Crystals for the Job You Hate.

Black tourmaline is the bouncer, sinner. Heavy little stone, dull glossy black, the kind of weight in your palm that says *I can take it.* Drop one in the bottom drawer next to the stapler nobody uses. It draws off the dirty looks, the email tone you can't quite name, the energy of a man who says *circle back* without irony. My uncle Sal kept one in his glove compartment. He swore by it. He also swore at it.

Pyrite, my child. Fool's gold, but the joke's on the people who called it that. Heavy, square, gleaming like a casino chip. Set it on the desk in your line of sight. It's for money, for nerve, for the conversation you've been rehearsing in the shower for two weeks. Touch it before the meeting. Cold metal under the thumb. *Madonn'.* You earned it. Walk in like a woman who keeps a rock made of gold in her purse, because you do.

Citrine is the yellow one, sweet thing — golden, warm, the color of a Wawa coffee at 6am. Carry one in the small zipper pocket of your bag, the one you forget about. It's for movement. For the email you keep not sending. For the LLC you registered in March and haven't touched since. Pull it out at lunch. Hold it in your fist. Send the goddamn email. Saint Rita is *tired* of watching you not send the email.

Tiger's eye, my creature — golden-brown, banded, catches the light like a cat's pupil narrowing in a sunbeam. This one's for nerve. For the conversation with HR, the conversation with your manager, the conversation you've been having with your reflection at 2am. Put it in the front pocket of your jeans the morning of. Touch it once before you walk in. The stone's warm from your thigh. You're warmer. Go.

Smoky quartz is the grounding one, pilgrim. Translucent brown, looks like a piece of weak iced tea froze into a stone. Sit it on the desk where the fluorescents hit it. When the meeting goes long and your jaw locks up and you can hear somebody breathing through their nose three cubicles over, put your hand on it. The stone is cool. The room is loud. You are still here. The week ends Friday. Breathe.

Amethyst is the purple one, sinner — the calm one. The one that looks like a piece of a church window broke off and grew back wrong. Keep it on the nightstand. The Sunday-night feeling that hits you around dinner — the one nobody warned you was *the rest of your life* — sits down a little easier when there's a small purple rock in eyeshot. The smell of the candle and the cold of the stone. Saint Rita and a Xanax, basically. Without the prescription.

Labradorite is the trick stone, my child. Looks gray and dull and then you turn it in the light and *Madonn',* a flash of blue and green like an oil slick on a wet boardwalk. It's a shield stone. You carry it, the dramatic coworker can't quite get a read on you. Stays in the front pocket. They'll think you got laid or quit. You didn't. You just got a rock.