On Sunday I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening listing a few items for sale on eBay. This is the first time I've sold anything there, although I've been a buyer for many years. It seemed like the right time to start making back some of the money I've shared with eBay and its merchants. The template for creating the listings was pretty straightforward, but the process also involved:

1. Gather the items to be sold (a series of collaged bookmarks I've made over the last few months).
2. Find a suitable place to photograph the items (dog-, cat-, and kid-free, with the appropriate light).
3. Find the camera. Discover that I've left the memory card in the USB drive that is used to load the pictures onto my laptop.
4. Find the USB drive.
5. Take photographs.
6. Load photos onto laptop.
7. Realize that the pictures all look crooked and streaky.
8. Debate the amount of time it will take to edit and crop the photos (meaning, I have to learn how to do this) vs. just retaking them. Opt for retaking choice.
9. Retake photos and reload onto laptop. They're still a tad lopsided, but at least recognizable.
10. Write the description for the first item. Take approximately the amount of time it took Joyce to write Portrait of an Artist.
11. Remember the article I just read on how destructive perfectionism can be and race through the rest of the items.
12. Realize that in my haste to escape from the gravitational pull of perfection, I neglected to change the photos on each item and they all have the same picture. Think this might not be such a good marketing tactic.
13. Revise the items and repost.
14. Sit back and wait for the PayPal payments to roll in.
15. Gradually become aware that:
a. After paying the eBay fees, if the items sell for the listing price, I'll actually owe eBay money.
b. Nobody is buying my little crafts anyway, so I won't have to add eBay to my list of debts.

A few nights ago I had a dream that all the email addresses in the world were wrong - they were bad and created some sort of enormous security problem and were going to have to be erased and recreated from scratch. One of the uber-techno-geeks at work tried to explain it to me, but it involved stacks and queues and other terms that made my brain glaze over. At the same time, my company, which is in actuality located in fairly generic office buildings (some of which look like they're going to fall down at any moment to disguise the nature of the work that's done inside), had located to an ostentatious high-rise with soaring 20-foot ceilings in the marble and dark granite lobby. The Playboy company was at our offices for a visit, although it's unclear whether they were selling or buying. I felt disastrously underdressed in a frumpy jumper and old lady shoes. This is about the third time I've had a dream that involves wearing the wrong clothes (thankfully, there is clothing involved, and not the lack thereof). I believe it must be time to spend massive quantities of time and money on a complete wardrobe overhaul. With all that money I'm raking in from eBay.