This might sound kind of goofy (I’m pretty sure once you’ve used the word “goofy” to describe something, you’re really only describing yourself), but I actually deliberated over whether to shoot around my television set when I was taking photos for the AT tour.

Over the years that I’ve been reading interior decor/home magazines, I’ve noticed that television sets are conspicuously missing from the ones I am drawn to the most. There’s something a bit gauche about showing a TV, apparently, perhaps because the appearance of one is an automatic indicator that the owner of the house does not, in fact, spend all of their free time either reading the The New Yorker, listening to NPR, or teaching their kids about classical music. I suppose there’s a part of me that wishes I didn’t watch TV, and that I spent more of my time at home, say, reading. Or scraping paint off of the radiators.

Anything but watching Rock of Love and Celebrity Rehab (see, I’m not taking the easy road here and just name-checking Project Runway, even though I watch that, too—go, Christian!). I don’t know, maybe I’m still recovering from a non-TV-intensive childhood (We played outside with little animals out of pine cones and sticks!). Or maybe I just like crappy reality TV. Either way, watching television in the evenings is a reality for me, and I’m not going to pretend that I only own a small set that stays hidden in a closet somewhere unless we’re watching a rented movie (foreign, of course—with subtitles).

Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before Bret Michaels is a guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, right? High and low culture usually wind up crossing paths eventually, anyway.

So the TV stays, and I’m not going to hide it. Our Sharp LCD gets to sit right there in the living room (yes, directly opposite the sofa, imagine that!), next to the fireplace, and I’m not going to put it behind a door or a curtain. I’d still know it’s there, and I have a feeling it would be even worse having to come to terms with how often I’d be opening that door or pulling back the curtain. At least we only have one TV, and we rarely watch it on the weekends.

And I don’t watch Tyra, because she is crazy.