My Favorite Weekend

Peter MacNichol co-stars on Fox’s “Ally McBeal,” which ends its first season Monday.

When It Feels Right: My weekend starts whenever I’m in a good mood. Actors have continuous weekends when they are out of work or no weekends at all when they have work.

Incendiary Tales: I love reading mysteries by my fireplace. I also adore old Charlie Chan movies. I have the whole collection and several posters.

Vegging: I hardly ever go out on weekend nights. My energy level is so minuscule. I have the metabolism of some sort of cactus. I become plant life.

Culinary Impairment: I don’t cook anything. I can’t even fill a salt shaker. I like to go out to Bombay Cafe. It’s in a mini-mall on Santa Monica Boulevard and Bundy. It’s peasant food really, but quite delicious.

Running Amok: Saturdays I like to go to the gym although I have been there less since I had a freak accident on the treadmill. The towel I had draped over the console slipped onto the treadmill. That left me running on the towel. The image I’ll leave you with is of me flailing my arms. Now I can’t find a hat I call pull down low enough.

In the Dark: When I get together with friends, my favorite thing to do is watch old movies. I’ll see what’s on AMC or TCM on cable. I also own a lot of classic titles. Or occasionally we’ll build plastic models of famous horror stars. You put them together with glue and paint. I just finished Lon Chaney.

A Free Spirit: On Sundays I like to visit different churches. I’ll go to Quaker and Buddhist services, high Episcopalian, Fundamentalist, you name it. I’m very much intrigued by world religions.

Dream Machines: My fantasy weekend would be to go up in a blimp. Somehow it’s always seemed too difficult, though. I’ve been fascinated by blimps and zeppelins since I was a tot. I build blimp and zeppelin models, too.