Big Leaf

March 11, 2026

• First and foremost, look at this giant leaf I found in an alley during my walk on Tuesday:

  

  I carried it home like a dog with a cool stick. It's on a shelf in my garage now. The big leaf mausoleum.

  I love walking in the alleys, by the way. A lot of life is happening back there. There's a lot to see.

• I had a weird, "circle of life" kind of weekend. On Sunday I met my baby niece for the first time. She's precious in every way. I've written a bit on this website about my grapplings with whether I want to be a parent. Lately I've been leaning towards no, but I wondered if meeting the baby would change my mind. It didn't. I think I can be happy being an aunt.

  Then on Monday I saw my grandmother for possibly the last time. Through an unfortunate series of events, she's been living at a senior care center in Middle-of-Nowhere, Wisconsin, for the past several years. She has absolutely no ties to that state; her closest family members are me and my siblings, who have to travel four hours round-trip from Minnesota to visit her.

  But now, finally, she is able to return to her home state of Ohio, where almost everyone she has ever known lives. It happened quickly, so we were not able to have the family gathering we wanted to say goodbye. I had a busy weekend, so I took Monday off to make sure I'd see her before she leaves.

  She is 88 years old, so it's possible I won't see her again. Almost my entire family lives in Ohio, but I haven't been there since 2012. Will I now make a point to visit now that she is moving there? I'm not sure.

  It's a strange thing to know that I might not see her again. We had a good talk, though. I finally asked her the burning family question that I've had for years. My advice is ask your family members your questions before it's too late. There are a lot of things I wish I'd asked my mom before she died.

• A weird thing about me is that I did not speak around my grandma until I was 8 or 9 years old. I'd whisper what I wanted to say to my cousin or sister, but I was way too uncomfortable to talk out loud. It was almost as if I physically could not. I'm told I was like this around my other grandparents too. I don't remember that, but I believe it.

  I was like that at school too. I rarely spoke. I even found an old elementary school report card where my teacher wrote that she was proud of me for talking more in class. At the time, the adults said I was shy. But I wonder.

  I've been thinking about this a lot. For one thing, it's an odd turn of events that my grandma has relied on my company so much in the past few years.

  For another, I think I'm still like this in some areas of my life. The prime example is at work. When spontaneously called upon in meetings, I feel pressured to answer instantly, sometimes before I've fully registered what's being asked. It's a crapshoot whether I will word vomit or find a way to articulate myself properly. I think of my actual answer when the moment has already passed.

  When I know in advance that I will speak, I often waste a stupid amount of time rehearsing what I'm going to say beforehand.

  And if there's no expectation for speaking, I usually don't participate at all. Obviously, I can speak. But it feels effortful, almost? It's hard to explain.

  I've often been told I speak too quietly. I even got an app on my phone which seems to confirm this. I don't know if it's accurate, but I literally feel like I am shouting if I speak at the volume it wants me to. Exhausting.

  In my last post, I talked about being passed over for promotion last year. Obviously, I understand that my weird talking stuff is part of the problem. There's more to it than that, though, since none of my coworkers are as weird as me but were still rejected. Our office politics have been ridiculous for the past few years.

  Why am I still talking about this? I don't know. Probably, I shouldn't be posting this. I should be updating my resume so that I can start over somewhere else with the renewed, sure to be short-lived hope of being less weird at work. Shit.

• Anyway, the other thing I did over the weekend was go to a fancy tea service. My friend and I do this every December for our birthdays. Except this year we had to reschedule due to an annoying as hell snowstorm.

  Every year they keep serving us goat cheese. I keep eating it and regretting it. But I'm not gonna not eat every single disgusting thing they give us.

  Maybe I can't articulate myself well in any form but writing (and even that is debatable), but at least I can choke down a stomach-turning goat cheese finger sandwich in 6 seconds flat.