It was in the summer of 2014 that I started looking for a mid-range tiara.
Oh. No. I've already lied. Let me start again.
It was a few days before the summer of 2014 that I started looking for a mid-range tiara. I know that because just a few days after someone would tell me it was "Midsummers" in some language I didn't speak. They were nice enough about it, had some information, but I remember drifting away because when I hear "Midsummers" all I think about is Shakespeare. As an American I don't have any other familiarity with the word. So, there I was thinking about Eddie Murphy in a tiara.
Maybe I should go back.
In a Midsummer's Night Dream a character who is very chatty gets turned into a donkey, a "jack-ass." And about 400 years later a movie named Shrek took that character and voiced him with Eddie Murphy.
I think that catches us up.
I should probably also mention I was in love with the woman I was search for the tiara for. Though maybe that's self-explanatory.
Searching for a tiara is not as easy as you might image. A few years early I went on a hunt for a cameo and that wasn't all that difficult, besides learning what a cameo was and why it wasn't called a necklace or a pendant (and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why all three aren't one another. Jewelers, as it turns out, do not have sufficiently explanatory Venn diagrams.) As it turns out, there are essentially only two kinds of tiaras.
The first is very low-end tiaras. The kind that you buy in packs of five for a little girl's (or boys, I'm not judging, by all means a boy can be a princess too) birthday party. Or from the exchange of tickets that you get for playing ski-ball. Or the kind that would have come in a cereal box much to chagrin of a poor parent because they know how much less cereal there is and how aggravating it's going to be combing bits of corn pop's out of their girl's (or boys) hair that night.
The second is very high-end tiaras. The kind that, once purchased, immediately alerts a team of international jewel thieves that a new target is available and comes with accessories like silver polish and bio-metric safes. They also tend to involve a lot of "be" words. High end tiaras are often bedazzling or beautiful bejeweled. This is because they be very expensive, and certainly out of my price range. If ever I was going to spend the money on jewelry it would certainly be for something that could be worn more often that once a year, give or take, depending on how often a crowned figure would appear at your party.
I imagined many crowned figures would not be visiting my crappy apartment. I still don't know the difference between a Gala and a Shindig (party planners also have bad diagrams).
So I sought out something more impressive than a consolation prize but not something that might invite supervillains into my life.
This took me to a small silver-smith who did custom orders. She was Estonian. That's not relevant, I just want to seem interesting and cultured.
I inquired about her strictly mid-range evening formal-wear crown-shaped jewelry. She was a little snooty about it. Surely if I was going to be buying a tiara it should be extravagant and I wouldn't begrudge my beloved a besprinkled one.
This belied my anger. Which I mostly kept in check.
I explained very simply that I was looking for a tiara because she was looking for a tiara and that the tiara and I'd like to give her one but maybe not one so expensive that it was worth the gross domestic product of her country (which I didn't say, I had to look up Estonian on Wikipedia after).
So we set up the plans to make one. She asked me what I wanted from the tiara since it would have to be custom made.
"You know, to sit on her head," I said in all my eloquence. "Like a lady-crown."
She nodded patiently.
Did I want a gem in the center? Did I want a replica of something else? Did I want it made out of silver (as it turns out, I fucking did not, as that would have cost over 15,000.00 dollars meaning I'd get, at most, 300.00 value per royal visit assuming a rate of one monarch per year).
We selected a "gleaming" bronze because nothing in jewelry ever has a common name, with "floral accents" and "hints of whimsy."
It should be noted if not already clear that she picked out these things as I had no idea they even existed. I nodded and paid for the damn things though, so I'm using we.
She asked me if I'd like a rush order to which I thought "you can't rush mid-range." I asked her if she had a second, lower tier of expedited crafting. She did not. It was rush or normal. I opted for normal. Then I left the jewelry feeling good about myself because I had brought something new into the world. A gift, I imagined, that would go over well. I had to guess on her head size a bit, but I assumed that it was just about right, and in a few months, I'd have my mid-range tiara.
As it turns out, we broke up before it could be completed. She was looking for someone more "serious." Someone that didn't respond with "Eddie Murphy in a tiara" when asked what they were suddenly laughing at.
Heartache confused my mind and blurred my memories. When a tiny package arrived at my door with unfamiliar cursive I had no idea what it could be. When I opened it up it's only then that I remembered that love is the affection we have for others, but the knowledge of who we are when they are gone. Love is knowing that you will be hurt and forgiving the offender before they commit the crime.
It's also a teensy bit "what do I do with a mid-range tiara?"
It sat on my bookcase for awhile, a reminder of what was and could have been before I realized that we were one and the same. Alone, unique, and only incredibly interesting and appropriate on rare occasion.
What else could I do? I put Shrek in the DVD player, the tiara upon my head, and took a swig of beer every time Lord Farquad spoke.
If he counts are royalty, then the tiara thus far has a royal-to-worn ratio of about 758.47.
However, I fully intend to lower that amount. And much to the chagrin of any poor woman who would date me, would certainly bring it along to any event that a monarch might attend.