Monday Monday

It is freezing here. It's not raining and when it doesn't rain the temperature usually drops significantly. So my choices are either somewhat clear skies and dry ground in bone-chilling cold or somewhat bearable temperature soaking wet.
I think I'll stay inside.

Outside my bedroom window is an orange house. A man lives there alone and I'm not sure why but this house really intrigues me. There are many interesting items out in front. Several buckets placed randomly around collecting water. A pink cooler and an old and rotting couch thing. There are two vans in the yard packed full of stuff. Both vans have large trees stripped of their branches in them.
The screen door is missing its screen and hangs somewhat diagonally so it never actually closes. There are piles of things pressed up to the windows except for one which always has the blinds closed.

I think of that Oprah episode where they intervened and helped this woman unbury her home from her compulsive hoarding habit. Though, I'm not sure that's what this house holds. It's odd, somewhat creepy and incredibly interesting. I wish I knew the stories behind those vans, the large moving truck that's started growing moss and algae.

On another less stalker-like note,
classes have started. I'm bored already. Soon I will just be swamped.
In the meantime I found these lines particularly beautiful yet melancholy from poems we looked at in English this morning:
"The wise warrior must consider how ghostly it will be when all the wealth of this world stands waste...Here wealth is fleeting, here friend is fleeting, here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting--all this earthly habitation shall be emptied." --The Wanderer
"It was long ago--I remember it still--that I was hewn down at the wood's edge, taken from my stump. Strong foes seized me there, hewed me to the shape they wished to see, commanded me to lift their criminals. Men carried me on their shoulders, then set me on a hill; foes enough fastened me there. Then I saw the Lord of mankind hasten with stout heart, for he would climb upon me." --The Dream of the Rood
We talked about how much our culture determines our interpretation of Jesus. The Anglo-Saxons saw him as an epic hero. "Strong and stouthearted."
Our culture interprets him as the peace bringer. Because is that not what our culture seeks? We love comfort, peace and well-being. The Anglo-Saxons loved battle, heroic deeds, courage and "stoutheartedness."
Something to think about. I like both.