Where my mind goes while my body's on the treadmill.

I made a fantastic discovery today.

If you go to the gym at 10, you can watch "The Price Is Right" while you do your time on the treadmill. I freakin' love that show. Now, granted, it's not the same since your favorite octogenarian and mine, Bob Barker, retired. But Drew Carey does a serviceable job, and I appreciate how the audience is now encouraged to wear crazy shirts and camp it up. Because any show with a plot dependent upon the price of Dinty Moore Beef Stew is a campy show.

The 1 downside to watching "The Price Is Right" at the gym is that the treadmills face the window, right by the street. And so I'm pretty sure that people driving by saw me make some pretty interesting faces ... because you have to be dead inside not to get excited for the 20-year-old guy whose life was just changed by winning a truck. And don't even get me started about the grandma who guessed the price of the next item up for bid exactly, and so won $500 in cash.

The show just makes me happy. So, to all you people who drove by the gym and saw that crazy treadmill lady with a mug like she'd broken the hinges on her jaw? You're welcome.

"The Price Is Right" also made me consider a different career path. My current state of unemployment has caused random thoughts to pop into my head of the "Maybe I could do that" variety. Dog walker, grocery bagger, nanny and street-sweeper driver are all on this list. And today? I've gotta add spokesmodel.

Now, I'm not naive enough to believe I've got what it takes to be 1 of Carey's Cuties. I mean, I know I can't stand around in 5-inch heels and still smile. But maybe I could be a spokesmodel in more sensible shoes - like, at 1 of your lesser car shows. Or perhaps on QVC. I am confident in my ability to model polyester slacks and those matching blouses with the elastic band at the waist. Koret, I am even willing to sign an exclusive contract. Call me!

What seemingly outlandish job do you think would be a perfect fit for you?

There's an R. Kelly "Trapped in the Closet" joke in here somewhere.

Sunday was National Dog Day.

I missed it. My Guy insists that with 4 dogs, it's always National Dog Day at our house.

Foxie Doxie implores you ...

Look at the babies!

Look at them!

Woman, you know what you're supposed to do here. Get on it.

But mostly? Mostly, I'm hoping I don't get turned into the ASPCA. See ... last week? My Guy and I escaped to our bedroom for, uh, some quality adult time?

Yeah. And Lil' Frankfurter barked the entire time, as is his custom. Except he sounded really far away.

When the quality adult time was over (My Guy would like me to add that it was a really, really, really long time - like, 7 or even 8 minutes), My Guy went downstairs to calm the freaked-out canines - because there is nothing more freaky than your parents getting freaky.

Except ... he couldn't find Lil' Frank. He could hear him, but he couldn't actually find him.

Until he opened the hall closet.

I had shut my dachshund in the closet.

I became one of those people who locks their kids in a closet so that they can go get it on.

I am a horrible parent.

But he weighs 7 pounds! It's not easy to keep track of a guy who is roughly the size of an obese gerbil! And he gets obsessed about random things in our house - like on top of the refrigerator, or inside the hall closet.

He thinks that he is just a well-timed jump away from reaching the closet shelf where his coat is stored ... a shelf that's about 6 feet off the ground. So, he sneaks into the closet any chance he gets. Maybe this will be the time when his inner Michael Jordan really shines through and he gets his coat and can drag it around the house and chew it up and generally be a jerk.

Hope springs eternal.

I'm hoping that he isn't scarred for life. I am.

The life of the party.

This week, I've met with a few recruiters and a friend who just out and out offered me a jobby job.

One of the recruiters was clearly hungover. When My Guy asked me for a quick update on the meeting later, I said, "She was maybe 12, wearing a too-short skirt and cheap shoes." Then, in a moment of self-reflection, I added, "I wonder why I have no friends."

The other, super-excellent recruiter was so nice and energetic and positive about finding terrific gigs for me and erasing my experience at Mega Corporate Behemoth from my memory. She was excited ... and I was having trouble matching her energy level.

I'm beyond exhausted. Like, as I was driving home from meeting with the super-bestest recruiter this afternoon, I felt so run-down that I actually thought, "Gee, maybe I have mono."

I don't have mono. I might have a corporate form of PTSD. Oh, and there's the little business of being jacked up on hormones for a good portion of the summer and then finding out that, oh, I'M BARREN. So, maybe no wonder I'm sleeping a solid 11 hours a night.

Maybe no wonder I can't get excited about another job. Maybe no wonder I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about everything. Maybe no wonder.

I'm not depressed in that "Oh JesusAllahBuddhaOprah, how can I possibly go on?" sort of way. I'm just more ... umm ... wondering if I have mono. Because I am worn out. Because I can't fathom working right now, even though I've always worked a lot. Because I have no idea what I'm doing with my life.

So, I'm sleeping. And painting baseboards, because our house will never be done. And trying to have faith that all things will be revealed in due time.

Behold my amazing reproductive prowess!

I am so excited, and I have Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri to thank.

Evidently, as a woman, my ladyparts have the ability - nay, the superpower - to decide when to conceive. Akin tells us that pregnancy resulting from "legitimate rape" is rare, and that "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Whew! What a relief!

So, if I'm ever the victim of rape, the last thing I need to worry about is pregnancy - which is a good thing, since Akin and his cronies want to make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape. I thought I had some qualms with a bunch of old white guys bossing around my private ladyparts, but Akin does hold a degree in management engineering. Now, I don't have to worry my pretty little head about it.

And, by Akin's reasoning, if my body can magically shut down conception, then it only stands to reason that it can also magically pump up the babymaking. So, to all those "medical professionals" that told me and My Guy that our chances of reproducing were akin to finding a needle in a very large haystack? If a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and and Technology says my body is smarter than that, well, then, you know it must be true.

What a relief. I'm gonna start working on our nursery now. I'm certainly not going anywhere near the courthouse, which I imagine will be packed with guys applying for licenses to perform "legitimate rape."

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.

My friend Mo sent me this hilarious piece about letters home from camp, courtesy of Rock Center.

As a 3-year veteran of Girl Scout camp, these tales of woe hit rather close to home. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but ... camp happens outside. I was expected to be outside, like, all the time. And we had latrines. Instead of real bathrooms.

It was problematic.

I don't vividly remember any of the letters I sent home, with the exception of one detailing the giant wood spider that was living in our tent. My tent mates and I thought it was a tarantula, and were seriously terrified. We named it Henry, except I didn't know how to spell Henry, so my letter home referred to our cabin mascot as "Henerery." Maybe I was thinking about Peter Noone's cockney accent in "I'm Henry the VIII, I Am."

I do remember crying when I received a letter from my mom at my first camp go-round. I was horribly homesick and had diarrhea the entire 4 days I was at camp. Luckily, we'd chosen a short camp session, so I didn't get all dehydrated and have to be hospitalized or anything.

Two years later, I was an old camp pro. My brother's letter to me was the most hilARious thing I'd ever read. He'd dictated it to my mom, and asked if I was living in a house or a teapot. I'm pretty sure he meant tepee, but teapot is a valid option - I mean, if they expect you to go to the bathroom outside, who's to say what else might be normal at camp?

To me, camp falls solidly in the category of "Super Great in Retrospect." As an adult, I'm glad I had that experience. At the time, it was not what I would classify as "fun" - yet I wanted to go back each year. So, there had to be something in it that felt fun or redeeming. Plus, I would play camp counselor the other 51 weeks of the year, making up rosters of campers and painstakingly assigning them to pretend tents - no teapots. I thought being a camp counselor would be the most exotic, awesome job ever - a belief for which I blame Michael J. Fox and Nancy McKeon.

At camp, I learned that I am allergic to hay. I learned a ton of camp songs, and the proper way to fold a flag. I also learned that if you have to take a bite of a food you hate, you can hold your nose and not taste much of anything - kudos to the counselor who taught us that one.

Did you go to camp? What did you write home about, and what have you carried with you to adulthood?

What I learned.

Facebook has been on fire this week with photos from the first day of school. I love it. The excited-but-nervous smiles kill me, as do the shiny, new backpacks.

My mom always took our first-day photos on the front steps. Some of my fashion choices were ... interesting. Case in point: the first day of seventh grade, I wore jeans with a vertical stripe in the denim. And a shirt with vertical stripes. Perhaps I thought this made me look slim and tall. It did not.

Usually, the first day of school was either ungodly hot, or freakishly cold. The first day of kindergarten, I wanted to wear a particular sundress, but it was too cold. But more times than I can count, we got out of school early in the first few days of class because none of the school buildings in town were air conditioned.

Our elementary school was built in 1912. We used to have tornado drills where we'd all cram into the basement and breathe in the safety and security that only exposed asbestos insulation can give you. Surely it would prevent three stories of brick from tumbling down upon us.

The elementary school didn't have lockers - each class had a long, dark cloakroom, complete with transom windows. Everything smelled like crayons and fresh paint.

My first day of kindergarten, I remember my very pregnant mama dropping me off. She wore 1 of my dad's shirts. She says she was all hormonal and teary, but I don't remember that. My friend Brent broke his leg on the merry-go-round, and I talked about it for weeks.

My brother's first day of kindergarten 6 years later, a girl kissed him in the cloakroom. He didn't consider this a highlight of the day, and so didn't bother to mention it. We heard about it through the grapevine. When confronted, Poochie shrugged his shoulders - he was just a man about kindergarten, popular with the ladies, you know?

This all went down 30 years ago. It seems like yesterday. I'm thankful for those goofy photos of us posed on the front steps - me with some questionable outfit, Poochie with no front teeth, both of us with backpacks bursting with new school supplies. It's the good stuff.

Better Homes and Gardens: Call me!

When I was a sophomore in high school, a mouse died in the wall behind my locker.

Let me set the stage. It was winter. Our building had an all-or-nothing furnace, so it was consistently 85 degrees in February. And my locker was outside the biology classroom of the absentminded guy with the worst toupee ever in the history of bad toupees. Mr. Absentminded Biology Guy taught the dissection classes, so his sense of smell was obviously compromised. Plus, a few years earlier, he'd had an entire class plop their partially dissected fetal pigs into a bucket of formaldehyde right before Christmas break. Three weeks later, when he opened said bucket, he was truly shocked and befuddled to find that the smell made every single student either pass out, barf, or sprint from the room.

So, a decomposing mouse in the wall outside his classroom was not a cause for alarm for Mr. Absentminded Biology Guy - or for anyone else. After all, it was outside the dissection classroom, in the sophomore hallway. Live and let die, man.

My locker smelled like death for about 4 weeks. Four long weeks. I got to know that smell well.

You know how they say that scent is the sense most closely tied to memory?

I am remembering 10th grade like crazy right now. My basement smells like sophomore hallway / bad toupee. I think we had a mouse die in the wall of the finished part of our basement. Much like the area behind the high school lockers, there's not much to be done about cleaning out such a space. We just have to live with the scent of death wafting around the only cool-ish area of our home.

Because I am 37 going on 90, I believe that all things health- and household-related can be cured with baking soda, vinegar and / or vitamin E. So, right now, I have little dishes of baking soda sitting around our finished basement, in the vain hope that it will absorb some of the death stench. Bowls of white powder, like cocaine at a party in the 70s or really, really dusty potpourri. Either way, I'm totally the hostess with the mostest.

Wanna come sit in my stinky basement, talk about high school and pretend that little bowls of white powder are the latest in home accessorizing? Sure you do.

That said ... I am open to any and all suggestions. I think this just might be the ultimate comment cue: How do you get rid of dead animal stank in your home?