THE PINK AGE: When I was old enough to dress myself, my favorite item of clothing became a bright pink T-shirt, which the manlier members of my family considered suspicious. This was the nineties, after all, when liking pink things as a young boy was still considered a misdemeanor in most states. But I loved pink—all the best things in life were pink: Kirby the Nintendo blob, bubble gum, donut frosting, piggy banks, cotton candy, and the only flavor of Starburst that actually matters. That shirt represented my entire worldview before society tore me down.

Of course, that shirt soon got buried beneath the piles and piles of hand-me-downs my mother transferred from my brother’s closet to mine. We were a frugal family, and my parents never wasted an opportunity to save a penny, especially if it meant embarrassing my brother or me. Case in point: on more than one occasion, my mother forced me to snatch a piece of old furniture from a neighbor’s garbage. We’d be driving home from school and she’d spot some old desk or flea-ridden armchair and demand that I run out and grab it. “You’re the one who wants it,” I’d yell. “You get it!” But I was small and weak, and she was the boss, and inevitably, I’d be pilfering from the trash while she kept the getaway car running two driveways ahead. The same general philosophy applied to clothes: you get what you get, especially if it comes from the trash. And sure, maybe it wasn’t from the literal trash, maybe it was just from my brother’s collection of old shit, but still. My brother was always taller and ganglier than me, so I spent most of my grade-school years in chunky sweaters and loose jeans that were always just a bit off, constantly reminded that clothing was something that wore me, rather than the other way around.