Dear Hunter Girley Brown,

My boyfriend’s mad because even though I bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan, I’m not helping him remember he’s a man. Any tips for Valentine’s Day?

Signed, Ready to Date Bacon

Dear Ready to Date Bacon,

So yeah. It was the mid-80s and I was shacked up pretty tight somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert with Peter DeLuise and Charlie Sheen when the drugs began to take hold. Pete was pretty good about reminding Charlie that he was a man, which was good because between the shimmer lip-glosses I was testing for Gonzo and the heavy psychedelics we were doing, I could barely feel my lips.

That trip was when I realized men are like peacocks. They’re not great in groups and they shouldn’t be alone. Either way, they start screaming and bashing their heads into walls.

Every peacock flock has a screamer that runs into walls. My flock’s got one. Always has. It’s named Charlie. All the screaming head-bashers get named Charlie.

A man who can’t remember he’s a man unless you’re reminding him, leaving him little Post-it notes like, YOU’RE A MAN and DEFINITELY A MAN and whatnot, can probably benefit from some super-charged role-playing. He could play a man and you could play that unattainable love-object: his dad.

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