Who Am I Kidding?

I don’t have cable. I haven’t had it since I lived at home many many years ago. I’ve gotten by pretty well without it for all these years (reading US Weekly regularly helps me to at least know the names and major players of the bigger cable shows, so I’m not totally out of the loop). I have always said that I don’t want to get cable because it would be a waste of money because “I don’t really watch TV.” I like to think of myself as this well-read intellectual type who doesn’t need TV in her life. I’m not like everyone else in America. I’m not a slave to my TV. I’ve got a DVD player and Netflix, and I can watch all the indie and foreign films I want. But recently the list of shows that I watch has gotten longer. It used to be just reruns of the Simpsons. They are still on the list, but they’ve been joined by Lost (although after last week’s suckfest, I’m kind of over it), Alias (not for much longer), House, and Bones (but they moved it to opposite Lost. I hate it when networks do that). Oh, and Guiding Light. Every day. And other soaps if I’m at home.

But now I have realized that I am just kidding myself. My reasons for not having cable are not that I would never use it. No, now I’m afraid that if I get cable, I will never leave the house again. There’s just so much to watch. I spend a lot of time at the gym, where they have cable. I watch a lot of TV at the gym. I’ve been telling myself that I am just watching because I need a distraction while I’m working out. But I know this isn’t true. I would watch these shows at home if I had cable. Here’s a sample of what I’ve been catching lately:

A Laguna Beach marathon on Christmas Eve (I worked out twice as long as I planned to, because I couldn’t tear myself away).
An episode of Little House on the Prairie (again I couldn’t tear myself away, because I really wanted to know if Laura would forgive Almanzo for talking to that saloon girl, who I’m pretty sure was Alexis from General Hospital. Also, my friend B went on a date with the guy who played the adopted son, so I was sort of curious to see him. Excuses, excuses.).
The Gastineau Girls
I Love the 80s (Strikes Back)
Racheal Ray’s show (the 30-minute meals one)
Reruns of the Golden Girls
World War II stuff on the History Channel
Hollywood Breakups, When Models Go Bad, and the True Hollywood Story of the Women of Desperate Housewives (E! is the best channel ever).

As if this weren’t bad enough, two Saturdays ago, I hung out on my neighbor’s couch and watched more than 6 hours of SoapNet. That’s an entire week’s worth of General Hospital and a couple of other shows. This Saturday, I skipped the gym so I could watch the Thursday and Friday episodes of General Hospital (Robin goes on a date with Dr. Hottie! Jason catches Sonny and Emily kissing! Robert Scorpio is alive and still hot!). I could actually feel the brain cells dying, but I couldn’t tear myself away.

What do I do? Should I just give in to the inevitable? Or can I save myself from cable? Should I just get rid of all those books I was planning to read, because if I get cable, I’m just not going to have time for them. Sorry Proust, I’ve got other priorities now.