This all started when I was having a mani pedi at the Vietnamese nail shop. The lady doing my feet had on a ring that looked like a large chunk of crystal rock salt with a minimal setting. I asked her what kind of stone it was and she said I wouldn't understand if she told me.
About a month later I got a flyer in the mail from Gabrielle Sanchez, my favorite jewelry designer, in New York. There were four rings in the picture. One of them had a stone that reminded me of the Vietnamese salt ring. Another ring had a setting like I'd never seen before but grabbed me. Instead of prongs, the band was drilled into the stone from two sides underneath. And it was textured like bamboo. It was rough, sculptural and graceful at the same time. In my head, the two rings combined.
I wrote to Gabrielle and told her. The stone held by the setting I liked was Imperial Topaz, kind of smoky amber. I wanted pale pink. I wanted pale pink because I've recently re-embraced my pink skin. I used to have a too-rosy face and wanted a Gothic, pale one, like a tortured poet. Why did I have t