stretching myself out, expanding for growth.

My friend Apryl has a phrase "do everything wrong. I say that "everything's worth the experiment". I will often buy some new art supply with no clue how I was going to use it until months later. Sure, I know it sounds like hoarding, but I love diving into my stash and thinking "let's see how this will work!".

I used to say things like...

"I will only draw my lines in black, then do the fills in color"

This thinking is self limiting. Who came up with this arbitrary rule? Me. Why does this rule need to exist? It doesnt. I'm guessing I was self limiting in order to keep my art from "sucking". I should not defeat myself this way. I'm lining in color on black paper now and the results are stunning.

"I'm never singing on stage again"

I sang from 4th grade to the time I GEDed out of high school. Then I defeated myself by smoking. After a long time of being out of practice, I tried karaoke in college and I sounded like a wounded toad. Eventually I started hanging out with lots of musicians and going to karaoke a few times a month. Last time we went, I had everyone singing "Part of your world" along with me. I felt drunk with the power of gripping an audience and the feeling had to be replicated. So I backup sang on stage last week. Baby steps.

So, how do you folks limit your self limiting, self sabotaging behaviors?

And we're back...

Hey peeps, it's been a few years there. Last I posted I was on the edge of what became my art career and I was waffling about staying with my exhubs.

I'm restarting the blog, so here's an update.

In the past three years I got to live with lots of different people in lots of different apartments. I think that this was good for me, my views on humanity broadened. I joined and broke up with a metal band, some friends who I thought were forever seem to have floated away, some have returned, and I made even more new awesome buddies by being involved in the NYC indie music scene.

I work a hodgepodge of freelance jobs. Most sane people would consider me unstable and dead broke if they saw what my take home was, but this is the happiest I've ever been.

I've been in a pretty awesome relationship for over a year now. N was the one who got me involved in the indie scene. I'm in a new band now. Or at least I hope were becoming a band. Rivky Gee and friends just had our first gig at The Bitter End. I handcrafted all the merch. I think we can call ourselves folk-cabaret with metal and blues tendencies.

This was once a blog about leaving orthodoxy. That ship has sailed.

I used this blog to kvetch about my fairly unrelatable relatives and in laws. No more.

I think I'll keep this space for reviews, how tos, craftsy things and interesting observations too long for facebook.

See you on the other side,

Ary S.