Who retires in spring training anyway?

Ah, best intentions.

I began this writing project with the best intentions to put to print (or to Web) thoughts about what I consider an intriguing and important medium of art and entertainment.

Yeah.

Best intentions are worth about as much as the Red Sox organization's sudden re-welcoming and symbolic retirement of Nomar Garciaparra. Sure, they signed the former Sox shortstop to a one day contract so he could announce his retirement form pro baseball nearly six seasons after the Sox traded him away. They traded Nomar because he was miserable in Boston and though he was still loved, so many fans were glad to see him go since it seemed nobody could tolerate any more his public disenchantment with the Larry Lucchino/John Henry/Terry Francona team. But more than that, the once eager and agile Nomar seemed to be looking for excuses to sit back and watch the game from the sidelines while his teammates and competitors busted their humps to win games and make the playoffs. The Nomar of April through July of 2004 seemed like he'd become sick of the work involved with playing and winning. Yeah, it was work because while just a game to us, he was being paid vast sums of money and like even a lowly cubicle worker at a nameless company, people who paid Nomar and those who paid to see him play expected a certain effort from him on the field. Not that he didn't put on some good performances the first half of the 2004 season, but more noticeable was Nomar's annoyance with the effort involved.

No matter what the reasons, he was visibly tired and the fans and Red Sox office were even more tired of watching him be tired of doing his work. So in July 2004 the Sox traded him to the Chicago Cubs. Then, once he was gone a bunch of people grumbled that he was gone. But when the Sox won the 2004 World Series without Nomar, few said that they could've done it with him. So, despite the public's grumbling by fans about Nomar's departure Red Sox fans rejoiced that Nomar returned (briefly) to leave baseball as a Red Sox. It was more than a little silly but I guess time heals wounds. Nomar was back and ended his career where he began and since he'd left the Sox had won one and then another for two World Series titles. Yaaay! Everybody wins!

Bah.

What does all that mean? It means that I am familiar with the sentiments on all sides of yesterday's Red Sox mini drama. More than two months ago I vowed to myself that I'd finally start writing things down and hopefully create my own little pile of writings about mostly movies and some other stuff that intrigues me. Like baseball, my thoughts and interests might interest others and leave many more unmoved in any way. At any rate I figured it was a good way to keep myself somewhat mentally limber or at least tell a few friends, "Oooh! That was cool, me like big 'splosion movie!!" However, I got a few pieces written, made some notes for a few more and then sort of drifted away from the whole process after about three weeks of unfocused attempts to pick up with my pet writing project.

But now I'm back. I've resigned with Team Repeat Offender to continue what I started. I'm looking back at my Nomaresque disenchantment with the time and effort that it takes to sit down and write something and I find it amusing and rather lame. After all, what is more self-indulgent than to find excuses to think one's own self-indulgent pet project too difficult and time consuming to evenings mostly spent watching television, movies or reading books? If I'm slothful enough to do that I think I can spend a larger fraction of my sitting time trying to write something that involves organizing thoughts into hopefully coherent observations about cinema.

A good friend of mine has also mentioned his recent attempt to get back to his own writing. He mentioned that he'd gotten sidetracked again and again from his writing because of this that and the other. And because, ugh, it is hard and takes up time that could be spent doing other things and hey, I should do some laundry and oh, what did Netflix send me today? Oh, don't want to watch that right now but maybe I'll catch a few episodes of Dexter on the Internet. Yeah, it's just such a pain when the effort of doing something we decide that to do full or part time becomes such a drag. Heh. But isn't that the rub? Anything worth doing takes some effort and sometimes the most rewarding things take the most effort. Especially if it is a new skill. Few people start a thing and are really good at it. They might find a certain aptitude or intuition toward what is right or what works better than another method but there is a great deal of effort needed to get beyond that hump.

So, like my friend who just wrote about trying to write in order to get back to writing, I hope you'll forgive me my little piece about how the difficulty of doing something can make the effort needed to do it. It'll might get us traded right before we might've won the World Series.

So, that said, let Nomar and Red Sox fans everywhere enjoy the fact that Number 5 came back in time to leave. I'm going to try to stick around rather than force myself into retirement.
And anyhow, if I quit this writing project I'll at least walk away after the season ends rather than in the middle of spring training. Now, back to the batting cages I go...