#kylesbishop

harring: what is your all-time favorite band, movie, and painting?

Day Method (because reasons), Pirate Radio, and oh god, there are so many...”In Bed The Kiss” by Toulouse-Lautrec, and I forget the name of it, but the Rothko they have at the Cleveland Museum of Art

botticelli: what is that one moment in your life that makes you feel proud?

hi sam yes this is actually a really good project for me right now!! thank you

(i’ve actually sorta been listening to real music lately but i’m doing all mt stuff anyway bc i have a one track mind)

how i’m feeling right now (not to wallow but you can sense… a theme):

wasted (manhattan kids)

a quiet night at home (bare)

lifeboat (heathers) 

sanity (ben moss) 

santa fe (newsies)

nice thought (american pyscho)

great, cool (ben fankhauser and blake daniel)

so anyway (next to normal)

pretty funny (dogfight)

american spirit (kathryn gallagher)

damaged (kathryn gallagher)

i’m doing characters under the cut bc i don’t want this to be four miles long!

39. what disney movie should be a musical that isn’t?

Cars!

14. What makes you laugh no matter what?

honestly you know the snl skit that’s like “i am your MOTHER!!!” with zac efron? that. also the snl skit with “watcha say.”  i’m a girl of simple pleasures

thanks sam!!

1. What was the first musical you saw?

I think it was Annie, but I don’t remember actually seeing it. The first one I actually remember attending was (here’s a throwback) Starmites.

34. A musical that has left you thinking about life for a long time or deeply inspired you.

Oh wow, I’m gonna have to go with A Chorus Line for this one. As a dancer/performer it really hit close to home (even though I’ve only had one professional audition in my life :P).

41. What are some lines from musicals you really like?

“Everybody who’s an anybody started off as a nobody before they became somebody.” - Newsies

“It ends with knowing when the pavement bends, we find our lives.” & “Be the hero of your story ‘til it’s done / Why go promenade when you were born to run?” - Big Fish

“Call me a gold brick, a goof-off, no good, but that couldn’t be all that I am.” - Aladdin

“Only heaven knows how glory goes, what each of us was meant to be / In the starlight, that is what we are / I can see so far.” - Floyd Collins

Sam, I love you so much, and I can’t possibly tell you what it means to me to read this (and to have someone like you say this to me, because...it’s something I believe in deeply, but tend to radiate out to everyone else, not to keep for myself. my primary goal in adding it to my sidebar was so that anyone who happened to visit my blog, be that a friend or just a passerby, might see it and feel that comfort). for some reason I can’t get my gifs to work, but imagine my Karen hugging your Kyle tightly here. ♥♥♥

I was talking to someone else recently, and said that I wish I could give that lyric to anyone when they’re struggling, when things are difficult and dark. Look at where you are, look at where you started... Most days that we manage to stay alive through everything, even if we’ve only taken a few steps from that starting place, really are a gift and a blessing. It’s a simple statement, but there’s something so powerful and beautiful in it to me, and it’s one of those things that will linger with me indelibly. (I wish I could thank Lin directly for writing it, though I wouldn’t know where to start eloquently because I’m emotional, but I wish I could tell him that hearing it is a treasure, a necessity.) All my poetic waxings about Hamilton have happened elsewhere - I feel like I haven’t properly talked about it here, and I was so late getting to it in comparison to everyone else, but the timing for me personally was essential, because I wouldn’t have desperately needed it last year the way I do now. There’s a myriad of reasons why, but that particular affirmation is the one I’m clinging to most. The world seems to want to beat the hope right out of my body, and that’s given me an anchor.

I’m going to use you sending me this ask as an excuse to make a personal post that I didn’t know how to begin to write yesterday, I hope you don’t mind.

My experience the other day was absolute hell for me and I’m still not...recovered seems like the wrong word here because I’m never going to be recovered from my illness or from this situation...I guess I’m still not feeling capable of handling it, I don’t know what to do to move forward. It’s honestly been a number of years since I felt this small and utterly helpless. I am overwhelmed and daunted, and should just give up this fight, but giving up one fight means losing so many other battles and I’m not ready to face the ramifications of what that will mean for the remainder of my life. We live in a world that invalidates, dehumanizes, and dismisses suffering, and I feel guilty complaining or seeking help when I know that there is pain and hardship far worse than mine, but being torn at and reduced by a system designed to reject my very personhood is soul-crushing.

I realize this is all kind of vague, because I don’t feel safe or comfortable discussing what happened publicly (and every time I try to discuss it privately, I end up crying too hard to continue, and I’m so drained at the moment I’m surprised I can string two words together). I’m going to actually take a bit of a break for a while because I’m just not okay, but I have a super full queue set up that will last through next weekend, so it won’t even seem like I’m gone.

Just staying alive is all I can do, and quite often it’s all any of us can do. The act of staying alive, of being alive, tends to not be recognized as tremendous or brave, but it is. I blame myself constantly for it not being worth much, but I would never say that to someone else, which is why you being kind and writing this to me is so consoling. We are here for such a brief time, and what a miracle it is that it happens to be at the same time, in a world where we can connect to each other from many miles away. How lucky we are to be alive right now. We have to hold on to that. I have to pray that, even in my case, as trapped and ghost-of-a-girl as I am, it’s enough.

Thank you for being someone who is rare, and compassionate, and supportive without judgment, and please remember this for yourself, too.