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.

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…

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!

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.

Recess – Question

Here’s a question I missed from Hamachisn’t:

“Why does Chax think the station was protecting Aun alone from the foe? Was not Chax in equal danger?”

Aun seems to have been the target of the attack by the “Nocturnal Migration,” as he attacked them when they scared him out of sleep. Chax did eat of the flesh that Aun cut off, but this probably went unperceived by the N.M.

Additionally, Aun feels that he’s being called by something to investigate deeper. This ‘call’ took the form of a rumbling noise from the ground. Aun and Chax don’t know yet what the source is, but the chances are fair that it’s some part of the station.

Chax does not perceive this call directly – it’s not his fight, though he has volunteered to aid Aun.

Taking all these things together led Chax to assume that the station is more concerned about Aun’s fate than Chax’s.