One nice side effect of practicing law is finding obscure and archaic words nestled in the proverbial fine print. While browsing through the Notaries Public Act to make sure I'm doing it right, I ran across this clause:

A notary public may, during pleasure,
...
(e) demand, receive, and have all the rights, profits and emoluments rightfully appertaining and belonging to the calling of notary public.

Emolument. Apparently it comes from the Latin emolere, which is to produce by grinding, and it means compensation for employment.

Employment is a grind, but notarizing documents is one of the least grinding ways I've had of earning my emoluments.

This is a fascinating image.

What is the quality that makes writing poetry? I think it comes from a complete lack of premeditation. Hovering on the edge of the next word and being surprised/amused/uncertain when the next word appears. But still, it's not that easy. It takes a lot of concentration. Maybe the effort of not premeditating? Of stifling expectation?

In any case, I can remember the feeling of writing poetry: the intense effort, the excitement, knowing physically this is poetry.

But I can't seem to do it anymore. I'm thinking while I'm writing. And it's not poetry, it's just stale.

Did learning law do this to me? I'm not convinced it didn't.

Soldiered through an Aldous Huxley novel this weekend; it's set in 1922 and apparently very satirical, although the finer points of the satire were likely lost on me. Had a vague sense as I read that life or at least literature is passing me by. Novel-reading is such a habitual, vaguely wholesome way to spend time. The lingering sense that it's good and valuable to read, read anything. Not that I didn't enjoy it, Huxley can be hilarious, it just seems odd to pluck a novel so clearly directed at its contemporary moment and read it with so little context, so aimlessly. It would be like reading Generation X in 2076 and wondering what on earth Douglas Coupland is ranting about (or like another less-than-17-years-old example...).