i.
My second grade class is lining up in size-order to go the day’s special class—art or music or maybe library. I am second in the girls’ line and my best friend is second in the boys’, as we will be until the only pair we could reliably see over have growth spurts a year ahead of us in 6th grade. It is the 80s so I am wearing purple corduroy pants and pink t-shirt featuring an iron-on photo of a fluffy white cat standing in a meadow; my favorite outfit. Someone behind us is picking on another girl who had to change back into her sweatsuit from gym class because she spilled her soup at lunch. Or, more likely, someone knocked it over onto her.
“My sister says you shouldn’t wear all pink because you’ll look like a pig,” announces one of the kids behind us, smirking at her pale pink sweats.
“Or a hippo!” says another. The lines begin debating which of these two animals she is most like. I remember thinking the instigators of this resemble some sort of rodent, but clam up, wondering if my pink t-shirt looks funny from the back. It’ll be almost fifteen years before I own another piece of pink clothing even though I know this is all bullshit.
ii.
It’s late. We are late. My then-boyfriend is standing uncomfortably in the vestibule of my parents’ house waiting for them to release me. I am in college, however, my step-father has no qualms reporting my car (in his name) stolen to get the last “word” in any of our arguments. We are supposed to be on our way to a symphony performance that he needs to see for one of his classes. He’s in a suit and I’m re-wearing the somber black dress and heels I wore to my junior prom. My hair is pulled up in some fancy combs. I look nothing like my usual self, but I look great. My stepfather disagrees.
“Just put on some god-damned lipstick and you can go!” my step-father shouts, slamming his fist down onto the table. We’ve been at this for nearly a half hour.
“I’m wearing lipgloss… it’s the only kind I have that’s an ok color for this…” I say, cautiously trying to back out of the house without further uproar. This never works.
“I can’t even see it. You have no color! Don’t you want to look nice? It’s time you started making an effort to look like a woman! People are going to think you’re a…. You are not leaving this house until you put on some makeup,” he insists.
I borrow a weird mauve 90s long-lasting lipstick from my mother to appease him and get us out of there and spend the ride scrubbing it off trying to soothe the dryness with my objectionable different-pink tinted gloss.
I cannot remember what the symphony played that night but am reminded of this exchange each time I’m choose (or opt out of) lip colors.
iii.
I’m in my post-teen runaway phase, living in Los Angeles and working for a tech start-up that’d recently been bought out by a giant monster. Everyone around me is a nerd wildin’ out with dotcom paychecks and rollin’ kegs into the office for expense-able happy hours. My friends are mostly side-gig promoters and djs and we wear a lot of black. I’ve bleached my waist-length, naturally dark hair as white as it could stand so it will soak up as much flamingo pink Manic Panic as possible. To make this perfectly average factoid tip into the range of mortifying, I wore it in heavy pigtails stabilized by popping them through lensless goggles.
The girls at the goth night we frequent are old school Morticia Addams-style ladies. They do not approve of my giant flamingo hair or or neon fuchsia tights, blaming them for the slow shift from the dark riffs of Sister of Mercy into the dark synths of other bands that had honestly been around since the 80s too, so what gives, right? They care though, in the way cats only care about changes to their environment and routine.
“Raves are over, powerpuff girl,” hisses a woman dressed like the Queen of Hearts, the train of her gown soaking up better-left-unidentified liquids from the bathroom floor.
“I know, I know. And everyday is Halloween,” I say earnestly beaming, still hopeful that I don’t have to be miserably cool to make friends. I am surrounded by “harrumphs!” and a rustling of black lace and feathered fans. I try again, “You know, like that Ministry song… no? Oh, not into it. Right.” Shrugging, I finish washing my hands and adjusting my cumbersome hair before escaping back to my crew at the bar.
Crossing the dancefloor on the way back to my table of co-workers and friendlier associates, an underage gothling in a Joy Division shirt (aka “the squiggly lines everyone posts on Tumblr”) taps my shoulder and smiles at me. As I lean closer to hear him, he says, “You have my dream hair. That’s my favorite shade.”
“Oh, it would look really good on you! It’s a super pain to maintain though.” We chatted for a while about mixing colors and application techniques, and a few weeks later I run into him at a record store with the shiniest, most vividly dyed locks shifting from deep magenta to cotton candy pink. It was glorious. If this had been last year, I’m sure we would’ve Instgram’d delighted selfies taken together immediately.
The second time we ran into each other was at a diner after hours. He introduced me to his boyfriend as the “fellow pink he’d gotten good color advice from” giving me a sense of accomplishment I haven’t surpassed.
iv.
“Check out his socks,” whispered a colleague at my most hated office job, nodding in the direction of our co-worker who’d just gotten up from his cube to meet his latest report at the printer.
I glanced at his feet as he walked by my desk and in our inter-office chat application tapped out an “I dig ‘em” to her.
“They’re hot pink. That’s weird,” she types back. I sigh.
“It’s a perfect compliment to the grays he is wearing,” I reply in our wretched little window on screen.
“I know it’s in all the stores right now, but I really hate it when men wear pink. It’s gross.”
“You’re gross,” my fingers instinctively plonk out, before backspacing and sending, “If everyone had a say in what other people wore, no one would want to wear whatever the consensus ended up being.”
“I knowwwww. It’s just he’s got a girlfriend though so I don’t get it.”
“Because only gay men are allowed to be trendy? Because girlfriends should veto things that might make their boyfriends seem gay? I’m no expert on the subject but wouldn’t you laugh and laugh and laugh if your husband tried to tell you not to wear a certain pair of socks? Do you select all of his clothes? Is he a toddler?” I don’t bother stiffling the intensity of my keyboard smashing.
“Right. I know. I know. I’m just saying guys wearing pink icks me out. Just sayin’!”
“I think beige clothing makes people look like earthworms and/or mummies swathed in Band-Aids. I don’t hate it, but I do think it’s hilarious. Please keep my opinion of your favorite sweater in mind when you wear it. Let the echoes of my laughter haunt you forever. Especially when you are shopping. Just sayin’.”