Jessalyn Gilsig

* The actress who plays Lauren Davis on Fox’s “Boston Public” also appeared in “The Horse Whisperer.”

Homework Panic: I started taking a writing course in the UCLA extension, “Flash Fiction.” I like the fear the night before class that I haven’t written my short story, but you have to have something to hand in. It’s also amazing to hear what the other students have written. There can just be this guy in the corner of the classroom who hasn’t spoken the entire course, and then he reads his short story and you’re like, “Whoa! What’s going on in that guy’s head?”

Dinner In: Just about every weekend, I get together with some friends of mine, and it’s my house this weekend, and everyone will come over and bring a bottle of wine. I will make a pasta dish or maybe a barbecue, now that I have a front porch. And we just eat, catch up on our weeks and play parlor games like charades and celebrity.

Off Leash: I go to a canyon just about every morning, usually with two friends and their two dogs, and we let the three dogs run off and get in trouble. There aren’t many places where you can take your dog off-leash and I don’t like to go to Runyon Canyon, because my dog does have an appetite for little dogs, so we try to take them to more secluded canyons. When we do run into a ranger, what we do is we feign an injury, so someone will fall and pretend they have some sort of knee collapse. Then we all get very concerned. It’s worked for us twice.

Extra Cheese, Please: I like really bad Mexican food, like lots of cheese. So we’ll go somewhere like El Coyote and get margaritas. I like the cheese enchiladas, which is basically cheese, covered with cheese with maybe a little more cheese.

I Hate Mondays: Ever since I was a kid, Sunday meant Monday was coming and the weekend was over. So my friend Courtney and I go down to the beach and play volleyball in a big group. I don’t like to be home on Sunday nights either, so I’ll meet a friend for sushi or go to the gym and go spinning. I usually have to be at work on Monday by 5:30 in the morning, so I try to be in bed by 11 and then I just lie there thinking, “Monday is coming, Monday is coming.”