Feeling like Squidward

This comparison will make no sense to a person not well acquainted with the trials and tribulations of Squidward Tentacles. Watch a Spongebob marathon, then get back to me.

I feel like Squidward today after his encounter with Squilliam Fancypants. I just came across the Curriculum Vitae of my old college roommate, who is now Dr. So and So, a professor at Such and Such University, with a list of honors and published works that takes up two pages and is probably heavily abridged.

Me, I'm just me. Same old unremarkable job,nothing published, house in need of repair, growing old in obscurity.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled non-self-pity program.

I fall short

I opened today's edition of our metropolitan newspaper and saw a familiar name.

One of their staff writers now has a regular column in the pages.

I felt an old stab of jealousy, sharp as a needle's prick.

This, blog readers, is evidence of my very flawed, very mortal status.

I have written at length -- no doubt, quite annoying length -- about my personal adoration of Womankind. But I haven't told you that this adoration is an ideal in which many times I fall short.

True, not since I was a child fighting with my sister have I laid an angry hand on any Female -- and many any and all the gods there be, smite with instant death if ever I do. True, my adoration of Womankind is absolutely sincere.

But from time to time in the corporate world, I have had to compete against Women and when They have won, my weaker side resents it -- albeit, in my defense, just as much as if a man had bested me.

This writer got the job I wanted at that newspaper. Then She got a dream assignment there at which I know I would have excelled. Today, I see that She will have a column reaching thousands of people every week. I could have done that, I would love to have done that.

But I take the hands of my soul and wrap them around the throat of Jealousy within me and choke him away.

I've met Her in person. She's beautiful, intelligent and hard-working, a Woman indeed.To my soul, I say: "She has earned every honor and privilege that She has obtained, by sheer competence. You are hereby ordered to be glad for Her and to praise Her publicly the next time Her name comes up in a conversation."

So, Ms. M.B. -- revelation of Your beautiful name would compromise my anonymity, else I would gladly post it here -- congratulations. With my heart now purged of unworthy, chauvinistic jealousy, I hereby, with utmost sincerity, cheer Your success. You've earned it, for that paper is very careful in its selection process. I promise to read Your column regularly and be a faithful fan.