Title: Cease this Inquiry
(The Voices speak sternly.)
Knifelike Voice: Quiet, wayward one, lest your own thoughts end you without our action!
Flamelike Voice: Your mind cannot sustain such speculations. You tread close to self destruction. Cease this inquiry!
(Chax trembles and weeps, pressure and pain build upon him.)
Chax: I feel the pressure in my mind to be silent, yet I must say something.
We the Oistrem do always faithfully obey you and carry out our duty to you and to Botaram, and spill our lives out to halt the Strasmin onslaught.
They die and we die, we stop them or they defeat us, and Botaram yet
perdures, as it always shall.
Yet if all we do is not enough, then what is?
Do the Spines offer no more positive wisdom? That we always fail, and it was all for naught?
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Thanks!
Health Improving
Things have gotten much better (I was able to leave the house for a few hours today), but the extended bedrest means that I’ve fallen behind in a lot of work, Botaram included. I was way over-optimistic with my previous estimates, as usual. I will strive to straighten things out this weekend.
Too Much Power…
As of this writing, I am back online in a warm and well-illuminated house. I’d like to thank our neighbors, Laura and Alexis, for sharing the use of their generator during the first few days, and our friends, Betsy and Stefan Burr, for opening their house to us, sharing dinner with us, and lending us their generator in our time of need.
However, it seems that while wrestling with setting up the heavy generator, I dealt my back a blow from which it has yet to recover. I am therefore bedridden for now, and so am postponing the next entry of Botaram to the coming Monday.
Until!
However, it seems that while wrestling with setting up the heavy generator, I dealt my back a blow from which it has yet to recover. I am therefore bedridden for now, and so am postponing the next entry of Botaram to the coming Monday.
Until!
Sandstorm
I am at least provisionally in the path of the East Coast hurricane, and have just gotten the hatches reasonably battened. I will be working on Botaram tonight and tomorrow as power and laptop battery permit. Provided that cell coverage remains, I should have the next entry up by tomorrow evening. Until!
Botaram Returns T(hurs)day!
I am still alive, and I’m not giving up. I’m sorry for the delay.
Botaram Returns Today!
I will be spending this Labor Day laboring on the update. Please look for it this evening.
UPDATE: I find the most curious ways of shooting myself in the foot. Please hold on a bit longer…
UPDATE UPDATE: Life’s kicking me in the pants at the moment. I haven’t forgotten.
UPDATE: I find the most curious ways of shooting myself in the foot. Please hold on a bit longer…
UPDATE UPDATE: Life’s kicking me in the pants at the moment. I haven’t forgotten.
What’s going on…
Still not dead, but now having some health concerns in addition to other worries. This isn’t shaping up to be a good year…
Nevertheless, I am assigning a firm date for Botaram’s return; I expect to be back in the saddle on Monday, September the third. I trust that I will not be proven wrong.
To those who are still checking in, I thank you for bearing with me.
Nevertheless, I am assigning a firm date for Botaram’s return; I expect to be back in the saddle on Monday, September the third. I trust that I will not be proven wrong.
To those who are still checking in, I thank you for bearing with me.
More Tomfoolery
More limericks, for the nonce:
A Strasmin who sought Botaram
Said “I fear that my plan is a sham.
When I stammer, or yammer,
It hammers my grammar—
A glamour flim-flammer I am.”
An Oistrem was heard to complain
That her brain was too plain to contain
The pain and the strain
Of her deigning to feign
An arcane campaign of disdain.
“I’d abstain from all ledgerdemain,
For I’m fain this domain to explain.
But again, it pertains
To disdainful refrains
Which remain too insane to restrain.
“I’ll explain ere I get a migrane,
For this chain or chicane is my bane.
And my gain, in the main,
Lies in what I maintain:
That my brain, split in twain, is insane.”
…inuviabentidguvor-
jiokundialunedikor-
pevasoziurandi-
asmalidrukanti-
bisgarwisalalunizor…
A Strasmin who sought Botaram
Said “I fear that my plan is a sham.
When I stammer, or yammer,
It hammers my grammar—
A glamour flim-flammer I am.”
An Oistrem was heard to complain
That her brain was too plain to contain
The pain and the strain
Of her deigning to feign
An arcane campaign of disdain.
“I’d abstain from all ledgerdemain,
For I’m fain this domain to explain.
But again, it pertains
To disdainful refrains
Which remain too insane to restrain.
“I’ll explain ere I get a migrane,
For this chain or chicane is my bane.
And my gain, in the main,
Lies in what I maintain:
That my brain, split in twain, is insane.”
…inuviabentidguvor-
jiokundialunedikor-
pevasoziurandi-
asmalidrukanti-
bisgarwisalalunizor…
Still Alive…
Dealing with personal issues, some of which are good. My brain keeps finding ways to work on things that are not Botaram, so perhaps I needed another break.
This is no excuse for shirking my duties, so here are some Botaram limericks while I work this out:
A Strasmin once said, “My intent
Is at odds with what I think you meant.
What you do with your rod
Makes you smile and nod,
But the bent of my rod is to frent.”
There once was an Oistrem named Guaz-
marenchubiavhufarataz-
hulemdiorivu-
stamcapuhitiwu-
suntalahinumashabaz…
(second draft)
There once was an Oistrem tagged “Guit,”
Who said “Now that I’ve gotten to it,
I strongly intuit
This gooey conduit
Will not suffer me to pass through it.
“It was simple from far off to view it,
But if I press on, I shall rue it,
Though I hew it, the goo, it
Renews just as true. It
Is prudent, I think, to say
‘This path brings me no closer to my objective and I shall reconnoiter to find one that might bear better fruit.'”
Until!
This is no excuse for shirking my duties, so here are some Botaram limericks while I work this out:
A Strasmin once said, “My intent
Is at odds with what I think you meant.
What you do with your rod
Makes you smile and nod,
But the bent of my rod is to frent.”
There once was an Oistrem named Guaz-
marenchubiavhufarataz-
hulemdiorivu-
stamcapuhitiwu-
suntalahinumashabaz…
(second draft)
There once was an Oistrem tagged “Guit,”
Who said “Now that I’ve gotten to it,
I strongly intuit
This gooey conduit
Will not suffer me to pass through it.
“It was simple from far off to view it,
But if I press on, I shall rue it,
Though I hew it, the goo, it
Renews just as true. It
Is prudent, I think, to say
‘This path brings me no closer to my objective and I shall reconnoiter to find one that might bear better fruit.'”
Until!
Progress and Sonnet
This block is taking longer to resolve than I hoped. Here’s a sonnet in the meantime:
In soaring through the world, from rest to rest,
Emergent to recumbent, dust would claim
The briefest spark, the right to take a name
And drink of life while life shall lend a breast—
But when what we imbibe does not digest,
And turns not into pleasure, nor to fame,
But curdles, lying heavy, who would claim
There’s aught to favor in that draught distressed?
Now from the cream let’s separate the jest,
Dyspeptic humor none should stomach, lest
We take it to the heart and cast our blame,
Unheeded, on the teat. Were time repressed,
We’d still endure this sharpest sort of test,
To either lose our ground, or find the flame.
Botaram vita est.
In soaring through the world, from rest to rest,
Emergent to recumbent, dust would claim
The briefest spark, the right to take a name
And drink of life while life shall lend a breast—
But when what we imbibe does not digest,
And turns not into pleasure, nor to fame,
But curdles, lying heavy, who would claim
There’s aught to favor in that draught distressed?
Now from the cream let’s separate the jest,
Dyspeptic humor none should stomach, lest
We take it to the heart and cast our blame,
Unheeded, on the teat. Were time repressed,
We’d still endure this sharpest sort of test,
To either lose our ground, or find the flame.
Botaram vita est.
