whatever.odt

By JD O'Meara

JD's whatever.odt is an academic memoir that brings together opposite sources -- print and web, humorous and painful, scientific and literary -- to place her personal experiences as a genderqueer individual in a larger cultural context. Offering the text for free continues her motif of opposites: "such a book would have been invaluable to me when I was growing up lost, confused, and bullied."

Combining a youthful and goofy sense of humor with insightful analysis and critique, whatever.odt is a fun and thought provoking read that sweeps across everything from Shakespeare to The Simpsons and from doctoral dissertations to Yahoo! story comments. The artistic form of the text follows its function, with its unusual title, enigmatic chapter titles, and unconventional paragraphing designed to mirror the atypical identity of JD herself.

Although it does incorporate elements of both genres, whatever.odt is neither a coming out nor a transition story. As the memoir of a genderqueer heterosexual, whatever.odt answers the call for transgender and genderqueer individuals to emerge from the shadows of shame by making their bodies seen and their voices heard. It engages in the contemporary initiative to expose and eradicate bullying by supporting and empowering those who are and who have been its victim. And it moves transgenderism and genderqueerness from the reader's newsfeed into the reader's backyard by offering a fresh perspective on the girl next door.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JD O'Meara
• Release date: Jan 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466045491

JD O'Meara

Unlike many writers, I can't honestly say that I've had a lifelong love for literature and writing. Encouraged throughout most of my schooling to study math and science, I was introduced to literature as a discipline late in my undergraduate career. It was really only during my graduate studies that I began to fully appreciate the act of writing as a form of inquiry and expression. This appreciation notwithstanding, it was still only after a breakdown that I myself turned to writing in a desperate attempt to understand myself.Because my writing is so personally motivated, I choose to keep much of it private. The texts I offer here, however, are notable exceptions.Although it began as a highly personal and private work, whatever.odt ultimately -- and to my pleasant surprise -- blossomed into precisely the sort of text that I wish I had read when I was younger. I've chosen for this reason to share whatever.odt with anyone whom it might interest, in the hope that the genderqueer individuals who need it most will find and be empowered by it.Blue Jeans is a far more universal text than whatever.odt in that its narrative structure whisks the reader through the disarray and disjunction of a mental breakdown. My hope is that it will provide vicarious solace for those who have had such an experience, and foster patience and understanding in those who have not.

Book preview

whatever.odt

JD O'Meara

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 JD O'Meara

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank my primary readers for their critical insight and helpful comments on my multiple (and occasionally disastrous) drafts. Jackie, Jody, and Liz, this text would be a lot less coherent if weren't for you.

I also need to thank Becky, Bob, David, and Linda. The conversations sparked by your comments and questions ultimately made me believe that this text is worth publishing.

And finally, this text would never have happened without my fab four: Mom, Dad, Jerry, and Derek. I have no words for you guys. Thank you for your love and unwavering support, even when I'm being difficult...which is most of the time.

~ ~ ~

Table of Contents

A Note on the Text

Prologue

All I Want

0 dB

Lines

.5

Here It Goes Again

i

. . . - - - . . .

Sigma

rmdir ~/hate

Drive

Rx

Roots

Sig Figs

It's Not a Fashion Statement

Lambda

O.o

Boundaries

Diamond Eyes

Defense

400 nm

Epilogue

About the Author

Cited Material

~ ~ ~

A Note on the Text

Because many ebook readers do not properly display symbols, I had to make compromises on the representations of three of my chapter titles. Modifying the SOS chapter title from the symbolic dot and dash format to a combination of periods and hyphens works to an extent. Having no common punctuation symbols with which to create the upper case Greek letter Sigma and the lower case Greek letter Lambda, however, forced me to simply spell out those chapter titles.

I also opted for the epigraphs to substitute the titles of the songs for their file name representations that I originally used. Thus the original Table of Contents for whatever.odt -- and the version of it with which I am most happy with as a writer -- looks as follows.

A link to the Cited Material page is included the first time a work is quoted. Following the back link at the end of the citation will return the reader to that spot in the text. As indicated at the bottom of the Cited Material page, I do not include documentation of all 5331 Yahoo! comments with this version of the text. I do, however, make that documentation available to everyone.

The name of the font on my cover is Schoolbully. *grin* Yeah. I even appropriated your font.

~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~

Prologue

2009.

An exhausted traveler sits in a hotel lobby in the wee hours of the morning. A valet holding a pair of key cards approaches. The traveler motions toward the Front Desk, where a second traveler negotiates heatedly with an attendant. The valet then joins their discussion.

A casual observer would see nothing unusual in this exchange. And frankly, I didn't either. But the reason I saw nothing unusual in it is kind of unusual.

The exhausted traveler -- that's me. I'd been on the go for hours. Security had been particularly strict at both Detroit Metro and LaGuardia, in part due to the fact that the date was September 11th. Or had been, anyway. It was now a little after 2 am on the 12th. And I was still green from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride from the airport.

The first room we'd been given had a bad air conditioning unit. Long story short, after 40 minutes or so of being on hold alternately with the Front Desk and Maintenance, a guy with a toolbelt came sauntering in. After less than two minutes of looking at the unit quizzically and slamming his closed fist down on it (in much the same way, I should note, that I myself had done, before queasily falling face down on the bed), he pronounced the unit broken and advised us to move to another room.

Another 20 minute, on-hold bonanza ensued. Why there was such a wait to talk to the Front Desk at 2 in the morning is a mystery to me. But then again, when I'm face down on a strange bed at 2 in the morning, a lot of things are a mystery to me.

An argument erupted.

We've already called the Front Desk about this once. No, we already had a guy from Maintenance come look at the air conditioner. We need a new room. What do you mean, you don't have another room? You're telling me that there are no vacant rooms in the entire hotel? On the 47th floor? Ok, can we have a valet meet us up there so we don't have to come down 48 floors just to turn around and come back up 47? What do you mean, no? The 19th floor? You just said that there was a room on the 47th floor. Yes, you did. You just said 47. I heard you myself. You just said it.

Suffice it to say that a lot -- and I mean, a lot -- of words were spilled on both sides of this conversation.

My travel partner slammed down the phone.

Two minutes later we were dragging our luggage back to the elevator. My attempt to stab the button for floor 19 was thwarted, however, by the fact that the lowest floor served by that particular elevator was the 20th.

I looked blearily at my travel buddy. It might have been my imagination, but I'm pretty sure I saw smoke wisping from her ears.

I couldn't keep up with her stomp toward the front desk, so I opted to sit with the luggage while she handed the Front Desk attendants their collective asses. I flopped onto a bench -- feet on the ground, elbows on my knees, head in my hands -- and stared at the floor.

I blinked.

The first time we'd come through the lobby, I'd thought the floor was gray. But now that I was staring at it, I noticed that it was actually composed of small alternating black and white squares.

I squinted.

And actually, the whites weren't even white and the blacks weren't even black anymore. The scuffs accumulated through regular usage had rendered them more alike than different. Was a shame, really, to have invested all that time and energy into the black and white squares when the floor ended up being gray.

A pair of shoes, worn by the aforementioned valet, entered my field of vision.

Hello?

I looked up slowly.

Are you the ones moving to the 19th floor?

I attempted but failed to reply in time.

Excuse me, son. Are you the ones moving to the 19th floor?

I grinned and motioned toward the front desk.

Oh, your mom? Thank you.

The shoes disappeared, leaving me to ponder both the floor and how accustomed I am to being referred to as son -- which is a little unusual for a 35 year old chick with a PhD (so technically, I'm Doctor Son) who in this particular case was in New York not with my mother but on business with my boss, who isn't even 10 years my senior.

~ ~ ~

Let's leave no words unspoken

And save regrets for the broken

Will you even look back when you think of me?

All I want is a place to call my own

And mend the hearts of everyone who feels alone

You know to keep your hopes up high and your head down low

A Day to Remember, "All I Want"

~ ~ ~

0 dB

I should probably warn you that I generally can't tell a story for shit.

I never know quite where to start.

Sometimes I'll be all into a story and look up to find a bemused look on my listener's face, usually indicative of my not having started the story back far enough. Other times it's the glazed look, for starting the story too far back. There's also the confused look, for neglecting a critical detail; the annoyed look, for taking too long to make a point; and the irritated look, for failing to make any semblance of a point at all. And then there's the noose-tying look, which is useful because it scales as needed: the 'please hang me' look, for when I'm off on a tangent; the 'seriously please hang me now' look, for when I've interrupted myself to go on a tangent; and the 'fuck this, I'm going to hang you instead' look, for when I've interrupted a tangent with tangential interruption.

Occasionally even I myself will realize that a story has devolved into a poorly-authored choose-your-own-matrushka-adventure, but I'm usually told to shut the hell up before it gets quite that bad.

Take my story here, for example. I have no idea where to start.

I'd like to just dive right in, but I've learned be wary of looks. I've seen too many. And I'm not talking about the ones my lousy storytelling generate. I'm talking about the ones the me and my story generate -- the ones that me and my sisters and my brothers and all of our stories generate.

'At the beginning' is of course the obvious place to start, but this assumes I know when and where 'the beginning' actually is. And I don't. But even if I did, I wouldn't start that way anyway. Sounds too much like 'in the beginning,' which isn't what I want at all.

Saying that it all started 'back in the day' might ingratiate me with the non-academic crowd that I'd like to have hear my message, but I happen to know that would make my friends and colleagues in the academy break out in hives. And I'm actually starting to itch a little bit myself after having typed that just now.

'Once upon a time' doesn't have the right ring to it, and neither does 'a long time ago.'

I am, like many of my generation, partial to 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.' For that matter, I'm also a huge fan of 'far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy.' But both of those beginnings are a little too...I don't know...galactic.

I guess I could start with some basic information about myself, like the stuff you'd put in an online profile -- but really, does anyone ever tell the truth on those things? I know I don't. I have profiles splattered all over the web, none of them the same and not one of them entirely truthful. My usernames and aliases are quite the motley bunch, and many of them are connected to email addresses that aren't even registered in my real name. Sometimes I literally don't know who the hell I am.

Still, this text being what it is, I suppose some truth is in order.

I was born on All Saints Day, but the day before would have been more appropriate for a variety of reasons. The year was 1973 and the time was right around 4 pm. Nearly all of the descriptions that I've read of