Treat your meat

In college, I used to write horoscopes. The catch: I'm not psychic. At all.

Now that I'm geriatric and wiser, and also not even remotely trained in the medical field, I do medical prognostications. For example, my recent self-diagnosis.

Symptom: Busted and bloody knuckles.

Diagnosis is one of the following:

1. I was in a cage fight with Hellboy's giant red fist of destruction.
2. I have been playing Quarters, a game I haven't played since seventh-grade lunch, whereby your opponent flicks a quarter across the table at your knuckles. The point: to bleed and not weep, to show the pre-pube world how tough, careless and stupid you are.
3. I am a self-punishing zombie cannibal. live in Colorado, and it is the dry season, which is every season.
4. live in Colorado, and it is the dry season, which is every season.

You don't need a psychic to tell you that obviously the answer is number three.

I also live in a parched and crackled prairie field in east Boulder County, and when I'm not gnawing on my hands for lunch, I spend my spare time picking at my hangnails and trying different hand lotions. In fact, the entire top three shelves of my pantry is a reject pile of lotions that worked great for 20 minutes, before my thirsty scales sucked out all of their moisture and turned them into pathetic bottles of dust.

I think my scales have found their match: Weleda Skin Food, discovered at Boulder's Pharmaca (or usa.weleda.com, $18 for 2.5 ounces). Besides magic, this German-brand hand lotion also contains essential fatty acids and vitamin E in organic sunflower seed oil; organic and antiseptic pansy (what'd you call my mama?); and other ingredients -- with no synthetic preservatives, fragrances, chemicals or anythings.

It's been two hours since I put on Skin Food and my hands still haven't returned to feeling like they got caught in the garbage disposal.

Photo by Molly Plann.