Just kidding.

Also, I have a mustache now.

 ...ish.

That was maybe a week ago. It's a hair (haha..."hair") darker and thicker now, but the unfair thing is that half of the hairs are blonde, and the other 2000 don't exist. So...

 Thanks a crapload, DAD.

Also, I chose this picture because, of the three that I have, this one shows the least of the giant nose-tip pimple I'm forming. I may, or may not, have bought some concealer to wear. Keep checking Snopes for verification.

UPDATE: Due to a slightly painful, totally hilarious conversation going on on my facebook status right now, I must explain my reasons for what Jo lovingly calls my "creepy guy pervy" mustache. I love her immensely, but she just moved from a 12 to an 11.
1. I have always wanted facial hair, probably because my dad had a thick mustache all of my childhood. My dad wasn't even one of my top 20 favorite people of the last 34 years, but still, a boy and his father.
2. There is an unfair aura around "mustache-only" looks. It's become associated with pornography (NOT cool), child molesters (497% less cool than pornography), and white trash gentlemen (a la Joe Dirt - pretty funny, but still less than cool). Although these associations have merit, I think it is unfair to label me into one of those categories.
3. I really just want to see what it will do. I think it would be kinda cool if it would fill out and if it did I wonder if I would look more like my dad. I looked exclusively like my mom until about halfway through college, and then I started noticing some of my dad's features. Big ears, etc. I've blogged about this before.

Anyway, so, I'm aware of the connotations. Up to now, I have not gotten any looks from mothers passing by, and even the people who don't like it generally chuckle. My bros are encouraging it (they want me to join their ranks desperately), and my brother John makes the best and most insulting jokes about it, as only he can.

I'm okay with it. It will go away eventually. I'm not blind.

Hi.

It's 2013. I'm happy. See you next year.

attention deficit hyperactOH LOOK A PONY

the funny thing about the title is that i typed it in and then left it for a week and a half.


ANYway.


my entire life i thought i was a.d.d. when i got older i learned about a.d.h.d, and i thought i was that, too. i really did. also, i really knew, deep down, that it was just an excuse and that i really wasn't. see, i wanted something to be wrong with me, but i didn't really think there WAS anything wrong with me. except laziness. i am eat up with lazy. (say that last sentence with a country accecnt, and prounounce eat "et")


i almost got tested for a.d.d. in college. i was thisclose. and then i didn't. probably because it would cost money. when i went back to school two and a half years ago, i started out like a cannon blast. studying every night, doing homework, never leaving my house, making awesome grades. i made the dean's list. that's right. the dean's list. dean's list of nerds. this guy. 


reason: i was a problem child. wild. hyper. husky. bully. cusser. rebellious (to a degree). honestly, i didn't mature until, well, after college. i kinda matured in college, but only in that i got old and sullen and bitter. and there hasn't been much in the way of maturity in the last six years. right kristen?


well, since those first two semesters a few years ago, my concentration has waned, my determination has faltered, my focus has blurred. especially since last summer. last summer was hell-atious. a 5-week summer quarter that basically jammed four classes into two, and in half the time normally allotted. i studied so much, i think i fried myself. since then, studying has been, well, sort of a joke. not that the studying that i did last summer was awesome. i just did a ton of it. 


and part of the problem, i know, has been this program. my teachers' idea of teaching is to tell us what to read in the book. anytime you ask them to explain or expound, more often than not you end up more confused than when you started. my other problem is my classmates. see, i have found one way of studying that works for me. study with a partner and explain things out loud to them, almost as if i'm teaching them. that's the one tried and true method that works for me. unfortunately, i'm in class with 11 of the most self-absorbed, study-by-themselves people you've ever met. or else they are really annoying and i can't study with them. truth.


so, lately i've been seeing this therapist, and she (of course) is telling me to take ADD meds and anti-depressants. yay drugs! only, i don't want to take drugs because they skeeve me out and i don't want to end up like my uncle paul. so i finally talked to my doctor about it. he told me what he should have told me, which is that meds are only a band-aid, and i need to start taking care of myself and that would work better (stop being the most stressed out, busy person ever, exercise, eat right, etc, etc...). BUT. he gave me this thing to read about a.d.h.d. he said, "just read this and if we need to talk about it some more, let me know." i was like, "okay." didn't plan on reading it. 


but then i did.

The following behaviors and problems may stem directly from ADHD or may be the result of related adjustment difficulties:

•  Chronic lateness and forgetfulness. (check)
•  Anxiety. (check)
•  Low self-esteem. (double check)
•  Employment problems. (nah)
•  Difficulty controlling anger. (super check)
• Impulsiveness. (checks)
• Substance abuse or addiction. (check)
• Poor organization skills. (very check)
• Procrastination. (hahahahahaCHECK)
• Low frustration tolerance. (ohboycheck)
• Chronic boredom. (WOWcheck)
• Difficulty concentrating when reading. (any other word besides check that i can use?)
• Mood swings. (yuuuuuuuuuup)
• Depression. (sadcheck)
• Relationship problems. (highfivecheck)

 "There are 3 main symptoms: distractibility, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity." (gulp) 

• Is distracted by what is going on around him. (huh?)
• Starts but doesn't finish things. (yeah that's m...)
• Acts or reacts quickly without thinking of the outcome. (hoo boy)
• Talks when other people are talking. (i don't do that)
• Is quick to anger. (fuuuuuuuuuu...)
• Fidgets and cannot sit still. (********** - that's me drumming on the desk)
• Gets bored very quickly. (i've started and stopped this post 11 times already)

Probably also: 

• Learning disorders. (uh...)
• Bipolarity (i've always wondered)
• Personality disorders (don't get me started)
• Impulse control disorders (overeating AND spending money. a too-fer.)
• Explosive anger (you won't like me when I'm angry)

and see, when i was little, i was super smart. in kindergarten, my teacher met with my mom after one month and told her that i could be moved up to first grade and be caught up by christmas, but i was such a discipline problem that it wouldn't work. i'm sure my mom was like, "couldn't you have told me this over the phone?" among other things.


i was always at the head of my class, and in 2nd grade i was even in the gifted program, but got kicked out for being to hyper. around 7th grade i started having to study, and that's when my grades started falling. i've been an average student ever since. i make high c's and low b's without even really studying. imagine.


so, now, i'm sure i have a.d.h.d. 


to drug or not to drug. that is the question. 


discuss.

more bernhoft...

a little music to make your week...

Also, check out Cmon Talk and Stay With Me. This guys is amazeballs.

chillin' in the cut

At my favorite haunt, the Starbucks at Washington Rd. and I-20. They've been playing some good music tonight.

LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine me saying this with my mouth full of food, tears streaming down my face, mascara running...well not the mascara, but everything else. That's what my life is lately.

Like this blog, I've become a (very) vast wasteland. Rotting carcass, tumbleweed, yadda yadda yadda. This is the result of two years of being in school full-time, working at Holiday Inn part-time, and working for my church part-time. I'm a billion pounds overweight (an exaggeration, but only by a few pounds), I'm stressed out, I'm broke, I'm angry a lot, going to therapy and relying on my friends to keep me from dropping into full-blown depression. WOOOOOOOOO!!

It's not as bad as I make it out to be, actually. Especially not tonight, because I don't feel that bad right now. But I'm easily set off. Like I said in my last post (dated almost a year ago), I am an angry young man. Only, I'm not so young. And I don't feel like a man a lot of the time. Not that I'm NOT a man.

I'm just waiting for my real life to begin, I guess. (GREAT song) (Actually, it makes me want to stop writing this and go watch Scrubs. Maybe later.) But seriously, I finish school at the end of April, and nothing else in my life has gone on hold for me, so everything is still the same, with school on top of it. Yayyyyy. (Scrubs quote - JD: yayyyyyy, youhurtmyfeelings.)

What's going to be funny is when I finish, get a good job, make all the changes in my life, etc, etc, and I still don't feel any different. It's like I keep looking for some cure-all for whatever is wrong with me. (Some dude just called me at work and yelled at me because of something I can't do anything about. I wanted to tell him I didn't give two rats' B-holes about it, but A) I'm not allowed to do that and 2) he hung up. (Is it rat's? Rats'? Rat's'? I think I'm right but anyway...)

Sidebar: I'm awesome at customer service. A guy checked in awhile ago, all gruff and surly, biker dude, and was irritated because he didn't get a fridge in his room. All of ours were checked out, so I borrowed one for him from the Sheraton next door and put it in his room while he was out to dinner. Now he is happy and he got my name so he could fill out a comment thing for me at our parent company. Who rocks? It is me. I am the one who...that...is...rocks.

What was I talking about?

Here's my schedge (that's my shortening of schedule, and I added the "ge" so you'd know to pronounce it. You're welcome.) for the next few months:
Friday: camping. w00t.
March 12: Start my last clinical rotation at DD-MAC on Fort Gordon
April 3: I become an even older bastard
April 30: Graduation
May: Take the registry sometime, find a job, start my secondary life
June 6: Worship conference in Marietta
June 10: Cincinnati for 10 days, to a quiet cabin in the woods. Do not call me.
June 21: K-flix is running an Ironman in Couer d'Alene, ID, so I'm going to go up there and scare myself into not training for the half-marathon. Also, I'll get to see Bree! And maybe my brother Jeff and my sister Chris!
Nov 22: Thanksgiving Day Half-marathon. I will die here and donate my body to the Vineyard Church for parties and warnings of what not to do and practical jokes and stuff. Should be fun.

Okay well. Bye.

An angry young man

I am angry. 


Not like, "man I'm pissed right now," but angry as a state of being. All of the symptoms are there: anger...


So anyway.


Just kidding. Anger comes with a host of side effects. Frustration, impatience, jealousy, envy, paranoia. Fear. It's all there. All the time. Just bubbling. Festering. I've always had a short fuse, thanks to my dad and, well, me. My mom said that my temper was so bad when I was a kid that she was afraid I was going to end up in jail. I kind of relaxed as I grew, but it was always still there. Like the time in high school when I shoved my friend Trae. Trae was 6'6", 350 lbs. And I just pushed him as hard as I could. Not that it really helped. And luckily he was really cool and didn't kill me, because he really could have. Like, grabbed my head and crushed it. And I know I have a big head, but he has really big hands. He went on to play football for Mississippi State, and now he's a dentist. Random, I know. But his dad is a dentist, too. What was I talking about?


Oh yeah.


I think it if it was JUST anger, I could deal with it easily. Maybe. But add in the paranoia, the frustration, the fear, and it just becomes overwhelming. I wrote a while back how enraged I get over injustice, but I get enraged over all kinds of things. The worst is when I'm thinking about things that happened a long time ago that don't matter anymore and that involve people who aren't even a part of my life anymore, and the memory of these events gets my blood boiling. I feel like most people would pass these memories over, but for me they are stabbed into my mind with a knife and are not going anywhere.


Case in point: I got an email today. The email made me angry, paranoid, and frustrated. In one sentence. ONE. SENTENCE. And the freaking email was about church stuff. And the sender was one of my best friends. Nothing is sacred. There is no relief, no escape from this monster. Nothing in this life.


I desire peace. Not in this world, because there will never be peace in this world. Ever. But I desire internal peace. The peace that only the Spirit of God can bring.

I always want to blog. Seriously. I think about it almost every day. But by the time I have time to sit down at my once-amazing computer and type something, the desire is gone, overcome by tiredness, stress, lonliness, or the incredible task of catching my blog up with my life.

So screw it. I'm just going to put my iTunes on shuffle. You're welcome.

Compared to What  – John Legend and the Roots (I just got this album on Amazon's awesome $5 albums email. I love Legend and everybody knows the Roots are amazing (just watch Jimmy Kimmel), and these two work together SO well.)

The Grand Ol’ Waltz – Pigeon John (My favorite rapper on the planet. I actually don't know this song. I mean I've heard it, but I can't go word-for-word like a lot of his other ones. Still awesome, though.)

If I Could – Seal (You would think this would be a low-point on the list, but it's not. I love Seal. Kiss From A Rose is one of the best songs of all times. On one of the best soundtracks ever, especially considering the movie.)

(RABBIT TRAIL - Is there a better soundtrack than Batman Forever? Consider the artists: U2, Seal, Method Man, The Offspring, PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Flaming Lips, Nick Cave, MASSIVE ATTACK. I know, right? Probably my favorite U2 song ever, which is saying something. One of the best Massive Attack songs ever, PJ Harvey in her heyday, Method man is always good...you get the point.)

Run – Project 86 (I saw Star Wars Episode 1 with these guys. And Blindside. Name drop!)

Exaltation – Matisyahu (I still haven't heard Matis' most recent album. Light, or something like that.)

All In the Suit You Wear – Stone Temple Pilots (This song is really good and I'd never heard it. It's on their greatest hits album from several years ago, newly written for that.)

Back on Plastic – Awex (Pretty decent song from Trance Dance '96. My graduation year. I know.)

Pretty Nights – Blindside (I saw Star Wars Epis...oh right. Sorry.)

December – Weezer (Back when they were decent, but after they were awesome.)

Don’t Ask Me Why – Eurythmics (An example of a song I've had on my computer for years and probably have never listened to. However, the Eurythmics are one of my more favoriter bands from the 80's. Yes I remember the 80's. Vividly.)

Moon River – Havalina Rail Co (Despite how much I like Havalina, I'm surpised by how many songs of theirs I hear that I don't care for. This one is in the middle.)
(Another rabbit trail: I met Pigeon John while watching Havalina Rail Co (he was friends with the bass player, Orlando), and we ended up leaving together to go watch Switchfoot when they were playing the intermission for Five Iron at Cornerstone '99. I introduced myself by telling him I knew Jo. :) Haha.)

The Second Time Around – Frank Sinatra (I mean, YEAH.)

In the Fold – The Embers/Hannah Daugherty (Great worship band from Campbellsville, KY, and friends of mine. Great songwriters, and Hannah's voice kinda makes me swoon. Not in the creepy way.)

The River Runs Low – Bruce Hornsby and the Range (Most people only know these guys from that song that Tupac rewrote and sold a billion copies of, but he was a solid songwriter and they were a great band.)

It’s Going Down – The Cross Movement (A Christian rap group with a larger vocabulary than me. Or you. Or anybody you know.)

Tangled – Maroon 5 (As much as I hate the memories attached to this album, these guys just write some sexy, sexy songs.)

Fallible – Blues Traveler (Without a doubt, my favorite song on this list. I am an unabashed fan, long before anyone ever heard Four and long after everyone quit listening. Not trying to be a music snob. I just love this band.)

For You – Michael W. Smith (You'd think I'd be embarrassed about this song being on here. You'd be right.)

It Takes Two – Soundtrack to Into the Woods (First thing I ever auditioned for that I was turned down for. Oh yeah.)

Momma Cried – Alison Krauss (Despite this album not being a Union Station album, they are all over it. Good thing. I'm still mad at her for making that stupid album with Robert Plant.)

Shine With Me – P.O.D. (I'm just truly, truly sorry. I should have deleted this crap off my computer.)

Cheerleaders – Pigeon John (Old PJ song, maybe one of my top 5 of all time.)

Restaurants – Mitch Hedberg (Mitch was just on another level. This was from a posthumous album, recorded when he was in the clubs trying to work out his new material. It was raw and unpolished and you got to see a side of stand-up comedy that most people never see. I like to think if I had grown up with motivation that I could have done something like that. I've always loved stand-up so much, and wished I could have done it.)

Faith on the Table – Martin Sexton (My friend Cookie (not a stripper) introduced me to him. I thought I had never heard him before until she took me to a concert and he performed a song of his that they used on Scrubs (the really fast-talking song they used in the "dance" section of their montage episode. Yep.) (Here it is.  A couple of things. 1) I hate flashback episodes. They are lazy. However, this is one of the best uses of the flashback ever. I laugh every time I watch it. 2) This song mentions Waynesboro, a small little town about 15 miles south of where I'm sitting right now.)

I’m Gonna Find Another You – John Mayer (I've been listening to him a lot lately. There's not a bigger idiot in the entertainment industry anywhere, except maybe Kanye. But there's also probably not anyone more talented on the guitar. Also like Kanye. You know, making the raps. They should form a supergroup. The Talented Douches. "It's douchey-good times!")

An excerpt...

Russians - A people with such "thirsty" souls


For me, to preach the gospel to the Russians is heaven on earth. I have preached the gospel to men of many nations, but I have never seen a people drink in the gospel like the Russians. They have such thirsty souls.


An Orthodox priest, a friend of mine, telephoned me and told me that a Russian officer had come to him to confess. My friend did not know Russian. However, knowing that I speak Russian, he had given him my address. The next day this man came to see me. He longed for God, but he had never seen a Bible. He had no religious education and never attended religious services (churches in Russia then were very scarce). He loved God without the slightest knowledge of Him.


I read to him the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus. After hearing them, he danced around the room in rapturous joy proclaiming, "What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!" It was the first time that I saw someone so joyful in Christ.


Then I made a mistake. I read to him the passion and crucifixion of Christ, without having prepared him for this. He had not expected it and, when he heard how Christ was beaten, how He was crucified and that in the end He died, he fell into an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead.


I looked at him and was ashamed. I had called myself a Christian, a pastor, and a teacher of others, but I had never shared the sufferings of Christ as this Russian officer now shared them. Looking at him, it was like seeing Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross, faithfully weeping when Jesus was a corpse in the tomb.


Then I read to him the story of the resurrection and watched his expression change. He had not known that his Savior arose from the tomb. When he heard this wonderful news, he beat his knees and swore - using very dirty, but very "holy" profanity. This was his crude manner of speech. Again he rejoiced, shouting for joy, "He is alive! He is alive!" He danced around the room once more, overwhelmed with happiness.


I said to him, "Let us pray!" He did not know how to pray. He did not know our "holy" phrases. He fell on his knees together with me and his words of prayer were: "Oh God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You of Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all of my heart!"


I think that all the angels in heaven stopped what they were doing to listen to this sublime prayer...


- from Tortured for Christ, by Richard Wurmbrand