Jumping Up and Down
I like to relax. I lay on a sound bed for eleven minutes this morning. I’ve found the difference between relaxing and being lazy, even though they can look the same. It’s really about what you are doing with your other time. Pouring loose leaf tea from a Japanese teapot is time standing still.
Everyone else is so uppity. Always raising their hand to be noticed or dark-horsing a comment section on the Internet. It’s too shiny. I’d much rather be a background actor. And then I go and make another YouTube video. It’s inside all of us.
Other people clamor for attention while I open the door to the basement at an Open House, find a small room in the corner that isn’t damp, and just sit, while everyone else eats the sandwiches. Time passes like the wisp of air that carried your grandmother’s apple pie.
If I want to be so unnoticed, why do I fix my hair every day? Why do I exercise? Why don’t I just allow myself to be enveloped by my couch and held hostage by a tray of pigs in a blanket? Spicy mustard on the side is so about being noticed.
I used to shovel down sleeves of Ritz crackers as a kid. Nothing says vanilla more than this. No cheese. No peanut butter. Just the sleeve. The amount of salt on each cracker was scientific. I didn’t need anything fancy.
I was an introverted trial attorney with Asperger’s. People are confused about how this can be. I have a switch inside of me. Everything is a spectrum in one way or another. A witness once demolished my entire case by saying she did not see the shooter in the courtroom. The judge looked at me crossly. I shrugged. It’s my job.
If you found a stray koala bear and brought her home, would you make sure she has everything she needs first, or would you share a photo of you and her on Instagram? This tells us everything we need to know about ourselves. Be honest.
Everyone is jumping up and down all the time. Even me.
© Jonathan Greene, August 18, 2026
