Sweet E!, I Pine for You

I have accidentally and only semi-willingly become a participant in a locavore experiment. The experiment does not involve local food, but it does require adherence to rules of virtue and eschewal of trashy modern pleasures and is therefore in the potentially obnoxious, self-righteous mold of a locavore experiment.

I face: no cable all summer.

This was the idea of my virtuous and budget-minded (euphemism alert) boyfriend, who doesn't watch nearly as much cable as I do. I like CNN with lunch and MSNBC in the evenings and E! and more E!! and more E!!! on the weekend nights, when the liquor ads suggest that cooler people are out partying. With my boyfriend.

Okay, he's not partying. He's out winning bread for me and the kitties. Djing. Saturday he had a particularly utilitarian gig, one at which he was forced--by a coercive requester--to play "What Is Love." You know, Baby don't hurt me/Don't hurt me/No more. He was looking for a paper bag to put on his head.

My fate was worse: an evening home alone. Normally, when he's djing and I can't come, I hang out with Joel McHale and the Kardassians and those sad clown Playboy bunnies (or, if I start to feel E!-icky, the Whiskers family).

Dear reader, it was terrifying.

I began in the network region of the dial, thinking surely those channels exist for a reason. But their raison d'être appeared to be crappy reruns. Technically I could have watched SNL, but they were rerunning the George Carlin-hosted debut and I didn't want to be home alone late at night crying; I was rather fond of George Carlin.

My next turn of logic: if I enjoy E!, a whole channel based on titillating entertainment news, maybe I should try the working man's E! I sat through a tedious half-hour about Barbara Walters' memoir on Entertainment Tonight and decided it was made for old people, but palatable nonetheless. So I doubled down and went for TMZ.

That was a mistake. Apparently I like my celebrity gossip cut with the baking soda of irony. I couldn't take the straight stuff. The rest of the night I watched nature shows on PBS, just to scrub clean. Did you know there's a cute little critter in Patagonia that's like a mix of a hamster and a deer? Did you know Patagonia isn't just a type of fleece vest? (Actually I did know that last, I'm just being cute and self-deprecating.)

I suppose if I do this every weekend all summer, I'll be purer and more adequately disturbed about global warming. And imagine all the charming species I won't know about if I watch E! instead.

I don't know, 'Keteers. Can I do this? Do I want to?

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