Day 165: Breaking Night

Breaking Night by Liz Murray. ISBN: 9780786868919 (ARC - publishes Sept 7, 2010).

Early in the book Murray talks about her dad going through the trash.  Man, oh man, do I love dumpster diving.  I've never really been brave enough to actually dig through dumpsters, but I've always been fond of trash.  In fact, my first forays into dumpster diving were around the age of 8 or so. 

We were station in Altus, Oklahoma at the time, and there just wasn't a whole lot to do in the neighborhood.  I sometimes made extra cash by picking up aluminum cans and having my dad take them to the recycling center for me.  I usually got about three to four dollars from a 12 gallon trash bag of cans (crushed of course).  But I also picked out small appliances and took them apart.  I remember finding a rotatory dial telephone once and spending the evening removing the casing and separating the parts.  I kept the bell for awhile, and stuck the magnet on the fridge, I saved all the screws and placed them in my mom's tool box.

But I've also picked up furniture on the side of the road.  One of my favorite tables I picked up while walking back to my dorm room one day.  It wasn't in very good condition, but it had that amazing kidney shape and was fairly tall, with a drawer.  In order to cover the poor condition of the table top I wrapped it up in a piece of green fabric and it looked passable in my last dorm room and first apartment.  It worked quite well for dropping mail.

I'm not opposed to going through trash for something usable.  I'm not quite ambitious enough to dig through the really nasty stuff, but I will definitely pick up things on the top that aren't touching questionable substances.  We throw away so much in this country, but then it seems no one has time to try to fix anything or find it a better home.  Some of us have to be proactive about find those throwaways new places to live.

My review can be found over at Goodreads.com.

Day 164: Breaking Night

Breaking Night by Liz Murray. ISBN: 9780786868919 (ARC - publishes Sept 7, 2010).

I don't have a whole lot in common with Murray.  I certainly didn't have parents who did coke (to my knowledge, anyway) and I don't recall ever going hungry even if I didn't get everything I ever wanted.  I did skip school.  It wasn't so much that I wasn't motivated to go, or that I spent the day hanging out with my friends.  Usually I took the day off because I didn't have any friends, and was often actively antagonized by my classmates.

With so little to look forward to in my day, and what seemed like mostly pointless classes, I just stayed home.  I think my mother knew that most of the time I was faking illness, and then there were the times were she left for work before I was even awake and told her I didn't go because "I wasn't feeling well."  It was true, for three out of four years the idea of going to school filled me with a dread that curled up in my stomach and stayed there all day. 

I didn't do much with my days.  I actually usually just did homework or read ahead in my textbooks.  I watched Ricki Lake and The Price is Right.  I napped a lot.  I just enjoyed the lack of pressure of staying home.  I didn't have to work hard to be invisible or quiet, to try and go unnoticed.  A good day at school was one where no one talked to me or about me or pointed at me and laughed.  A good day off from school was one where I was able to do whatever I wanted, no one missed me, and I could breathe.  If I had been able to go to high school where I could just focus on my classes and be left alone, I would have been fine.  Instead I took the maximum number of health days from class I could without failing or getting my mother in trouble.

In contrast I hardly ever missed a class at Antioch.

My review can be found over at Goodreads.com.