it seems my life is a round robin of administration, writing, solitaire, cooking, cleaning, eating, TV, reading, although certainly not in that order and maybe even not that consistently done. The maintenance stuff, eating, cooking, cleaning,  is done with little or no thought, well, maybe a little thought to get through it. The thought is not always connected to the activity. Power washing the front and backyard walks was a good time to mind-ramble as I stood, waving the wand back and forth, cleaning the dirt off the concrete. But maintenance activities are different from administration, you have to think to administrate.

Administration from the original latin  administrate meaning [according to the University of Notre Dame Latin Language site] giving of help. Seriously? How many of us think of administration as giving of help. Maybe when we use it as a verb, as to administer which comes from the late Middle English: via Old French from Latin administrare, from ad- ‘to’ + ministrare give help or service.

Administration has become a word of burden, onus, mind numbing activity. Negative. Less to do with helping and more to do with the plethora of paperwork and red-tape and regulation, policies and procedures. Okay, self confession, I love policies and procedures. I think there is something hard-wired into some brains and not in others. Bayley and I seem to live with regulation tattooed on our spines. Meghan, I would think, not so much. Tom, hardly at all.

And, it’s sad that administrate is seen in a negative way, sometimes derogatory way. Think of other words that are thought of as negative;  bureaucracy, politics, liberal, conservative, bully. Bureaucracy was simply a system of government where the officials made the decisions. Politic at one time was being judicious under certain circumstances.  Liberal could mean used in generous amounts or broadly understood. Conservative was able to conserve, holding traditional values. And bully, at one time a term of endearment, or approval, i.e., bully for him.

I suppose it is a part of language to evolve. Like Gay now being ascribed to a sexual lifestyle when it used to be a term for ‘carefree, lighthearted, showy, bright. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee.  Sometimes I think it’s sad that some words have been turned against themselves.

Regardless, it is time for administration, no not a burden, but a fact.

like the fact that time is finite for me,  I think words that can come out of my brain may be finite as well. So, too many conversations, and yes, I do like to talk, too many postings on FB or too many emails, and I feel like I run out of words. Well. not words really, but the ways to put them together. I mean, I want the words to form ideas, pictures, bring forth emotions, stupefy, amaze. Which is really silly to the point of ridiculous. I mean, not many can put words together to do that. Sometimes I think we give far to many people credit for doing it, and then when you find a sentence, an essay or a story that does just that [the stupefy and amaze thing] well, you think all the good words have been used up. There aren’t many left.

I’m not a huge sports fan. S’matter of fact I rarely read the sports section, of any paper. But I have become a fan of Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal. In a recent article about  Rafe Nadal  he put you right there at the Wimbledon Men’s Finals when he opened with He invited him to a business lunch, and fired him. That’s what it felt like—brisk, efficient and a little ruthless. Rafael Nadal had been reeling Sunday, up two sets to one but drained of momentum when the rain opened up…Nadal scowled at the delay…but overnight in Paris, under a tarp cover, the red-brick dust got drier, and everyone knew what that meant. Nadal would be back in his kitchen, with his knife.  The paragraph builds, the sentences move you forward from one day to the next. Suddenly it’s Monday. Do you not see Nadal dissect Djokovic?

And Novak tries, he works it… Nobody makes reckless look more sensible than Djokovic, and on a muddy court, he began waving his forehand like a flamethrower, taking criminal chances. Yes, that is exactly the way Djokovic plays, and the imagery is extraordinary.

I read two newspapers per day, plus a book or two a week, depending, and I write, and answer emails and think. And, I’m pretty happy when I can read a sentence that forms ideas, pictures, brings forth emotions, supplies and amazes. And then I realize there are a ginormous number of words,  reusable, recyclable, retrievable, able to be reformed and made new. And. I am inspired.