My topaz is weeping, Steph. There are other, non-yellow diamonds you can love too. Like pink and blue.

I've never gotten the diamond-love. I am all over garnets like a cheap rash, which works out well since they're my birth stone. I like any black stone too--onyx, anthracite, jet.

I don't think it's not cool. I don't think that it's cool to make men feel like they have to spend money that they don't have or want to spend to buy them, though.

To be fair, there's a ton more problems with diamonds than that.

My mom's engagement ring was a small, round opal set as the center of a silver flower. I inherited the ring, and wear it occasionally. One of the petals is broken, though; I need to get that fixed.

I'd rather have a garnet or amethyst ring that had been in someone's family for a while than a new, expensive ring. I like the stories around jewelry as much as the shiny. Of course, someone has to buy the ring around which the stories accumulate.

My birthstone is a diamond. And I like diamonds a lot, but I don't feel like they're very *me*, really. I can't see running to the grocery store in my jeans and sneakers and a big sparkly thing on my finger, when I generally wear silver and turquoise.

This conversation made me remember this Family Guy clip that may be one of the best encapsulations of the current jewelery-industrial complex I've seen. [link]

I love opals.

I like any black stone too--onyx, anthracite, jet.

Me too. I like all the sparklies - including fakes, but there is something about black stones that really draws me in.

Diamonds are sparkly and hard but pretty much not worth the cost.

They just issued a blizzard warning. Fuck.

And my windshield has a very long, horizontal crack in it. I watched it creep across my field of view while driving home this afternoon.

I like opals, too, and I coveted my mother's small aquamarine ring when I was a kid.

I also wanted a coral ring like Amy got in Little Women.