Ticking

oversized school clock, dogsbody salvage

As in, clock. Looking for one on *tsy I just noticed that the most expensive versions, running, as they say, well into the thousands whether they are running or not, are also the worst photographs. Perhaps up in the modest stratosphere of *tsy-luxe,  photos don't matter. Noone's jockeying for treasuries in that bracket. But none are featured here, because they are trapped inside lurid, flash-bleached, drecky pix. Whereas this version, even though it is not exactly cheap, is reproducible. {Unlike me. Another story. My emotional offspring have a total of 36 legs, 9 tails, 18 ears and 378 teeth (give or take).}

In the olden days they said "tickings" plural. In the newen days we say "ticking" plural. Ticking, now, is a state of mind; a state of being; a hearkening; it implies a softer sense of reverse materialism in its humble weave. That it has become singular in plural form can probably be attributed to Martha Stewart in some way, since noone has been better since her heyday at turning a noun into an adjective and then up into an aspiration.

And speaking of feathers this was supposed to be an apologetic rebuttal to someone who does not believe I have chickens. I have not photographed them. But they do exist. So instead, I give you Xavier, right before he licked the lens of my camera the other day, which prevented me from photographing the chickens. Soon as Dad's shipment of lens cleaner arrives from his laboratory, there will be chickens. For now, there is X. X has an internal clock: when it is Time for Bed, he lets us know with a clear and steady look. He is the King of Dog On Bed. But when a dog can somehow manage to put his arms around you and sigh you to sleep on a deadline night, when the caffeine is bonging and binging around in your head and the words you wrote are threatening to self-delete and rewrite themselves if you so much as look away, he deserves it.