After work today, I’m hopping a plane to Frankfurt. I’m taking this ridiculously posh cruise up the Rhine and ending with a few days in Amsterdam. I have no experience with trips of this ilk (cocktail dresses for dinner, m’kay?), and have generally little idea of what to expect. But I woke up at 3:30 to pack, and packed I did!

So, due to my work schedule and general life traumas, I’m really not very well researched for this trip. I’ve read a book on Dutch culture (which I’m sure will be very helpful when I want to make conversation about the many hardworking Dutch people who toil to keep the polders from flooding), but I haven’t done so much in the way of guidebooks or researching local blogs, etc.

If you have suggestions on good places to eat and whatnot in Amsterdam, Bernkastel, Koblenz, etc., please, please let me know.

One of my favorite actors, Johnny Chase, wrote an editorial that was published in today’s Variety. The text follows:

The Emmy season is upon us and let me tell you, I won’t be getting much sleep. My publicist promised to wake me if I get the nod, but I’m not taking any chances on sleeping through the moment I’ve been waiting for my whole career. I’m pulling an all nighter. Do I think it will happen? Well let me quote one piece of fan mail that I received this week.”Dear Mr. Chase. My wife and I cannot wait to see you pick up that little winged angel on September 16th for your stellar work on our favorite show, ‘The Five Towns.’ We both felt you were robbed when you didn’t win in 1998 when it went to Andre Braugher and again we felt you deserved it in 2002 when it went to Michael Chiklis.”

The truth is I wasn’t nominated either of those years — in fact I’ve never been nominated, but I think that the Coulters from Tallahassee and I share the same feeling: I goddamn well should have been.

Well let’s hope the TV Academy makes up for past injustices, because being a working actor is nice, but being an Emmy nominee, well that would change everything. Being a nominee would mean never again going back East and having people say, “How you doing?” as though I’m a cancer survivor. They’ll know how I’m doing. They’ll know I’m an Emmy nominee. ‘Cause they can cancel your series and they can let your SAG health insurance expire, but they can never take away that nomination certificate.

And to win … Well some would say that’s gravy, but if I get the nom, let’s just say going home without the trophy would make the whole evening a complete bust. I have dreams that are so vivid of heading up onto that stage, I can taste the hot presenter’s perfume when she kisses me and whispers in my ear, “Congrats, call me.” I can see all my peers’ faces when I shout, “Ha! Tonight I won. Tonight I’m the winner. Tonight ma, you don’t need to cry for your baby.”

To look into the faces of a live audience as the theatrically trained actor I am and make a connection that I haven’t had since my last theater run as Danny Zuko’s little brother in the Off Off Broadway production of ‘Grease 2.’ Oh how I would bring tears to their eyes as I selflessly would share the painful journey it took to get there and the people who helped and hindered me along the way.

Come Sept. 16, this could be my reality. But for now, for me and so many others, we continue to wait. An actor keeps his emotions close to the surface to more readily share them with his audience. But at times like these I almost wish I could bury them down just a little.

Good luck, Drama. Victory!

I would like to give props to the gentleman scholar Paul Cornell, who wrote this week’s Doctor Who episode, “Human Nature.”

I was seriously about to break up with Doctor Who. We were going to have a sitdown (”Dear Doctor Who, it’s you, not me.”) to discuss how the entire season — and our more than capable new lead actress and brilliant leading man — had been squandered. About how I’d rather fucking watch Torchwood than this tripe. About how I missed Jackie Tyler at this point.

Then Paul Cornell showed up and everything went a bit lovely and good and right.

I had a half day at work yesterday. My boyfriend and I both had some things to take care of, but we met up for an early dinner/late lunch Vietnamese bite. Him: “It’s, like, light outside. What do you want to do?” Me: “Let’s go to Disneyland.” So we did. Left L.A. around 7:00pm and got down to Anaheim shortly after 8:00.

We had gone last year on a Saturday, which had been a) crowded, b) hot, c) sort of not totally worth the total effort put into the trip, and d) not especially pleasant. That trip was my first time at any vaguely magical kingdom, and his first trip there since he had been a teenager going with parents.

Last night, we had barely any wait times, and we got to do all the things we didn’t do last year. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride had been under construction last year, so we hit that (really fun), as well as the Haunted Mansion (which I adore), the Indiana Jones thing (kind of bumpy, plus I think my current hip bruises were earned on this ride), etc.

All in all, it was so much fun and exactly what I needed right now. Work’s been go, go, go for the past few weeks, and between after work schmoozing/events, birthday parties, reminding friends that I exist through drinks, I’ve been kind of a wreck. So, Disneyland was a kickass start to this long weekend.

. . . Or, as I’m calling it, the vacation before the vacation. I leave for Europe on Thursday night.

I went out to Twiistup last night in Santa Monica. Twiistup was organized by Mike Macadaan, and the goal for last night seemed to be merging conference with a bar/club/whatever energy.

The venue, Zanzibar, was pretty small for the amount of people who were there when I arrived around 8:45pm. The Twiistup site said 300 people were expected, and I have no frame of reference for how many showed up other than that I was way freaking hot [and trampled] until I found the air conditioning duct and lingered under it. Also, because I am me, I don’t particularly enjoy a bar where your credit card purchase minimum is $15. I’m just saying.

The first set of demos were almost impossible to hear and marred by some tech problems. I can’t even remember which companies’ demos this set was. It was pretty evident that people hadn’t tested their PowerPoint presentations with the screens ahead of time; those presentations were widescreen, and I’m pretty sure that the screen was not even 4:3, but more like a nice, square 4:4, totally cutting off vital text & images. That’s 1:1 in lowest terms, btw.

heathervescent (who actually hooked me up with a free pass to get in last night — Thanks again, Heather!) presented in (I think) the second set of demos. She managed to shush the room quiet enough I could hear about her client, ooVoo. Seriously, that bar was loud.

The two projects I learned about that interest me most are goodreads and Mint.

goodreads is a social networking site centered around book reviews. That’s a keeper. I signed up, please feel free to befriend me, but I haven’t played around with it at all yet.

Mint is being pitched as an alternative to Quicken — faster, more intuitive, and really designed to figure out where your money goes. Have we met? I’m, like, the poster child for needing this product. I may as well not have a therapist at all considering I treat ye olde Urban Outfitters like it’s solely responsible for my well-being.

I won a mint mojito off Noah Kagan, who was there to demo Mint, because I’m a big boozer (it’s a short long story), and I spoke to him about the product for a few minutes. They’re not really sure who their demo is yet, but I think almost all of my friends in the thrust of twenties’ dues-paying could find value in it. Y’know, if the thing works. I’ve signed up for the demo, so we shall see.

I took off after maybe a little less than two hours. As I said, the place was hot. Also, I was dead sleepy what with the previous night. I think Macadaan’s got something with Twiistup, so hopefully the kinks will be worked out for the next one. Small, overcrowded, hot venue is one thing. Not having a single smooth PowerPoint presentation and microphone malfunctions during a tech summit is sort of . . . another.

A gigantic brush fire began in Los Angeles yesterday around 1:30pm. I was at work, and our internet was down. By the time I was heading home, the fire had stretched around Griffith Park and was threatening the homes in the northern part of my neighborhood, Los Feliz.

My commute was actually pretty terrific. I didn’t leave work until 7:00pm, and I suspect most people heading in my direction had already done so. I turned the corner from Franklin onto Vermont, and it was like some event movie. Flames, red smoke, grey smoke, black smoke, helicopters, etc. There were lots of sirens and stuff.

Somewhere in the 8:30-9:00pm range, houses began being evacuated mandatorily. About 9:30, all of the buildings directly across the street from me were evacuated, too. We didn’t really stay to find out if that was going to be us. I’m having allergy problems, and with all the smoke in the air, my chest was tight and I was having serious difficulty breathing. We gathered documents & identification, a few changes of clothes, our laptops, and left for a friend’s house in Glendale.

Driving past the fire on the way to our friend’s house, my boyfriend says, “Remember Revenge of the Sith? I think we just drove past Geonosis. I hope the firefighters have the high ground.”

One tense night later, most of the streets in the neighborhood are still shut down, but the homes are out of danger. We came home mid-morning, went back to sleep for a while, and now I’m getting ready to go into the office.

At this time, the fire is still going and the LATimes says that more than 830 acres have been burned. It was freaking scary, and my home wasn’t in immediate danger. I hope everyone else was okay, too.