Since when are "ghetto" and "black people" synonymous?

Alright, I've lived in Livonia all my life, and I'm pretty aware that it is a city that lacks diversity. It's no secret that Livonia is like one of the whitest cities in the country and I'm fine with that. I never thought it was like that because citizens didn't allow black people in, or felt like there wasn't a place for people who aren't white. I was just always under the impression that there were just more white people in the city than any other race.
A lot of people in my high school and middle school were Asian and Indian. A few were African-American. But truth be told, there were just more white people.
Now, I guess that there's a proposal for a Wal-Mart to go in down at Middlebelt and Plymouth. Okay, first of all, there's one 1/2 mile north at Middlebelt just south of I-96. Why are they going to build another one right there? But I guess that's beside the point.
What got me was that there was a community of people who live right behind the place where the store will go who don't want a Wal-Mart there. They don't want a Wal-Mart there because they are afraid it will attract more black people and turn the area ghetto.

Please, please, please, people of Livonia--tell me this isn't true. Tell me that the people in the media are just making news. First of all, why is it okay to label Wal-Mart shoppers as ghetto? Secondly, why assume only black people shop there? Thirdly, why oh why make the correlation between a large african-american shopping population and something turning ghetto?

To be completely honest, Wonderland Mall (the mall that used to exist where the Wal-Mart might go up) was always considered the "ghetto mall" in the first place. Making it a Wal-Mart, or filling it with black shoppers isn't going to change its ghettocity.

So dear Livonia, I love you and your tall trees and wonderfully timed traffic lights and your highly achieving schools. But if you think that you are above diversity, GET A LIFE. And open your eyes.

That's going to leave a mark.

today i got hit and it really hurt a lot
and i feel stupid because it not only hurt me a lot
but it hurt my feelings
because i don't know why it even happened.

Oh Mother, will you ever learn?

My mother is currently looking at miniature schnausers online. You know, those dogs that are about as big as a shoebox and think they're as big as a volkswagen?
So this has prompted me to do some serious thinking about what I want in a dog.
There are a few rules for purchasing dogs. Okay, actually just one:
1) Must be lazy

This means that purchasing a 1)beagle; 2)lab; or 3)anything shorter than knee-height is completely one hundred percent against the rules.
Everybody knows that little dogs are yippy. They just yip and yap all day long. And there's (for some unknown reason) that crazy temptation to put bows in their hair. And certainly, anything with the word "miniature" in its name clearly isn't even a real dog--let along a whole one.

Dogs were not made to be yippy and carried around in little handbags. Dogs were made to saunter around slowly and plop to the floor in a pile of lazy, calm, gracefulness. Dogs weren't made to be walked on leashes or run around for hours in a yard. They were made to sit with you while you watch TV, cuddle in bed with you, lick your face in one swift movement with giant tongues. That's what dogs are for. They were made for petting and loafing with. Dogs should always be large enough to lay on without crushing. And they should always be lazy enough to be okay with being laid on.

So in summation:

This is NOT a dog.

THIS

is a dog.

Have Fun!

I've got reservations about so many things, but not about you.

So I was cleaning, and I came across my Andy binder.
I don't know if it's a bad thing that I have a chronological binder of our relationship. It's got letters, drawings, poems, IM conversations, e-mails... some good, some bad.

It's weird looking back on how much trust he put in me. And it's weird how much we confided in each other, and how well we knew each other. It's weird that things went so sour after there being so much depth.
Heh, oh well. We were just really young, and people don't stay young forever.

In a way, I became more immature after we broke up. But in so many more ways I grew up a lot.

I definitely forgot how much trust and communication goes into a relationship, though. Sometimes I think that I want to be in a relationship, but in the past 4 or so years I have never had anything close to the type of honest communication I had with Andy. I wonder how it ever even got to that point?

Hmmm. I'm happy I found that book. And I'm happy to have read through it again. I'm happy I'm not with Andy. And I'm happy that I don't have to see or talk to him ever again if I don't want to. Does that sound bitter? It wasn't supposed to.

And I always have Desk to listen to, as much as I want. :-D I love Desk! We were such an awesome band.

I do, however, wish I hadn't been such a jerk to Kyle. Because he was a great friend, and I miss him a whole lot.

And now I have to put this binder away and finish cleaning.
I'll leave you with a poem, courtesy of Andrew Scot Mascaro:

i should have been the classy boy,
crashing home the pixie crust.
awake and adjourned and relentless with amour,
aura strong with no need to face my fears.
i should have connected with the idiosyncrasies.
i should have eaten with the gods and punished my ignorance later.
i could have been shined up for the stories to tell, and hell to smile upon,
a rebel in perfect haze.

i should have been there in the fieldsduring summer,
the vacant black sky to brush us all with cool.
comfort.
i should have broken my indignant back for the slaves of the world.
i owe everything to the blue faced aliens of the futuristic past.
they've shown their bones to me, without ever looking back to theirs.
i should have felt your nerve tips quiver in the storms of my eyes.
i should have iced your lips and set your hair to solidify the air.
it could have been my heart bleeding recessively if i had opened my missed
army
arms.

i leak battery and incandescence, coated with fate, false, flour and fumes.
fiend in no light, retrospect respected fragmented dullness.
i could have been the leader and the glass bomb they all worship.
i should have saved my continues to myself and sucked in my inner ears.
could have spoken up.

i could have been thrice removed and unsure,
without but relentless in my annoyances at least
reasonable.
i should have been the ones in the fire, to teach me
something real about
pain.
rummaging the feelings, forgiving would have meant more than coincidence.
i could have risen above about the earth to serve a prelude to some unknown
mastership,
or at least something new.

but the additives and subtraction will prove something the dust can peruse,
and mistrust, and subjugate, and endure to love and fly and hold and comprise
the very virtues of hope.
i am a power cord to the metal frame of validity.
soft, old, glossy, warm, deep, starred, forgotten, forgetful, imminent, and
permanent.
savored, requested, distinguished, unwholesome, shaped, found, gone, giddy,and stone.
that which looks as fault only supports us in the unnatural institution ofour lives,
and only a porous rock floats in water.