Gina

I found this gorgeous necklace at a sleepy little store on 18th Street, on my walk home thru The Mission tonight. It is smokey quartz!

I almost never buy myself jewelry. This is mostly a class thing. I am an artist and a femme and a lover of most things that are bright and glamourous and beautiful, and still: It is really really really incredibly hard for me to justify getting myself a pretty thing just for the sake of having a pretty thing! When I have any extra money (and extra means “beyond my incredibly modest baseline grad student + working artist + hustler budget”), I’m usually either in a mind-set of “Great, what debt can I pay off now?” or “Yay, Savings!!!”

Also, on the rare occasions that I have bothered to get myself a bauble, it’s usually been either hella cheap super flashy draggy stuff (flowers! feathers! sequins! glitter!), or more steampunky stuff. I love old typewriter key necklaces and necklaces made out of dictionary cut-outs and sheet music cut-outs and map cut-outs, necklaces made out of compasses and old watch faces, those kinds of things. I think that this has to do with being a writer and also just being nerdy, in some ways. I love wearing words and wearing writing & thinking utensils. (This is also why I have two text tattoos.)

But this necklace, I dunno. It just kinda sung at me, and it was surprisingly cheap. And I’m trying to do nice things for myself every once in awhile Financial Scarcity Issues be damned. So why not, right?

Happy belated birthday to myself, I guess.