Stones

Today's pointless photo isn't of stones. I didn't have one of stones, so you're getting Fireweed seeds instead. I kind of like this one. Not bad detail for not having a macro.

Did I mention that I don't have a macro?

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I've been watching bad jewellery shows on the home shopping network again (read that as: sleep's been kind of sucking again) and it occurred to me that I'm developing a slightly weird -- or let's say not quite mainstream -- taste in stones. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like a nice stone (but maybe not the takes-up-half-your-hand type of stone usually featured on the aforementioned bad jewellery shows). I'm currently wearing that ring of my mom's that's probably an aquamarine since it was her birthstone. Hang on... bad picture from last year here. I rather like my grandmother's topaz rings, especially the more natural-coloured one. I got mother of pearl in my high school ring because I was ticked that Josten's only offered fake birthstones.

But.

More and more I'm finding that I'm just not into arbitrarily expensive stones. Let's face it, ladies (and those of you men who are jewellery types). Some of you are paying way too much for prestige stones when there are other cheaper and often better looking alternatives out there.

One of the advantages of watching the bad jewellery shows is that since they're trying to offer "affordable" jewellery they go out of the box a bit to find their stones. You're not going to find much more than diamond chips in those pieces (and diamonds are stupid anyway. Don't be fooled by the whole diamonds are a girl's best friend thing into paying too much money to a monopoly for the privilege of wearing a stone that was probably mined by an exploited worker), but you will find a whole bunch of pretty things that you've never heard of. Oh sure, many of them have been renamed to appeal more to the average uneducated consumer, but if all you want is a nice looking thing to put on your hand or in your earlobes, then who cares if you've never heard of the rock before, or if you find out that the whateverite you've been admiring is just a piece of coloured quartz that they've given a spiffy name?

As long as the price doesn't go up too much to fit the new name, of course.

I'd sooner have stones be interesting than expensive anyway. Most of the mainstream stones you're going to be finding in the kind of jewellery I can afford (i.e. cheap) are heat or radiation treated anyway to make them look more vivid (and fake) so why not go for the natural stone that might not be so well known then? I've said before that as I get older I'm finding that I avoid fake nearly as much as I embraced it in the 80s. Give me a nice piece of jasper over a heat-treated emerald any day.

Anyway, that's enough bad jewellery talk for now. I need to get back to work. If anyone's interested, it's rose quartz in my ears today. I guess I was in a stony mood for some reason.