Diamonds Are Not a Girl's Best Friend...

...but oh, I have been pretending that they are. Last night, I went to Amazon to check on the status of an order, and on the first page there was a "Create The Ring of Your Dreams" link, which lets you choose the price, quality, cut, clarity, color, and style of your engagement ring. Then when you've found the diamond that you wanted, you choose the setting. Now granted, I want an emerald ring for an engagement ring (if Boyfriend and I get to that) because a) I love emeralds, and emerald is my birthstone; and b) the two of us have ethical issues with diamonds, and their propensity to be blood diamonds, even though there is a ban on importing them. But a girl can dream. Here are the specs on my perfect diamond ring:

Diamond Specifications

Stone shape: Round
Carat Weight: 1.02 carats
Cut: Ideal
Color: E
Clarity: VVS1
Certificate type: GIA
Depth %: 61.4
Table %: 57.0
Symmetry: Very Good
Polish: Excellent
Girdle: Medium-Slightly Thick Faceted
Culet: None
Fluorescence: Medium
Measurements: 6.39 x 6.47 x 3.95 millimeters
Length-to-width ratio: 0.99
Diamond Information
Certification: GIA
This diamond comes accompanied by a diamond certificate grading report from the GIA.View certified diamond grading report for this diamond
Cut: Ideal


This diamond is cut to extremely exacting proportions of depth, diameter, and angles that allows for maximum brilliance (white light returning to the eye), dispersion (the play of colors you see in a diamond’s reflections), and scintillation (sparkling flashes that are seen when the stone, light source, or viewer moves). Diamonds with an Ideal cut grade are more rare and costly than a diamond with a Very Good or Good cut grade.
Color: E
This diamond is considered colorless but may have a slightly different degree of transparency than a D color, which is only noticeable to an expert grader under laboratory conditions. Diamonds with a color grade of E are very rare. They appear a brilliant white in the setting and will cost slightly less than a D color, depending on other quality factors.
Clarity: VVS1
This diamond is very, very slightly included to the first degree, which means that there are minute inclusions that are very difficult to see under 10 power magnification by a trained gemologist. The average person would have to look at the diamond for a long time under magnification to discern the very tiny pinpoints or polish marks that distinguish this grade from IF. With a VVS1 clarity grade, there is no possibility of seeing any inclusion with the unaided eye. For someone who values purity in a diamond, this grade offers a very rare clarity at a lower price than FL or IF clarity grades, depending on other factors.

My Ring

And all for a mere $11,435 (that includes the $435 platinum setting). If I add another $7.50 to my cart, I'll get free shipping!

Booty Call (Heh Heh)

I drove down to see boyfriend in Neighboring Southern State on Saturday night, kind of out of the blue. I had talked to him earlier in the day, and he seemed a little puny, so even though I couldn't afford it, I drove down to see him. I waited up at the restaurant for him to clock out, drinking a margarita at the bar, and watching America's Got Talent without sound, because Bad 80's Music was playing loudly in the background. Who knew Sirius Radio had a Bad 80's channel?

Anyway, he and I talked and made love (it's always "making love" with him, he's such a romantic softy), and then yesterday morning we went to IHOP for breakfast.

I was really glad to see him. I've missed him bitterly.

St. Pete

Last night, I was missing Grampie pretty bad--crying even. It occurred to me that yesterday was a week since his funeral. It seems crazy to think that he's already been gone 11 days. I know that, blessed, sainted man he is, he's in heaven, which he believed in (though, he was afraid that he would go to hell--why he would think he'd go to hell is beyond me), and I know that he's at peace and happy. But I miss him.

You see, he gave me the world. When I was 15 he took me with him to Canada, since my G'ma had no interest in traveling. And when I was 16 he took me to Ireland, and we toured the country, and ended up meeting some of his father's family. He had always wanted to go to Ireland. And, as a matter of fact, he had wanted to go back, in the late 1990's, but by then my G'ma was too frail and he felt like he couldn't leave her in the house alone. So he never did go back, and I know that it was a sadness for him, because he felt a kinship with the land of 1000 shades of green.

But he gave me more than these trips. He gave me laughter, and humor, and interest in social justice, and he helped us all through our lives, giving a little money here or there when I needed it--for instance, he gave me $3000 towards the downpayment of my Nissan truck in 1997, when the crap 1984 Pontiac Sunbird that I had been driving finally gave up the ghost. He was kind and thoughtful and loving. In many ways, he was more like a father (even long distance living in Maryland) than some paternal unit of mine I could mention.

I'm glad he's not on all those tubes anymore. I'm glad he's with Jesus, whom he loved, and his brothers and his sister and everyone who mattered to him who died before he did. But I am sorry for myself, and sorry for this world, because it has lost someone precious.

P.S. If one more person says to me, "He was 90 and he had a good run," I'm going to deck him. This is what the b/f said to me, and I'd still like to kick him in the ass. So he was 90! Does that cavalier attitude lessen the loss I feel? Um, the correct answer, Bonehead Boyfriend, is no.

Schadenfreudelicious!

Last night, I heard from a friend that I had not talked to in quite a while. Last Novemember, he moved, and he never reconnected his Internet. He also didn't bother hooking up his phone. He basically vanished.

I met him 2 months before I left Midwestern City, Midwestern State, and I fell hard and fast for him--the term "crazy in love" comes to mind. He was beautiful and funny and smart... and a little dangerous. A man with a past. In fact, when I knew I was going to graduate from Midwestern U, I began to look like a madwoman to find jobs just so that I could stay and be near him--I was the anti-feminist, in other words. I was so besotted, that I would have given up moving to this crap Southern city, and not take this crap job, if he had given me the slightest encouragement to stay. I would have done some crap retail job just to be with him. But, instead he told me I needed to go, and so I did.

I called him every day for the first few weeks. We had been in the habit of talking on the phone every day, if we didn't see each other. But after several weeks, he told me to "move on," which was brutal, and unkind, but I tried. And dated a string of idiots in the process.

ANYWAY. Last night, he was online--apparently he was hijacking someone's WiFi--and it was great to talk to him. Especially because (and this is petty, and I apologize) he told me that this wonderful woman that he was dating and crazy about (as of 4/06--the same woman he told me not to be jealous of, and not to wish I was her, just so I could still be with him!) is a bitch, he hates her, he never meant to date her (he just "fell into it") and he is just picking his time to break up with her.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! SUCKA!!! You know, I may miss that man a lot--I miss his friendship, I miss him in bed, I miss his laugh--but I don't think much of his taste in women! He could have had me! But he chose Little Miss Petite & Perfect and she has fucked him over.

Sometimes, life is sweet. Petty, but sweet.

Back at School

And so I find myself back at the ol' grind, doing the same crap I keep doing, and wondering what the hell is the point.

College teachers are a dime a dozen. And that's about all they get paid. I really think I want to become a secretary. I think I'd get paid more, and I wouldn't have papers to bring home with me.

Qu'est-ce-que c'est le point?

Fare Thee Well

My grandfather died; the funeral was this past Friday. It was horrible to say goodbye, but it was more horrible watching him suffer in the hospital for all those days, on all those tubes.

I don't think much of a "science" that keeps people "alive" when they so clearly should be allowed to rest.

I am just so much devastated by his death though.

Pneumonia Again

I thought this would finally be the weekend I could escape down to visit Butterfly Cauldron in BR. I'm finally over my cold. And then my grandfather went into the hospital with pneumonia again, and my mother needs me here.

I feel like crying.

Why God?

Between having headaches or migraines almost every day for the last 3 weeks, insomnia, a cold, and general depression, it's a wonder I'm even alive.