Midnight Musings

Every once in a while, I run across something from my childhood or youth I'd forgotten, and I realize that I've been on the same path since I was small.
My earliest memories are of Danny Kaye and Cary Elwes being the funny man in movies like the Court Jester and Robin Hood. They're of Kevin Kline in Pirates of Penzance. They're of Martin Short, Leslie Nielson, and Steve Martin in Airplane and Three Amigos. My foundation, my whole image of myself, is based on the comedy from my childhood.
When I was a kid, it didn't occur to me that the cartoons I watched were voiced by real actors, real people, so I was a full-grown adult before I realized that Mel Gibson was the voice of John Smith in Pocahontas. Similarly, The Road To El Dorado is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it's voiced by two people I've loved for nearly as long as I've been sentient--Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh.
When I was sixteen, I wrote a letter to Kenneth Branagh after watching his adaptation of Hamlet. I asked him to come to Indiana and teach me how to Hamlet. I got so far as to put stamps on an envelope before good sense regained control of me.
When Thor came out, I somehow knew it was him directing it, that he was responsible.
When I dream, I dream big and without sensible limits, so my goal is to one day produce a television series based on the novels I'm writing. Having Kenneth Branagh be my director would be...well, it would be everything I'd ever dreamed.
As I meander through my life like a stream through quiet woods, I find things I didn't know I knew--like Kevin and Ken were in my favorite movie, or that Kevin Kline was the voice of the knight in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Time and time again, I find that the things that are important to me were projects that involved people who are important to me, in the manner that celebrities sometimes are.

I'm 28 now, and I know that's more than some and less than others. I drift, for now, but always with an eye on a shiny horizon that seems so far out of reach--but I'll never stop reaching for it. I don't have a backup plan, although that's more out of a dogged sense of determination and a lack of sense than any intent to inspire myself. I have time, years and years of it ahead of me, but I have so much to do before I get there. In the mean time, I continue to discover that the things that inspire me have, somehow, more in common than I had realized when I was small.

Since I know you're wondering, no, I don't have a point. Just the midnight musings of a wannabe writer.