When I was 22 years old, newly graduated from college and living in a junior one-bedroom in West Hollywood, my apartment was broken into while I was at the gym one evening. My camera was taken – the thief had tried to take my laptop, too, but had been unable to remove it from the docking station – but far, far worse: my jewelry box was gone from its spot on my bedside table.

You may have noticed that I wear an awful lot of gold jewelry; I’ve always liked the way it looks against my (kind of Casper-y) skin, and generally gravitate towards it more than any other metal. But only a handful of the pieces you’ve seen me wear are karat gold, as opposed to its less expensive (and less precious) cousin, gold-fill jewelry – which I wear a ton of, of course…but it’s not quite the same as the real thing.

Do you get all fluttery about diamonds? (That's a trick question; everybody gets all fluttery about diamonds.) I thought you might be into owning some of your own (plus emeralds and a serious opal), so...here you go.