((( FORUM Considering the Queer Disabled/Debilitated Body Considering the Queer Disabled/Debilitated Body: An Introduction of Queer Cripping Andrew R. Spieldenner I am writing this from Mexico City where I have spent the day at the Museo del Frida Kahlo. 1 In the frst two rooms, the pieces that stick out to me are labeled “unfnished.” In Frida Kahlo, Frida and the Cesarean (unfnished), the sketch centers a woman (Frida) and a fetus growing inside her. Next to her body is a faceless baby. She is surrounded by another woman and a man. In the upper corner, a surgical team works in a hospital setting. As I stand watching it, a man hovers behind me. His traveling companion asks what he is looking at, and he just whispers to her, “it’s so powerful. It’s deep.” She murmurs agreement, and they turn to discuss in hushed tones what the unfnished work is doing to them. Te other is one of the artist’s canonical self-portraits. Te piece Self-Portrait, Detroit (unfnished) has pencil lines with the barest of coloring on the face. Fri- da’s body is spectral, revealed in its creation as if it were under x-ray. Te beauty lies in the unfnished parts: the sketch of the body, the imaginative possibilities in the unmapped space. Te tease of Detroit is even less recognizable—there are hints of buildings behind the artist. I search for the city, for the surfaces that emerge from this apparition. I spend more time trying to fnd her and where she struggled than I do on her other fnished pieces. Tis unfnished state is intriguing. How often do we fail to fnish a project or do not complete it on time? Why is an incomplete project considered a failure? Doesn’t Frida’s unfnished work still say something? What does it mean to be on time? Whose time? In my HIV advocacy work, I am challenged by schedules, meeting norms and communication styles that are not inclusive of most people living with HIV: who are overwhelmingly—in the United States—queer and Copyright © 2019 Michigan State University. Andrew R. Spieldenner, “Considering the Queer Disabled/ Debilitated Body: An Introduction of Queer Cripping,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 6.3 (2019): 76–80. ISSN 2327-1574. All rights reserved.