“Everyone gets one page,” said Lightsinthesky. “You get one page; you can write whatever you want. Or draw something. But you only get one… pink and jeans! Pink and jeans! What is it with pink and jeans?! …page.”
“What if you finish your notebook?” I asked innocently. “Do you get another page in the second one?”
“I haven’t thought about…”
“Wait. What was that about pink and jeans?”
“Pink and jeans? Where?” he half-yelled, suddenly tensing in high alert like a startled meerkat.
I can’t really explain whether it was a 2002 thing or entirely localised around our borough, or even our school. Wearing a pink top paired with blue jeans (and, often, a large belt) had become a thing. As far as I was aware, it wasn’t even a deliberate fashion; it was just… a thing that happened.
I quite liked the look; Lightsinthesky – for whatever reason – hated it.
Being friends with Lightsinthesky came with its certain caveats: he liked to be addressed as “dude”; you could read one of his books but he would have probably drawn a cartoon of you somewhere there; he would invariably become interested in anything with a pulse (and fell in love with someone else every single day); he didn’t make much sense.
And he had his phrases.
“My God, that woman’s got a huge arse.”
“People will lose body parts.”
“Fluff! Aah-aah! Fluff of the universe!”
“Yes, she is intensely shaggable.”
“Look at her, she’s nice.”
“Totally blown away.”
“Don’t start activating my annoying meter.”
“Pink and jeans! Why? Why do they all wear pink and jeans?”
For that, none of us had an answer. There was no reason the girls in our sixth form shouldn’t wear that combination. It wasn’t something the boys wore, even the gay ones – it was a cis girl thing. And, although I didn’t mind it as much as Lightsinthesky did (his vitriol was unfounded), he had a point: wearing pink and jeans was increasing.
Following one particularly amusing lunchtime where I genuinely thought he’d pass out from all the yelling he was doing (as it may as well have been Jeans for Genes Day judging by what we saw), I finally bit the bullet and asked.
“Oh, it’s just easy,” said my unconcerned friend. “Jeans are comfortable and some tops are pink. It’s not deliberate, it’s just a thing that…”
“…thing that happens, yeah. I got it,” I helpfully added, pausing as Lightsinthesky’s latest tirade against the combination of fuchsia and cyan floated through the wall. “It just seems to irritate Lightsinthesky, that’s all.”
There was a pause.
“Of course it does,” she tinkled with a grin. “Why do you think we do it so much?”
A couple of days later I talked him into letting her have a page of his second “book of dude”. Her contribution consisted mostly of drawing of houses, trees, hills, the sun and the text “PINK & JEANS RULES THE WORLD!” in bold black writing.
I don’t think he ever got over it.
As far as I’m concerned, though, I don’t suit blue jeans, but one of the looks I find sexiest is someone wearing jeans on their lower half, with nothing on top at all…
…ladies.
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