Before we start, I’d like to acknowledge how potentially insufferable I’m about to be. It won’t be the first or last time. With this in mind, I will still continue to type because A) these kind of self-serving, narcissistic posts are the most easy to write and B) I find it at least somewhat instructive to document, from time to time, the noteworthy happenings of this small little web log. If I didn’t celebrate the small victories, I wouldn’t celebrate anything at all, and once I finally lose it and quit the internet and move up into the hills, I can at least print all this off as a personal keepsake and proof that more than zero people ever read some words I wrote. Ahem.
Long story short: this blog was linked to in a post on the online sports and popular culture destination Grantland. Grantland is where Alex Pappademas writes the more than excellent I Suck at Football column, and through some fantastical Twitter machinations, somehow found it within his heart to link back here. No bullshit, I can’t recommend his column enough, and last week, as I was tending to my regular reading, I was quite literally gobsmacked when I realized what was going on. The immovable and unstoppable force that is ESPN contributed to the largest spike in traffic that this silly little site has ever seen, and so if nothing else, that is neat. This is a thing that happened and now I have written about it.
As a writer of baseball blog posts that no one reads, I often battle with discouraging thoughts, and sloth, and the considerable limits of my own intellect. Even after an encouraging bout of inspiration, and perhaps writing a post that I don’t instantly find to be completely repulsive, there is still the very real fact that probably not very many people will ever lay eyes on it (if you are one of those people, God bless you). This is how things are and that’s just fine, however, that particular idea has been had, it has been written about, and now it is gone. The words exist and the creative impulse served, and no matter how bad or good or transcendent the post in question may be, there is no getting it back, no reposting or recycling down the road when maybe more people might see it. In order to be successful at this nonsense (I think), one must put one’s best foot forward at all times, and cross one’s fingers. There’s no telling when the universe might click and the right person might stumble on over here, and so there is no saving of ideas, or stockpiling of prose, there is only your best try and your strongest hope and a great deal of nothing. The rare posts you’re proud of disappear quickly and then it’s time for the next one and sometimes that can be trying. This post was one of those posts. I didn’t hate it, I might have even liked it, but no one saw it and then it was gone and shit happens. A great deal of time passed and then it was linked to on a popular sports website. So that’s nice. I will take that.
The Trance of Waiting 