I’m green with envy! Green like a frog, or an ogre, or some mutant ogre frog thing! Cool, mutant ogre frog…

Green with envy? What the? Ogre frog? Yes, I am completely crazy. But yes, this post does have a point…somewhere. Lately I’ve been feeling very envious. Not jealous, envious. Why envy over jealousy? Because they have 2 different definitions as I will explain later. Why have I been feeling envious…well, lots of reasons. But before I get to them let’s say it’s later and get to those definitions. My handy-dandy “Miriam-Webster’s Reference Library Dictionary” (say that 10 times fast! ;-p) defines being jealous as, “suspicious of a rival or of one believed to enjoy an advantage.” But that is not how I feel. Though I just need to say that I always thought that envy and jealousy were synonymous, but they’re not. My afore mentioned handy-dandy whatsit defines envy (or “en vie” as I could spell it if I wanted to look cool) as, “painful or resentful awareness of another's advantages” and that is how I feel. Now we will, as they say, get to the meat of the matter. But before the excitement I just want to ask if anyone notices that my writing is especially whimsical and witty today? Does anyone? If not I must ask your permission to bury my face in my hands and mourn my fate. Why is my writing supposed to be more whimsical and witty? Well, because I decided something today. I’ve decided that if I had to describe my writing style I would want it described as a cross between Charles Dickens and P. G. Wodehouse. And because I believe that my writing style is already very close to a cross between these two great writers it won’t take me much work to master a style that I will call the Dickens/Wodehouse style for now, though when I’m famous it will be known as the Chris Clark style. I can’t wait for the day when people say, “I want my writing style to be a cross between C. J. Clark and (insert great writer here)!” But that day is far off, and I won’t bring it closer by wasting time, only by writing more in the C. j. Clark style!

Anyway, enough calling myself C. J. Clark, I’m starting to feel my head expanding. I’m not famous enough yet to scrap my first name. I’m not like J. R. R. Tolkien or J. K. Rowling or P. G. Wodehouse yet, though I hope to be someday. But back to my original point, envy, the green faced ogre frog monstrosity, has come back into my life. I’m usually envious of someone. Envious in that, as the description says, I am painfully, and often resentfully, aware of another’s advantages. I’m sure you’re wondering who on earth could have advantages over the great C. J. Clark, but you’d be surprised. One such person is Tanel, a guy at our corps. Last Sunday, while I tried in vain to go out with my friends, Tanel did the unthinkable. Remember when I blogged about that amazing incarnation of female beauty at the Methodist who is so shockingly beautiful that even guys who have a girl resistance as high as mine are stopped dead in their tracks and reduced to slobbering idiots. I’m serious, a girl hasn’t had this effect on me by looks alone for years. Well, Tanel actually took this amazing beauty out for pizza! PIZZA! Once you’ve had pizza with a girl there’s just no turning back! Now I’m filled with an overflowing envy that is spilling out my ears! My ears I tell you! It’s that insane! Just look at all those exclamation points! So now I’m filled with this horrible “why him?” feeling. I don’t always have the highest opinion of Tanel. But he has the advantage over me in a few ways. He is outgoing to the point of being annoying, and he’s fearless to the point of stupidity. I am outgoing with my friends but try to keep my cool when with those I don’t know so well. And also I weigh every situation and think through every little detail before I do anything. So, as Anneli pointed out so aptly, the biggest reason why this girl went out with Tanel and not me is because Tanel asked her.

But, as my mom pointed out equally aptly, I go out with beautiful girls all the time. I just quoted a beautiful girl, Anneli. So I really have no reason to be envious of Tanel. But I am anyway. But I can tie this in with that “As Iron sharpens iron” post and say that from now on I’ve decided to adopt something of a “nothing to lose” attitude, at least sometimes, because of Tanel. But I’m not only feeling envious of Tanel. I’m just feeling envious of…pretty much everyone! You get to read my blog, you lucky little things. I have trouble finding writing as interesting as my own. That’s why I read P. G. Wodehouse books whenever I can, because he’s the best I can find. And I’m envious of all those guys with girlfriends, and all those men with wives, and all those people who speak Estonian perfectly, and all those good looking people, and all those rich people, and all those smart people, and all those respected people, and all those…everyone. It’s quite hard to be me. But then I remember how many people I’m sure might envy me. I think in truth we’re all in the same boat here. The grass is always greener under that guy’s feet. I just need to learn to be content. And it wouldn’t hurt to get to know that incarnation of feminine charm a little better. But anyway, I’ve just written you yet another self-absorbed and pointless blog post. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you’re envious, because that grass I’ve got here really is pretty green…

With love,C. J. Clark