By Mark Twain
Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity.
Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.
Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.
It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.
Geniuses are very singular.
If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.
If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.
If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.
If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.
If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.
But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.
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Paul had a good Tuesday -- he got a very nice job offer from a place he'd really like to work! I don't have a lot of excitement to report from my day, which involved various chores though some of them were fun. I'm still doing laundries, we had a lot of cleaning to do in the room Maddy left behind (that carpet will never be the same), and because I needed to get a comforter since she'd been using a twin on a queen bed, I decided that instead of buying a brand new set for that room, I'd put my not-very-old comforter gifted by my mother in there and get something more my style for my room, which Paul was there to approve because he dropped me off at the shopping center with Michael's and Bed, Bath & Beyond while he was at the dentist so I could walk around.
Tomorrow I am having an MRI on my lower back, which hopefully will tell me why it's hurting and won't be too complicated to fix (am really hoping for PT and/or cortisone, nothing more invasive or dangerous). I spent the rest of the afternoon rearranging the linens and cleaning upstairs, which is actually more comfortable right now than sitting at a computer. We watched The Flash, which can't wrap up the current story arc soon enough, and I won't say the same thing about Agents of SHIELD because it's way too late for it to wrap up the excruciating Framework and I no longer care if half the regulars die there. Genius, at least, was brilliant despite a dearth of Geoffrey Rush. Here are some photos from the Château de Puivert, the Cathar castle that once hosted troubadour gatherings:
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