As a rule, men are brought to jewelry stores much in the manner that their mothers once brought them to the barber. Or to the dentist. Lambs to slaughter. If I see a man who looks hap-py to be in a jewelry store, I immediately assume he's fooling around.

The first time I stopped at 0X0X0 Gallery in Mount Washington, it was to interview a former porno photographer who made stuff out of old tin cans. He was having a show there. He was covered with tattoos. He looked like he rode with the Pagans. My kind of jeweler.

Ever since, at Christmas and birthdays, 0X0X0 Gallery has been a refuge. I have very mixed feelings about the season to be jolly. The women I know already have everything they need and will only return whatever I buy them posthaste. (Show of hands, please, if this applies to you. Thank you.) 0X0X0 Gallery is the ideal stop.

Here I found a silver pin for my wife that captured the true spirit of the birth of the Nazarene soooooo perfectly for her, and for me too, with its engraved message: "This is as merry as I get" "Bah, Humbug" was a close second, from the same artist, Karen Krieger. And for secular usage, or just about any occasion, there's "What fresh hell is this?"

That's Dorothy Parker, and Dorothy Parker would have liked 0X0X0 Gallery. It's fair to say that Dorothy Parker would have liked Judy Donald, too. Judy Donald is an irrepressible redhead who opened 0X0X0 Gallery in October 1994. Business has been so good that she is opening another branch of her eclectic gallery in Stone Harbor, N.J., in May.

The new shop is housed in an old beach cottage that was formerly Mary's Beauty Shop. Very '50s. Donald has tender feelings about long ago summers on the Jersey shore. Her late mother

used to get her hair done at Mary's. "We kept two of Mary's cobalt blue chairs to play with," she says.

The New Jersey store bears the same odd name that has confused passers-by here in Baltimore, When I first saw the 0X0X0 sign, I thought it was a Mexican head shop. It actually stands for "hugs and kisses."

The Baltimore shop sits in a ramshackle wood frame house on Sulgrave Avenue hard by the Mt. Washington Tavern, the epicenter of prep schoolery and lacrosse, and surrounded by pricey coiffeuses and the grab bag of odd businesses that make Mount Washington Village feel like a small town (not so much Mayberry RFD, as Provincetown 1967).

"We've got some of the top hairdressers in Baltimore in this enclave. A lot of women wander in here," says Donald on a warm spring noontime as women wander in and out. Many browsers, having just eaten lunch next door at Ethel and Ra-mone's or come down the street from Europa International or Studio 1612, stop in to see the latest show. "I wanted the diversity of traffic that you get in Mount Washington. I waited for this space," she recalls of the former Stone Mill Bakery site. "An added feature of my space is that you can see dogs being groomed." The Groomery, the canine equivalent of a beauty salon, is next door.

Sitting in the shop, in an old armchair that has been gilded and boasts fake leopard skin covering, Donald recalls that she opened 0X0X0 at a turning point in her life. "I was just over 50 years old and I'd worked for other people all of my life," she says of a career in advertising that involved long years in New York with retailing giants like Saks 5th Avenue and Estee Lauder. There is, however, still a lot of small town girl in Donald (Red Lion, Pa., pop. 5,645), and her easy and friendly manner with her customers is traceable to those years as a cheerleader and a Girl Scout mom.

0X0X0 Gallery is not strictly a jewelry store. Nor a gallery, either. It's more of a hybrid: Visionary Art, Museum meets Betty Cooke. "It's not a nor-

mal jewelry store because we don't sell things that are mass produced," says Donald, adding, "My husband always says 'my wife sells things you don't need.' But we represent some of the best art jewelers in the country." Donald organizes nine or 10 shows a year, featuring subjects ranging from rings to sculpture to jewelry to found object art, often with clever themes and names. The current "Ring Masters," for example, features rings by eight jewelry artists.

It was during the "Into 2000" millennial show that Alyssa Dee Krauss' "Band-Aids" appeared. They're 18-carat gold Band-Aids whose undersides hold a tiny blood drop made from garnet wrapped in gauze. "She designed them to wear over a broken heart," says Donald. These little baubles go for $1,600. (That'll do a lot for a broken heart, baby.) Steel Band-Aids are $300.

Coming soon: Atiny Band-Aid of a similar design to be worn on the divorcee's ring finger. "When you get divorced you can cover the white ring mark up with it. Isn't that cool?

"I always wanted to show sculpture to wear. This is a way of involving people in art that's very personal," says Donald, who wears a lot of the stuff she shows around town, too. "I've been known to sell things off my body."

The mix of artists showing at 0X0X0 Gallery is eclectic. Established artists like Joyce J. Scott and Shana Kroiz are featured regularly, but Donald also opens her gallery once a year to works by students from the Maryland Institute, College of Art. "We're always looking for artists. A person does not have to have a huge reputation to show here," she says.