This has nothing to do with presenting cocktails… if you do not live in a place where winter brings dry air and razor sharp winds, the following may not apply to you.  I’m a stuffy-nosed mouth breather in winter.  Combined with the dry air delivered in cold gusts, my lips become so chapped.  My solution, exfoliate and moisturize.

Exfoliating
One can choose to buy a cosmetic cream with rough silica to remove rough skin.  If botanicals are preferred, one can buy a cream with some kind of almond, oat, or husks of some sort; all fine if you want to pay a $35 a pound markup.  If you’re not one to shell out the cash for such luxury, there are a few ways to do this on the cheap.  A soft toothbrush can do the job, but can sometimes take too much off and leave lips raw.  I find that making a paste of either stale brown sugar or table salt and water is gentle on your lips and wallet.

Moisturizing
I will put on a bit of petroleum based lip balm on, but they tend to get lost and wind up in the washer/dryer and staining garments forever.  Natural lip balms with bees wax bases or other natural emollients are lovely but are pricey and don’t melt as nicely.  Generally commercially available lip balm make for a presentable face, I generally fix my condition in the privacy of my own home.

For me and my drastically damaged lips, honey is nice because it’s soothing and holds in moisture.  Peanut butter works the same way, but Snuff likes crunchy stuff and it looks like a biblical skin disease when applied.  I use Nutella [link].  It’s sweet, it’s soothing, it looks like you’ve been engaging in risky sexual behavior.  Don’t expect photos.

The Misery Index is the economic measure of the economic distress which takes into consideration the unemployment in relation to inflation. The Misery Score is the tabulated tax burden which the citizens of a given country bear. Forbes, in its glossy-magazine-wisdom has taken data from “Cities Ranked & Rated” (Bert Sperling, 2007) and Moody’s to crunch figures on the top 150 metropolitan cities. Based upon crime, commute times, taxes, unemployment, and… weather – Detroit came out as the most miserable.

The story without giving advertising money to the Forbes Empire here [link]

I would like to extend my gratitude to Forbes Magazine and Forbes.com for making my city and state more attractive to new industries and businesses.

We here in Detroit, invite you to come visit us for our stunning crime and violent crime. Those of us who have jobs in the service industry commute from far and wide to meet your needs at an attractive (albeit taxed to the eyeballs) price. Forbes rated us the most miserable city in the country, so stop in and gawk! Sorry we can’t do anything about the terrible weather, we can’t move the jet-stream or the lakes. However, our high foreclosure rate means low low prices! What you save on a new home can go into the ever increasing cost to heat and cool your home, say “bah” to the weather!

In my spiteful-blogging-wisdom, I am now replacing the adjective miserable with the word Forbes.