I wouldn't. For one thing, you don't know how heavy the metal is. You don't know if the stone has been dyed or otherwise treated with lasers. You don't know if it contains flaws visible only to the jeweler's loupe (or my naked eye). You don't know if they're telling you the truth, even if it IS pretty.

I've been buying my own jewelry for years, mostly saving and paying cash on top of my other savings and charitable and artistic contributions. I go to a local store that's been in the same family for several generations. They know me. I know them. They don't make me a price, but their prices are considerably less than the midtown markups. And they specialize in the sorts of stones I like, which tend to be the exotics. It's better to work with people you know, especially while you're learning.

Why do I buy the stuff? It's pretty. It's my precioussssssss. And if it's estate jewelry chances are, it's not touched by modern warlords. Personally, I have as much fun learning about the gemstones as I do wearing them. Well, almost.

BTW, I doubt if there's a Socially Conscious reverse snobbish line I haven't heard. You're welcome to try, though.

I regard jewelry as art, and I also collect art.

Beauty appeals to me.

As I said -- which apparently you were too busy having a Social Conscience Group Hug to notice -- savings get done. Charitable giving gets done. Everything in its place.

If you see all jewelry as ostentatious, you're looking at the wrong jewelry.

I don't tell you what to do with your money: why do you take it on yourself to lecture other people?

Please stop beating yourself up. You're in the position that most of us who've invested are, and you've got a long time horizon in which to recover. A couple things to remember: until you actually need the money, it's paper profits. Over time (more than a century) the markets' direction has been upward (although with some NASTY plunges, one of which we're now in).

I'm frankly more concerned about several things I read from your letter:

1. Are you buying individual stock positions? It's going to take a long time to achieve financial diversification that way. Mutual funds? Are they diversified? Growth and value, various levels of capitalization? Are they suitable for the level of risk you can tolerate?

2. Your husband is buying CDs. What if inflation shoots up?

3. You seem to be doing this separately -- and you have at least 25 more years to go until retirement. You are not working as a team, which is not the best financial habit to develop.

4. You're afraid to tell him. This is not a pair of Manolos you've splurged on; this is your family's future, and you should be in this together.

5. You're not doing this with an advisor. Find yourself someone you respect and ask for a referral or two. Interview these advisors. They will give you complimentary consultations. See what they recommend. Make an informed choice, if you intend to continue investing.

6. You are not in this alone.

And it doesn't make you a bad person. The two of you need to work together rather than behave like Lucille Ball sneaking a hat past Ricky Ricardo. For you, perhaps a workshop on women and investing could give you more confidence. What's interesting is that the two of you seem to have reversed gender "styles." Start over now, and good luck.

I thought the tone of this article did surrogacy as a process no favor.

The class analysis especially grossed me out.

It isn't that this character's a zillionaire, it's that she's a smug, narcissistic, control-freak of a zillionaire.

I'll never be able to read her articles again without flinching.

How nice of you to psychoanalyze an esthetic and moral reaction.

Maybe one day, you'll learn to do it like an adult, not a gradeschooler.

All I know about the woman is what she wrote, and I was grossed out. Just as I'm grossed out by your petulance.

Have a lovely holiday.

The guy's been doing a farewell tour or hiding in the White House. Obama's out there dealing with the economy and talking foreign policy, and meanwhile, Bush is -still- playing gynecologist?

Why couldn't he have sloughed this off too?

I wish she were happier and less damaged.

I'm not looking forward to those two dates below Princess Leia's picture.

I think it's meretricious -- from "meretrix," or a practitioner of one of the world's oldest professions (the other is probably "moralizer").

Before I was a feminist, I was a well-brought-up girl from Ohio with much the same advantages (though my blood was and is more red than blue); and both of us think it's tacky.

What happens to people like that when their looks start to go off? Am I really going to talk about character and morality?

Nahhh. She's not worth the bandwidth.

There's always someone smarter, richer, better looking, or more accomplished with whom your psyche will ambush you. ESPECIALLY at graduation reunions. College reunions are even worse.

So don't go.

I suspect that most people have some sort of status anxiety, if not for their present status, then for their past status. Hell, if you dig deep enough, everyone's got SOMETHING that wakes them at 4:00 a.m. and makes them want to beat their heads against the wall in mortification.

That's how you feel right now. Feel it, then focus on the list you provided in your letter and keep focusing on the direction in which you want to go.

Go or no go, don't beat yourself up, guilt trip yourself, or batter yourself with shoulds. I don't think Everest is very nice this time of year, if you're minded to Trek; but I'm sure you can find someplace more interesting to go than your reunion.

Seriously, anyone else think the bandwidth in this lettercol needs serious disinfectants? Much too much information about some people.