Home alone on a Friday night. Two cats sleeping next to me. Gilmore Girls paused on TiVo. The episode aired January 10th. I’m a little behind in my television watching.

I am smelly. I got home from work at 7:45 and proceeded to eat the biggest cheeseburger I’ve had since I left Texas.

I’m exhausted, sunburned, sore, and my stomach can’t tell if I’m full or nauseous. I really want a beer, but I’m too tired to walk the five steps to the fridge. I want to watch a Netflix (sorry, Gilmore Girls, but I’m less interested in you when I’m not paid to pay attention), but the movie is in French, and I’m afraid the subtitles will make me sleepy and I think it’s sad to fall asleep alone on a couch, covered in cats on a Friday night before nine. Even if I did get up at six this morning and spend seven hours in Long Beach, standing in direct sunlight.

So, yeah, clearly I’m working on another television show.

This is to say hello, it’s Friday night, I’ve developed some kind of a cough, I can smell myself, and I need to curl up around this pillow and watch my French movie and be very quiet for a little while. I had my first field shoot today. Being part of a crew, standing with a script in hand, watching people come up to Ned to shake his hand and get an autograph, working with everybody to get all the shots needed — it was another one of those moments when I think about how much I want to be here, and remember how amazing it is that I get to do what I love. So it’s okay that I’m by myself on a Friday night, smelling like I’ve been running around a playground for seventeen hours. My eyes burn and my feet hurt and I’ve got a weekend full of work to do and I think I ate way too much cheeseburger just now, but I’m still a very lucky girl.

Oh, my God. The worst thing ever just happened. I went to look over this entry, all smug and happy that I’d written something to prove to y’all that I wasn’t dead, and as I hit the little “preview” button I kicked off my left shoe and my entire left calf cramped up. The muscle pulled itself into a tiny little ball way high up on my leg and I screamed. Oh, man. Wailing and whining, rolling on the couch, not knowing how or when it was going to stop hurting. Is that what a charlie horse is? Holy shit, I had no idea. Oh, my God. That sucked. That sucked. Is that from standing all day, or from all the running I’ve been doing, or all the running I did followed by standing, or is it because I am feeling guilty from the cheeseburger? Oh, holy crap, I don’t ever want that to happen again. I still haven’t taken off my right shoe. I’m scared to try.

And I’m supposed to go running in eleven hours. Dan’s going to be here, and he expects us to run. Far.

Help.

[Edited to add: Why do I love the Internet? Because less than an hour after posting this, a critical care nurse wrote to advise that I’m probably “wickedly dehydrated” and gave me a sweet, little lecture about drinking more water when I’m standing outside all day like that, ordered me to skip running tomorrow, and then told me to drink some fluids, pronto.]