Despite the fact that I’m not that old (27 at the end of the month) I’ve seen a lot of change on the internet. My household got the net when I was in Jr. High. I was the first child in my school who used it. Some of the well off kids’ parents had it but they wouldn’t let them use their expensive computers. Back then the net was more information based instead of socially based. Although I always had a hard time finding any factoid I needed, funny considering what I do now. Initially I (naively) thought that chat rooms would be a cool way of talking to people all over the world. Turns out they were mainly for picking people up.

So I contributed to a forum or two and some newsgroups. This was all well and good but it was very plain to see that women were often under represented, then insulted when they spoke up. In a forum of malcontents I hung out in men habitually bitched about their love lives and in a Seinfeld sort of way always had “good reasons” for it. If a woman spoke up and said the same thing the men turned on her saying “She had it easy and should be able to get any guy she wanted easily if she wasn’t “fat and/or ugly”. And what were we women doing hanging around here anyway when we should be off tanning, cleaning or cooking?

I think this is why I’ve gotten into reading a number fashion blogs lately. I enjoy the blogs featuring women who feel like it lets them express themselves in a way that they weren’t able to before. A lot of them preface their site with “I know I’m fat, ugly, short, poor, ____ (insert imagined imperfection here)” but then they post what they want anyway. (FYI: I’m guilty of this too). That might sound harsh but those are the ones I prefer. The girls who are more in the vein of “Now I’m off to party with a billionaire” don’t forge a real connection. I know that there are other types of female run blogs but they don’t speak to me as I don’t cook or have children.

On the surface it seems silly to be inspired by someone modeling their shoes until you think about it.

TRUE TO YOURSELF QUOTES

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”- E.E. Cummings

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”-Oscar Wilde

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.”-Raymond Hull

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”-Judy Garland

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”-Dr. Seuss

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.”-Jim Morrison

“I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.”-Jim Morrison

“I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I’ve written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.”-Shirley MacLaine

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”-Andy Warhol

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”-Andy Warhol