JB story in Salon.com: ‘The Women I Dated When I Was a Man.’

This piece is an extract from the longer work, “TRANS”, which appears in the new anthology, LOVE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD: TRUE STORIES OF BREAKUPS, BAD RELATIONSHIPS, AND BROKEN HEARTS. This is part of the piece I’ll be reading at two different events in New York at the end of July. For more info on those events, visit the “appearances” page.

July 2, 2009 | With Maeve it ended with a big fight. This was back when I was still a man. “I never know what you’re thinking,” she said. We were at a bar in Baltimore, eating potato skins. “I mean, jeez. Who are you, anyway, when you’re out of my sight?”

I waved my fingers in front of her eyes. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” I said.

Maeve was in my fiction workshop at Johns Hopkins. It was becoming clear to me that she was a realist, not only in her writing, which was fine, but in her life as well, which was where the trouble came in.

I finished my pint. “Why can’t the truth be about this, instead?”

“About what?”

“About making each other laugh. Telling stories. Singing songs. The blarney. That’s so wrong?”She was looking around the bar, as if she’d already decided it wasn’t too soon to start shopping around for another boyfriend. “You know, Obi-Wan,” she said. “Sometimes you’re a real jerk.”

“Obi-wan?” I said, thoughtfully. “Now that’s a name i haven’t heard for a long, long time..”

(read the rest of the piece here.)