Hoorf! Radical Care in a Late-Capitalist Heckscape

notes from a queer cripple: how to cultivate queer disabled joy and look hot while doing it, with Andrew Gurza

• Elle Billing • Season 3 • Episode 12

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Content note: this episode contains swearing and discussions of sex

Elle hosts Andrew Gurza, three-time guest and disability awareness consultant. Andrew discusses his new book, Notes from a Queer Cripple, set to release on April 21, which explores queer and disabled joy. He shares his journey of writing the book, the challenges of balancing academic and community-based tone, and his hopes for its impact. The conversation highlights the importance of representation and the complexities of disability and sexuality.

Links to connect with Andrew, and all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com

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Elle Billing:

Hi. My name is Elle Billing. I am a chronically ill queer femme, and I'm tired. I'm here this episode and every episode to dig at the roots of our collective fatigue, explore ways to direct our care in compassionate and sustainable ways, and to harness creative expression to heal ourselves and to heal our world. Welcome to Hoorf, radical care in the late capitalist heckscape. My guest for this episode is a repeat guest, Andrew Gurza. It's his third time appearing on the podcast. Andrew is an award winning disability awareness consultant. Andrew uses they and he pronouns and identifies proudly as disabled. Their work has been featured on BBC, CBC, Daily Extra, Gay Times UK, Huffington Post, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, out.com and several anthologies. He was the subject of an award winning National Film Board of Canada documentary Picture This. Andrew has guested on a number of podcasts and has spoken all over the world on sex, disability and what it means to be a queer cripple. Andrew is also the host of Disability

After Dark:

the Podcast Shining a Bright Light on Disability Stories, which won a Canadian Podcast Award in 2021, was a Queerty Award nominee and was chosen as an honoree at the 2020 Webby Awards. The Show is available on all platforms. Andrew is the creator of the viral hashtag, disabled people are hot, and has a new book coming out called Notes from a Queer Cripple. I'm excited to have Andrew on the podcast again for the third time, like I mentioned; he is always a delight and a joy to have behind the microphone. Welcome back to Hoorf, Andrew. No, so before we recorded today-- Hi Andrew, by the way, welcome to--

Andrew Gurza:

hi,

Elle Billing:

--Hoorf, you're one of my favorites.

Andrew Gurza:

Thanks for having me on the coolest named podcast ever Hoorf, I love it so much.

Elle Billing:

Thank you. I love having you here.

Andrew Gurza:

It sounds like hoof, it sounds like a dog puking. It sounds like so many different things.

Elle Billing:

So my dog found these new treats. My sister's dogs left some treats here, and my dog discovered them and is obsessed with them, but she hides them in this-- we have, she has this really furry blanket. And so when they get stuck to the fur, I have to, like, pull them out, and there's like, pieces of fuzz on them. And so then she eats the fuzz, and then she makes the hoorfing sound, because it's like, stuck in the throat. She's like,(coughing sound)

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah,

Elle Billing:

that wasn't the story I was gonna tell you, the story I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to hit till I wait till I hit record. Is this afternoon. My mom said, so what are you doing after you eat your soup? I said, I'm recording an episode of my podcast. I said, but I'm not nervous today. Last week, I was really nervous about the person I was recording with. I said, but --

Andrew Gurza:

I saw the person last week I saw, I saw the graphic on your thing. I said, That's cool,

Elle Billing:

yeah, but the person I recorded with last week hasn't, we were still editing. It's the one that hasn't come out yet.

Andrew Gurza:

Okay? It'll be amazing when it comes out. Yeah.

Elle Billing:

And so I was like, this one is my friend Andrew. It'll be his third time on the podcast. I really like recording with them. We'll probably tell dirty stories,

Andrew Gurza:

diverge everywhere, and

Elle Billing:

yeah, and just be completely inappropriate. And my mom, my mom looks at me, and she goes, Well, you don't want to alienate your audience.

Andrew Gurza:

Well, yes.

Elle Billing:

And I look at her and I go, Well, Mom, you know, we write a description of every episode so people know what--

Andrew Gurza:

what they're getting

Elle Billing:

what they're getting. And she's like, What is your podcast about?It's like my third season. I've been making it for three years, and she's worried I'm going to alienate my audience without actually knowing anything about what I do. Mom, you know nothing about my podcast.Andrew is a great guest, and we have a lot of fun. And

Andrew Gurza:

few times he was on, yeah,

Elle Billing:

I'm like, There's a reason I ask Andrew to come back every season.

Andrew Gurza:

I love it. I love that I'm a seasonal guest.

Elle Billing:

Don't want to alienate your audience.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh, dear,

Elle Billing:

my audience of queer disabled people, interviewing a queer disabled guest. Okay, Ma, thanks.

Andrew Gurza:

What thing can I say right now that'd be the most alienating? Um

Elle Billing:

We can't even think of anything

Andrew Gurza:

???? should be free. I don't know,

Elle Billing:

free healthcare for everybody, please and thank you.

Andrew Gurza:

Free Palestine,

Elle Billing:

oh, no, I mean, I'm on board with that too. Like, I don't think it'll alienate anybody, either.

Andrew Gurza:

That's not Alienation. That's just human rights,

Elle Billing:

yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

um, let's not go down the scare. Let's go to let's go back to the fun stuff.

Elle Billing:

I'm like, I like, I actually can't think of anything that would alienate my audience, because I know we have a very dedic-- it's not, it's not a large audience, but they're very dedicated.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh no, you know, you know, I've learned doing this now, being a being an influencer or a podcast or whatever the hell I do for the last 15 years, the smaller I like it so much better, because it's a dedicated group of people. Like, really give a shit about what you're doing? And it's not you have all the eyes on you. You just have a few eyes on you, which is nice.

Elle Billing:

And it's the ones who are like, Yeah, you're great. And if you do say something or do something that is, you know, out of integrity or out of alignment, they call you in gently. And they're like, Hey, I don't think you know what you actually said. And then you're like, oh gosh, I had no idea. Thank you for letting me know.

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, you know, like with the following, I have, I have a bigger following, and it's exhausting. I don't, I don't love that. After that, I'm like, Ew, I don't want to have a big following. I want to go back down to like 500 people follow me, because that was nice. Now I have like thousands who follow me, and I'm afraid to say stuff sometimes, because I know that it's going to be scrutinized and read over and looked over.

Elle Billing:

Like, if I spend too much time talking about poop, people are going to get get tired of it,

Andrew Gurza:

pretty much. I had somebody the other day who was like, because I turn off my comments on Instagram now, because I just don't, I don't want a big back and forth. I like to say my thing and then run away. Basically, I say what I say, and then I hide. So I turn them off. For a thing, I made a benign comment about something, something silly, and somebody wrote, I left the comments on because I wanted to just see what was going to come in. And somebody was like, turning off your comments is cowardly. And I was like, You're proving like you're proving exactly my point. Why I turn them off like

Elle Billing:

you're not saying anything productive? Why would I leave them on?

Andrew Gurza:

Why? You're just gonna yell at me? Why do I so? The smaller audiences are, I like, the better

Elle Billing:

I have found I save energy on Instagram, one, by not posting at all, and two, I just stopped using hashtags. I found out that they don't make us a lick of difference.

Andrew Gurza:

They really, don't. They really like,

Elle Billing:

oh, I don't have to, I don't have to do that. I can just not do something. Yeah, it's just like, oh!

Andrew Gurza:

once you let go of like, in the problem with Instagram is, like, they, they really win by the numbers and the followers and the and all of the crap. I wish they would take off the follower count so that nobody can see how many people are following them or are not following them, so that it didn't become this big, like, popularity contest, nobody cares. Nobody really cares. And if they do, like, what are you doing with your life that you care this much about a number?

Elle Billing:

Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't think a lot of people-- Well I mean, for some people, it probably does matter, because they're getting ad revenue. But

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, yeah, not for us. We're not making any money from it. Instagram, if you want to sponsor us, hey, hey, we have only a couple thousand followers between us, really. For you guys, listen, I don't like meta, I don't like Zuck, but I'll take Zuck's money. So if anybody who is on his team wants to give me, you know, wants to give Elle and I a couple thousand to, you know, subsist in the Hellfire that we're living in.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, for those of us who have, basically have given up on getting any social security. Now that what's his butt has now, they infiltrated the government and dismantling it all

Andrew Gurza:

now that he says, he now that he has 19 year olds called Big Balls running, running the show. Did you hear about that?

Elle Billing:

Yes, yes, I did.

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah. It's disturbing. It's beyond reprehensible.

Elle Billing:

I had friends in college who had embarrassing screen names too.

Andrew Gurza:

Listen my screenname in college --

Elle Billing:

we were also university students. We were not running the country

Andrew Gurza:

college. My screen name was, I think it was FuzzyGrapes, which was like,

Elle Billing:

basically the same thing, yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, yeah. Basically for, like, hairy balls, yeah, so fine. But I was 22 and I thought it was so cool at 42 that would not be how I would remember, though,

Elle Billing:

yeah, no, just, I mean, maybe, I mean on this podcast, for the sake of conversation,

Andrew Gurza:

for the sake of right now, I mean, and because I'm super queer and I like kinky shit, yeah, that's down for that. That's fine, but in my everyday professional life, no, no,

Elle Billing:

there's a time and a place,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

and running the federal government is not it.

Andrew Gurza:

You know, running the social security sector is not-- God, when I saw the picture of that kid, I literally was like, what???

Elle Billing:

he's an embryo!

Andrew Gurza:

yeah. Like, pardon me, is that a Stanley Cup or is it?

Elle Billing:

No, no, this is, it's Hydrapeak. I don't know. I got it at TJ Maxx. My mom got it for me.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh, nice. That is the most Midwestern thing I've ever heard.

Elle Billing:

TJ Maxx, yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

I got it at TJ Maxx, Max TJ Maxx.

Elle Billing:

So at Christmas, my niece got a pack of stickers that were all things with butts.

Andrew Gurza:

Amazing.

Elle Billing:

Oh, she gave me. You can see it, and I'm gonna

Andrew Gurza:

Oh yeah,

Elle Billing:

and then the little clouds also have butts. describe it for the listeners. It is a rainbow with a butt. And she hands it to me, and with like, kind of a serious but mischievous look at her, on her in her eyes. She goes, this is for all the gayness,

Andrew Gurza:

How old is she? I love her already

Elle Billing:

She's 12. And I was like, I will treasure this. And she goes, You better.

Andrew Gurza:

What a queen like already.

Elle Billing:

She really is. She really is. I mean, she's very much into, like, butts and stuff. A couple years ago, for Christmas, my sister and I gave her, like, a shiny butt candle from CTOAN Co. the candle company. It's a black, fat, queer owned company,

Andrew Gurza:

amazing, send me a link. I want to buy all their things.

Elle Billing:

I absolutely will. I mean, they have booty candles, but they also have, like, really gorgeous, like fat body art.

Andrew Gurza:

Well, I need some new art in my place. Actually, that's I will. I will patronize them immediately,

Elle Billing:

so I have their candles all over my bedroom. And whenever my nieces come over, they're like, we're gonna look for more bodies. Like, because you you like boobs. I'm like, I do.

Andrew Gurza:

There are two things that I hear when you said that I heard bodies, and my brain went to true crime, because you're in the Midwest. I was like, Okay, well,

Elle Billing:

I don't like true crime. My mom does. She actually is, right now, is watching Forensic Files, and I just

Andrew Gurza:

weird truth.

Elle Billing:

Yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

I can fall asleep to Forensic Files without a problem. That guy's voice, the original forensic announcer guy's voice,

Elle Billing:

oh, this is like, old school, yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, the old school guy. Whenever I go traveling for my for my job, and I go to, I get to stay in a hotel, the first thing I look for is, do they have a channel that just displays Forensic Files for like, hours? And there was one when I went to, like, I was in Louisiana a couple years ago for the Queer as Folk reboot. They asked me to come down for a few days, so I went with and I was very excited about that, but I was more excited to find a hotel that had the channel that played Forensic Files from like 10pm until like 2am it was great. That's what

Elle Billing:

she's doing right now. Yeah, she like, she'll be looking for something else, and then be like, Oh, Forensic Files is on. Mom. Forensic Files is always on.

Andrew Gurza:

It really, it's always on. I'm here for it.

Elle Billing:

And then, like, at some point, at least once a week, she'll look at me and go, if anything ever happens to me, it was my ex husband. Like, Mom, you guys have been divorced for like, 48 years. Like, I don't think he's gonna do anything to you. She goes, she's 70, okay, and her dementia is getting worse. So she, just after several episodes in a row, she just gets it in her head that if something happens to her, because all of these episodes are about husbands who killed their wives

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah, of course,

Elle Billing:

like Mom, he's not gonna do anything to you, but if he does, I'll know where to look. There's nothing I can say.

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah, no, of course.

Elle Billing:

So, so this was a fun chat,

Andrew Gurza:

a great preamble.

Elle Billing:

It is, we, do this every time.

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah, we go on for like 20 minutes about nothing, and then we get to the real stuff. So it's fine.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, so how have you received care this week, Andrew?

Andrew Gurza:

well, I receive care all day today, from getting up to getting in my chair to showering to having dinner just an hour ago. I've received care daily,

Elle Billing:

yeah

Andrew Gurza:

like, I get it every day.

Elle Billing:

What was for dinner today?

Andrew Gurza:

Um, I'm on a diet right now, so I'm trying to fast for dinner. So I do like breakfast and lunch and then for dinner I don't eat because I'm trying to lower my cholesterol naturally. I'm trying to be like, My doctor was like, your cholesterol is too high. And they were like, first they were like, change your whole diet around. I was like, No, so talk to my friend--

Elle Billing:

like, I like food. Thanks.

Andrew Gurza:

Not doing that. I talked to my friend who was like, who had lost 100 pounds in a year, and I said, What are you doing? He was like, Well, every couple days I fast, so I I will have breakfast and lunch full of protein and full of, like, all the things you need. And then for dinner, if I want to, I'll have something, and if I don't want to have something, I'll just have, like, a one of those meal replacement drinks that has enough protein and you're okay, and that's I've lost a bit of weight. So I filled. Good about that's what I have for dinner. I had that and a cup of yogurt, and then that was dinner. Oh,

Elle Billing:

all right. So, like, Is that called considered intermittent fasting?

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah,

Elle Billing:

okay, I can't do that. I get I have to eat regularly, or I get hangry, or I get a migraine. So, like, I have a colonoscopy next month, and--

Andrew Gurza:

your first one?

Elle Billing:

it is, they're doing both ends, actually, they're doing an endoscopy/colonoscopy. Roast me on a spit,

Andrew Gurza:

I've had both ends.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, I've had an endoscopy before, but I've never had a colonoscopy, and I'm like, not eating for that long, Is like, I know, I know I need a colonoscopy, but I also, like, if I don't eat, I get a migraine.

Andrew Gurza:

You'll be thankful, because once you take the pill or whatever solution they give you--

Elle Billing:

I won't want to eat.

Andrew Gurza:

You'll just be shitting for hours and hours. You'll be like, you will probably-- real talk: you'll probably shit the bed.

Elle Billing:

Awesome. Thank you.

Andrew Gurza:

Get ready for that, because I certainly did. I was on the toilet from --when I did mine three years ago. I took the pill at 4pm on the toilet and started going almost immediately, and then didn't stop going until 2am and my colonoscopy was at 8am

Elle Billing:

I can do that if I eat the wrong food.

Andrew Gurza:

But this actually feels good, because it literally is getting everything that's

Elle Billing:

yeah

Andrew Gurza:

ever been in you out. When you're sick, it doesn't get all of it out. It just gets whatever the worst part is,

Elle Billing:

yeah, like the oops, I'm accidentally allergic to this now,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

okay, I'll keep that in mind.

Andrew Gurza:

Prepare yourself.

Elle Billing:

I'll sleep in the bathroom.

Andrew Gurza:

Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea. Or just get diapers. I mean, I mean, there, there are a lot

Elle Billing:

We have those here,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, yeah, you'll be fine.

Elle Billing:

I don't have anybody to impress, no, even if I did, I don't care.

Andrew Gurza:

Why should they? Why should you? Because it's colonoscopy, you're taking care of your gut health, which nobody

Elle Billing:

Exactly? Yeah, seriously, gut health is important, and mine has not been healthy for a long time. So

Andrew Gurza:

Mine neither. Although I cheated yesterday, I had chicken and fries and I wasn't supposed to, but I was like, You know what? I'm really hungry, so

Elle Billing:

you just gotta eat what you gotta eat.

Andrew Gurza:

Sometimes it's just gonna break all the rules.

Elle Billing:

Yeah. I mean, YOLO, right?

Andrew Gurza:

It is YOLO, it is,

Elle Billing:

it is, and then the reason that you only live once is because you eat something and end up in the hospital

Andrew Gurza:

and then it hurts you. So, yeah, the last time I did that was this summer. I had, I had my fourth bowel obstruction. And when I got there, they were, yeah, no, I woke up at 2am throwing up like bile. And they were like, I got the hospital. And they were like, oh, yeah, this is pretty common. You'll be fine. And I was like, it should not, you should not be saying things like, it's common, don't worry about it. You should be saying, let's fix it right away.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that's scary. So you wrote a book.

Andrew Gurza:

I wrote a book.

Elle Billing:

I'm so excited for your book. When does it come out?

Andrew Gurza:

April 21

Elle Billing:

so tell me everything. Tell me everything about the book.

Andrew Gurza:

Okay, it's called Notes from a Queer Cripple: How to Cultivate Queer Disabled Joy and Be Hot While Doing It by me with my name on it, cool, amazing. And it's basically, if you took all my tweets about sex and disability and turn them into long form essays, that's what the book is. And so basically, like, I was not never expecting to get a book deal, never expected to write a book, and always wanted to, but I was like, I'm gonna wait until somebody approaches me and then I'm, and I want to sign a deal. Like, everybody's like, Oh, self publish. And I was like, I don't want to do that. No, no, I want. I want to be the Beyonce here, and I want somebody to approach me and say, You should write a book. And so one day, I got a tweet that's like, from a publisher, that's like, Hey, I read your tweets all the time. They're really good. Would you want to sit down and have a book, have a chat about a book? And I went, Sure, okay. And so I put off a meeting for like two weeks. I was way too nervous. And I was like, I don't know. And so finally I sat down with my with my editor, Alex, and he was like, I love your tweets. I think there's something in disability and sexuality, you could write, we're looking for disabled authors to write about sexuality. You're like, a key voice here. Would you consider writing a book? And I was like, Okay, sure. Like, tell me more. And they were like, Well, okay, like, write us an outline, and then we'll take it to our team and we'll pitch it. And so I wrote. I spent like, a month writing a proper outline and tried to make it really, like academic and really, like deep. And they were like, this is very nice, but what if he made it more community based? And so they were like, like, strip out all the academics out. That's nice, but just talk to people. Like, keep talking to tweets. Yes, and so I really had to, like, refine it, to be this, to be like this guide, but also accessible to a wider audience. And that was hard for me, because I'm used to writing, like, either something really pithy or really deep academic piece. To do something in between was hard. And also, I'm a huge procrastinator. So like, for the first year, I didn't for the first year, and they gave me a year to write it. The first year, I was like, oh, no, I can't do this. And then I got COVID in the middle of all that. So I emailed them and said, Look, can I have one more year to do it because I'm just not well, I need to be okay. And they were like, all right, sure, take time. So then finally, I got my ass into gear. And every day I would just, every day, I would just be like, how the like, I would look at the blank page and be like, how am I supposed to turn this tweet into it into, like, a whole book? What? So then, like, the stories that I tell all the time, that I have told numerous times, just came to me and finding ways to craft that and turn that into something accessible was really fun.

Elle Billing:

That's awesome. I'm so excited to read it.

Andrew Gurza:

I am excited for to be on the world. I've been I've been living with it and and thinking about it and worrying about it and stressing about it for like, like, I started this journey in '22 so basically, three years. Yeah, if I'm ready for it to just be out, I want to see what it's gonna do. I want to see, if you know, I'd love to write a second book, like, I want to see where it's going to take my career now,

Elle Billing:

yeah, I think people who aren't in the creative fields, so like art, like visual art, writing, any of those, they don't realize how long it takes us to, like, incubate these things.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh, yeah, I've been wanting to write. I've been wanting to write a book like this for a very long time, but I was very naive in how, how book writing works. I thought, you know, they're gonna give me a big advance. I'm gonna get all this money, I'm gonna be, you know, a star, because I've written a book, and everybody was like, No man, we've written books too, and we're still, you know, doing what we do, cash poor, looking for, you know, opportunities. So it was humbling. It's getting when it get released, it will be humbling to see like yes, it will go far, and in some circles and in other circles, it won't be touched. And so learning to temper my expectations of like this won't turn you into this big celebrity you think it's gonna turn you into. You just have to keep doing the work. But what I hope is that like this will because, given the state of the world we're in right now, even before Trump got elected again, you know, getting speaking gigs or jobs doing what I do was hard, so my hope is, with a book in hand, I can say I'm a published author now, I can now charge a much higher rate than I would normally charge to do a talk to a school or an organization, because I have a physical, tangible book that I can promote. And so I'm hopeful that that will lead to bigger opportunities. I hope that, like another publisher, will come along and say, Hey, we read this. We'd love to, you know, ask you to write XYZ or whatever it is, yeah. So I hope that it, I hope that it brings me more business and opportunity to thrive.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that'll be awesome. Are you gonna do an audiobook of it?

Andrew Gurza:

They haven't said anything about that. I think they want to just see how, what, how it goes, that I haven't approached because I'm like, I just want to see how the actual release goes. And they pretty much, because they're a small publishing house, like they pretty much said, You're doing all of the promo yourself. So, like, I'm just waiting for them to send me a copy of the book that I can hold in my hand, and then, you know, take a bunch of pictures and do a bunch of proper press and, like, yeah, push it out as far as I can, which is, you know, I don't mind doing like, but because I, because I do that already for my day job, but I find that part to be annoying. Like, I would love for them to have said, here's 20 grand. What do you want to do to promote the book? Or here's like 30k What do you want to do promote the book?

Elle Billing:

Yeah, that's why Ricki and I are releasing together her book length poem and my paintings at the same time. And she chose to self publish because, especially in poetry, she actually did have a book that was more traditionally published, but she, like the publisher, did one tweet or, like, one Instagram post, and that was it.

Andrew Gurza:

One tweet.

Elle Billing:

It wasn't a tweet, it was an Instagram post. The publisher did one Instagram post

Andrew Gurza:

that is

Elle Billing:

One. and Ricki, and Ricki had to do all of the other-- all the pre sales came from Ricki. Hit, like, hounding people to pre order, because it, in order to get it onto Amazon, there had to be a certain number of pre sales through the publisher,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah

Elle Billing:

then it would be big enough to hit, get to, like,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, like, it's the, like, my book is the book that I've written, is their book? Like, all of that came from Ricki, and Ricki can't even get back the rights to it, but it's trying to buy back,

Elle Billing:

yep

Andrew Gurza:

and I'm fully aware of that. I'm okay with it, because I've, you know, you, that's the deal you make. But there's this misconception that when you sign a book deal, you you know money's coming in, and that's just not the reality of

Elle Billing:

sell enough copies to get royalties, even like,

Andrew Gurza:

and so like, I, you know, and I don't expect that it will do big, big numbers. I hope it will, but I realistically, like, I know it will only probably, probably do a couple thousand if we're lucky. But you know, I also know that it will lead to bigger things. I'm glad that it's out there, and I, now I can charge what I've been wanting to charge for my talks for years, which is, like, you know, eight grand and 10 grand, which I always felt like an imposter trying to do before because I didn't have anything. Now that I have a book, I can say, like, I had you I need real money now. Like, here's a-- which sounds bougie, but like, you know, being disabled is fucking expensive,

Elle Billing:

yeah, just, I mean, non disabled people are now, like, experiencing, like, grocery crunch, like, how expensive? And, yeah, we've known the price of eggs, right? But, um, but, like you and I have kind of specialized diets, and so, like, we've been dealing with the price of groceries for a minute,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, unless we do, like, what I like to do, and then break my diet entirely and just like, oh yeah, I hate I ate that chicken now I'll just die forever. Yeah?

Elle Billing:

So, but chicken brings you joy, which brings me to my next question. It does one part of the subtitle of your book is about queer, disabled joy.

Andrew Gurza:

Yes.

Elle Billing:

And last year, when I had you on the podcast, we talked about something very heavy. And if anybody wants to go back and listen to that, they can; we talked about medically assisted suicide.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh, yeah, we did.

Elle Billing:

So this year we're, it's not quite that heavy. Joy, I mean

Andrew Gurza:

joy is a precious commodity right now.

Elle Billing:

It is a precious commodity right now, and I think it's something really important to talk about in light of what we're going through right now. So what tell me about queer, disabled joy, and what sparks joy for you. And how do you use joy as part of your like, daily, as part of your daily life?

Andrew Gurza:

I get joy in talking about the hard shit. I like to talk about, like, what about disability grief? About disability like, I like to, I like to put it out there, to tell that story and to tell the side of disability that isn't so like, when we talk about disability, especially in media depictions, there's two depictions. There's you're the hero or you're the sad villain. And I'm like, let's talk about the in between. What if you're stuck in between both of those worlds and you're just a person.

Elle Billing:

The secret third thing, yeah.

Andrew Gurza:

Like, what about that? And so bringing me, what brings me joy is talking about the reality for real, real life, yeah. You know, get, hiring a sex worker brings me joy. You know, being able to have my my body, touched in a way that I want to with somebody that I trust and know through sex work brings me joy, like there's but also sometimes just doing nothing brings me joy, like sometimes, like, did we talk last time about my 230 naps?

Elle Billing:

I don't think so. But I also take a two o'clock

Andrew Gurza:

like every day, around two to 30, I will finish nap, my lunch. The attendant's left, I have no more care. I'm alone finally, and I just tilt my chair back. I put on some kids TV, and I literally just go to sleep for an hour. And it is so calming because I'm not stuck in a bed that I can't get out of. I can easily tilt my chair back down and go do something, but it's my hour to just be in my body and be do whatever I want, and that's kind of nice, and so like little moments like that bring me joy.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, my nap time brings me joy, because my dog is excited about it.

Andrew Gurza:

Napping with you.

Elle Billing:

Yes, she loves nap time. She like, if I sign bed, like her eyes like shestarts to wiggle, and she runs up the stairs, and she turns around to look at me and wait for me to walk up the stairs, and her little butt wiggles, and her tails goin', and she's like, oh yeah, nap time! And then she runs to my bedroom, and she hops up in the bed, like, oh yeah, let's nap. And then she waits for me to get, like, laid down, and then she kind of like, tucks me in a little bit, and then she curls up behind my knees. Then we take a nap.

Andrew Gurza:

I love this for you, yes.

Elle Billing:

And if I don't take my nap, if I'm like, hyper focused on painting, and it gets to be about four o'clock in the afternoon, she starts to whine and, like, pester and get really obnoxious. And I'm like, Okay, fine, I'll go take it

Andrew Gurza:

like, What the hell is?

Elle Billing:

She's like, Excuse me, Mother

Andrew Gurza:

You didn't pay attention to the clearly set schedule we have,

Elle Billing:

yeah, and that's, that's why my-- plus the fact I love napping, but like, my nap time has that, that joy element added to it too, because I really, my dog is just always so excited about it.

Andrew Gurza:

It is my favorite to just to we're talking about, we're talking about napping, and I'm totally having a snooze, but to put on a show and just like, rest your head and to not think about ableism, all the stuff that you would worry about as a disabled person, like to just let go feels nice.

Elle Billing:

I like that.

Andrew Gurza:

So yeah, all those things bring me joy, and how do I cultivate it? I just that. I mean, it's hard, and so that's part of why I wrote the book, because I don't fucking know how to cultivate joy in these moments. Sometimes I don't really know how to talk about being queer, disabled and finding joy all the time, because sometimes that experience is not fucking joyful. It's pretty

Elle Billing:

Oh yeah, like when we're in pain, it is hard to be joyful,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, or when somebody you think is really cute rejects you because ableism or, you know, and so the book is me talking a lot about those experiences and being it's the book is very explicit, not explicit, but like it goes into my, my sex life in a fun, humorous way that I think other books about disability and sexuality, haven't yet, and I don't think there's a book like mine out there, like I remember the publisher read. One of the readers read the book in a day, and they wrote back, they sent me an email back and said, Wow, you've taken a topic that is so scary to talk about and made it like, digestible and comfy to read. And I, they're like, I read it in one sitting, and it was great. And I was like, Wow, that's awesome. So to know like, and that brings me joy to know that my experience as a severely disabled person will be out there in the world for someone for like, a younger generation. It was like, 2022 trying to find a version of themselves, like they'll pop into their bookstore and be like, where's this book on my experience? And then there'll be my book. That's that knowing that'll bring me joy,

Elle Billing:

that's that's so important. When I worked in K 12 education, I had a colleague who was talking to I worked at a special school. It was a school for the Deaf and the Blind, and we also had severely disabled students who had multiple disabilities, who were part of our student body. And one of my colleagues at one point when we were discussing, oh, well, first off, our health teacher one year just didn't teach the sex ed unit.

Andrew Gurza:

Just didn't

Elle Billing:

he just didn't teach it. He skipped it. And we had kids who thought like, we had a student who thought she couldn't get pregnant if she had sex standing up. And I was like, oh my god, yeah, among other like, erroneous misconceptions that the students had about about sex and sexuality. I had a student asked me in class one time, what boy bisexuals were called? And I'm like, they're, they're bisexual. And she goes, No, but like, the boy ones,

Andrew Gurza:

they're Chad,

Elle Billing:

I'm like, No, it's the same thing,

Andrew Gurza:

or Jeremy, Josh, yeah.

Elle Billing:

But, like, yeah, they have, but I mean, like, the word the label is the same.

Andrew Gurza:

Like, still, it's Chad, yeah, if you are really wondering if you want to, like, it's Chad, Josh too, for sure, for sure, Josh sometimes Joshua, if you want to be fancy. But

Elle Billing:

I think I knew a bisexual Joshua

Andrew Gurza:

I know a few of them actually, so, yeah, so, and

Elle Billing:

I was like, Oh no, it's bisexual. And she's like, No, but like the boy ones. It was like, Oh, okay. Oh, you sweet. But I had a colleague who her approach to Sex Ed was just to scare kids away from having sex.

Andrew Gurza:

That doesn't work,

Elle Billing:

and if she made the comment, well, it was too late for some of them, but she was hoping she could, like, we could get to some of the other kids before they started having sex. I'm like, that's not a healthy approach. Like

Andrew Gurza:

No.

Elle Billing:

and something I noticed about working with kids with varying degrees of disability is just this, and you've probably experienced this too, and why, one of the reasons why your book is so important, is that people with, I think, more severe disabilities get put again. There's like, we're either or this or this, and most people are actually in the middle, is that people are either hyper sexualized and treated as like, not in control of their urges,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

or they're desexualized completely and treated as like, non sexual entities.

Andrew Gurza:

I mean, we see that a lot with our we don't see it a lot, but it's perceived a lot with people with Down syndrome,

Elle Billing:

yes

Andrew Gurza:

are perceived as super hyper sexual. And I remember being--

Elle Billing:

or, or completely asexual,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah,

Elle Billing:

like to the point of being a non sexual entity, not asexual, and as, like, the, the orientation, but like, as being a non sexual entity, like,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah

Elle Billing:

like they are in like, they're incapable of understanding or being part ofthat world.

Andrew Gurza:

And that's why we have 31 states that still allow legal sterilization, sterilization of disabled, disabled people, and a lot of them have have intellectual disability, and that's shameful,

Elle Billing:

right? And really, as we know as queer people, sexuality is a spectrum, and most people fall somewhere in the middle.

Andrew Gurza:

Most people are like on the Ace-spec spectrum somewhere.

Elle Billing:

Well, I mean, not even on the Acespec spectrum, but, like just disabled, I mean, sexuality is a spectrum as a very general statement. So it would make sense that, like most disabled people, are also somewhere on the spectrum of sexuality. Like we're not hypersexual and we're not non sexual entities, the way people very ableistly categorize disabled people.

Andrew Gurza:

and very binary too. Like, that's such a binary of like, one or the other

Elle Billing:

it is, it is and fuck binaries.

Andrew Gurza:

I sometimes like fucking binaries, though it could be wrong,

Elle Billing:

okay, but the other way,

Andrew Gurza:

I like a good binary, though sometimes it's really enjoyable,

Elle Billing:

yeah, yeah, okay, but you know what I mean, I got you, yeah, yeah. So I'm really glad you wrote the book.

Andrew Gurza:

I'm also really glad I wrote it, because it's out now, and it's cool to, like, it was cool to get emails from the editor that was like, Okay, we're done now. Like, you finished, you wrote, it's in. It's like, prep for production. Like, that was cool. And I remember sending the first chapter off to the editor being so afraid of what he was gonna think. Because I really, like, we had talked for hours and hours, and I valued his opinion so much, and he was the one who sought me out, and, like, found me on Twitter, and was like, please write a book. And so I was so worried he would hate it, and his first email back to me was, this is why I knew you should write the book. And I was like, Oh, wow. It made me feel so confident to keep going and like, it's not a long book, it's only 142 pages. So it's a quick read, but it took, like, a year and a bit to

Elle Billing:

Oh yeah. That says nothing about the process getting there.

Andrew Gurza:

Oh no, the process took forever,

Elle Billing:

so I'm gonna I have one more question.

Andrew Gurza:

I'm ready.

Elle Billing:

Okay, what is one true thing that you learned from writing your book?

Andrew Gurza:

that sometimes the stories aren't always as you remember them, and you have to sit with that. Sometimes there are stories in the book that were really hard for me to to write, and once I put them on paper, I could let them go. You want me to elaborate on that more?

Elle Billing:

Yeah, if you would,

Andrew Gurza:

your face is saying, Tell me more.

Elle Billing:

I'm not, yeah. I was just like, I was, I was sitting with that actually for just a second, like, oh yeah, but yes, I would love it if you could elaborate on that.

Andrew Gurza:

I mean, there's just a lot of stuff in there, like my first time that I talk about stories that I told over and over and over again, and I probably will continue to tell over and over and over again. But now that it's on the page, I don't have to constantly bring it up. I can say, read my book on page 22 I talk about this story.

Elle Billing:

It has a more it has a more perm-- It has some permanence to it, yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

and I mean it also the thing I learned is that I don't always want to write about sex and disability and queerness and disability, like there's a huge part of me now that I've written the book that wants to do another book on severely disabled people period the end, and write a whole different kind of book about that experience that isn't just this book was very focused in the narrative. What they wanted, they wanted me to speak solely about queerness and disability, and that was the brief. And I did that. Now, like for a bigger publisher to say, Hey, you want to write, what does being severely disabled mean? Tell me that write a whole bunch of stuff, or go find stories from other people who are severely disabled and put that in a book. Like, I'd love to do something bigger and a bit more outside of myself, and a bit more like,

Elle Billing:

yeah,

Andrew Gurza:

academic events, because I'd like to do something a bit deeper than the Andrew Gurza story. Because I feel like I've been as proud as I am of the book, and I'm so excited for it, but I've also been telling these stories in my job for 15 years, so they don't feel fresh to me. And that was one of the things that I found that I struggled doing when I was running it. How do I make these stories fun again? Like, how do I make these stories that I've told a million times and like so many different platforms, how do I make them, like, fresh? And that was, that was a challenge,

Elle Billing:

yeah? And it doesn't need to just be the Andrew Gurza story anymore. Now it can be and friends,

Andrew Gurza:

yeah, like, now that parts are there's other parts of my identity like that I want to explore, and I've started using severely disabled in the past year and a half. And people don't, a lot of disabled people don't like when I use that term. I get pushed back a lot for that terminology. I've lost disabled friends because I've used that term for myself. And so I'd love to explore the tension that that brings in up in people, and why, and what does that mean when you live that experience, and why do you do it? And so I don't know if there's a book there, but I feel like there could be.

Elle Billing:

Yeah, I think that's an interesting and important conversation. I haven't been part of that conversation with you, but I have seen that and similar conversations around kind of the disability social mediaworld about, like, functioning labels and severity labels and things like that, and

Andrew Gurza:

and like, that's part of why I turn off all the comments, because I don't want to have, I don't want to spend my afternoon fighting about semantics with you. I think we have bigger stuff to worry about, and the bigger stuff we have to worry about right now is like, Medicaid being taken away, Medicare being taken away, SSI being gutted. Like we have bigger things to worry about,

Elle Billing:

disabled Black kids being taken away from their families and being sent to reeducation farms like stuff we thought was done 100 years ago,

Andrew Gurza:

like autistic people being put onto a farm to-- like what? no

Elle Billing:

anti anti vaxxers shouldn't be in charge of health

Andrew Gurza:

But to move it away from all that for a minute. care. Um, so very excited about the book. If you go on Amazon right now, you can pre order it.

Elle Billing:

So what was the title?

Andrew Gurza:

Again, Notes from a Queer Cripple: How to Cultivate Queer Disabled Joy and Be Hot While Doing It by me Andrew Gurza. And if you're looking for the title and you can't find it, it's blue and pink is the cover with a bunch of balloons for the queer cripple part of the title. And then, like,

Elle Billing:

it's a great cover.

Andrew Gurza:

I was really,

Elle Billing:

I'll link it in the show notes.

Andrew Gurza:

I was really impressed with the cover. I had no hand in the cover. They just showed me that. And I was like, okay, great, Yep, good,

Elle Billing:

yeah, so I will link that. I will link your socials. It was good to talk to you again.

Andrew Gurza:

Always a pleasure.

Elle Billing:

Yeah. Thanks for being here. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hoorf. to get the complete show notes and all the links mentioned on today's episode, or to get a full transcript of the episode, visit Hoorf podcast dot com Join the Blessed Herd of St Winkus. By signing up for our newsletter, you can get Hoorf episodes delivered directly to your inbox. What's more, you get invitations to our monthly Coffee and Biscuits Chat, where you get to hang out with Ricki and Elle, talk about the show and connect on the topics that mean the most to you. You can sign up for that at Hoorf podcast dot com. If you become a patron for only $3 a month, you can support the creation of this podcast, help pay my editor ,and join a community of caregivers out here, just doing our best. Thank you again for joining me, Elle Billing the chronically ill queer femme who is very tired on this episode of Hoorf! Until next time, be excellent to each other. Hoorf is hosted by Elle Billing @elleandwink, audio editing by Ricki Cummings@rickiep00h music composed by Ricki Cummings. Hoorf is a production of Elle & Wink Art Studio LLC, all rights reserved. Hoorf can be found on all social media platforms. @hoorfpodcast at H, O, O, R, F. Podcast.

Andrew Gurza:

that doesn't work.

Contributor

Ricki Cummings

Producer