About two hours into our flight from Philadelphia to Cancun, I discovered that I had committed The Biggest Fuck-Up of All Time … like, to the extent that I knew it would be best for my marriage if I just went ahead and threw myself out of the aircraft. Which was a shame, really … because everything had been going so well.
Buffoonery
Still headbanging after all these years
![](https://jonzal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/headbang.jpg)
There are so many things wrong with this photo (not the least of which is the fact that I was standing in the bathroom at midnight taking a picture of myself in the mirror), or at least why this photo came to be, that I hardly know where to begin.
When up on the roof, there arose such a clatter …
It wasn’t that I thought placing the ladder’s feet on the cement-and-flagstone walkway was necessarily a good idea … it’s just that that’s where I needed it to be in order to properly secure the Christmas lights to the gutter above the front door. I already had tried standing on the threshold of the doorway, but I couldn’t quite reach the gutter from there. A stepladder probably would have been the way to go, but it was getting darker and colder and I already had spent more time than I could afford trying to string up all of this holiday cheer, so fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen?
Subject: No cellphone
To: [Lots of people]
Hi, this is Jon. I can’t get to the phone right now because it shattered into a million pieces on Interstate 95 early last evening. Its pieces are intermingled with those of the six-hour-old BlackBerry Curve that I received from my employer yesterday. I left both on the roof of my car while transporting my family from point A to point B. Total estimated retail value: $700.
If you need to reach me, please call me on my home phone … which I probably won’t answer, because I’m busy throwing up.
Thanks.
I propose a toast to you, my readers
![](https://jonzal.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/toast-1024x768.jpg)
So, yesterday morning, I went for a short run (redundant, really, since “short” is the only kind of run I ever seem to go for, if at all), and returned home feeling all fit and spry — and hungry. This last part is always a challenge, because the extent of my culinary abilities is limited to boiling and toasting — or so I thought. Turns out I can remove “toasting” from my cooking résumé.