ManicDDaily

Crossword In Bed (With Elephant)

When discipline has worn down, the brain is charred, but you are a purposeful sort who hasn’t quite succumbed to late night (or all night) television, thank heavens for the New York Times crossword puzzle.  I’m not talking about the Sunday puzzle, which is somehow too long, quirky and shiny (the paper stock not plain newsprint) to be truly satisfying.

I’m talking about the mundane, smudged, predictably cycled offering of the daily paper–the Monday refreshingly easy, Tuesday harder but still pleasingly finishable, Wednesday involving some gimmick or joke (the kind one hates/loves to chuckle over), Thursday just possibly doable without cheating (except for this past Thursday grrrr….), the Friday a puzzle you can sometimes manage with only a few hits of the Internet, and the Saturday (forget about it.)

Dear Will Shortz, thank you for many a pleasant hour spent without, and especially, with company.    (The crossword is a great paired activity as long as the other person will let you hold the pencil every once in a while, and, eventually, stop erasing and re-writing your E’s.)

Thank you for this activity of wonderfully-seeming purposefulness.  (How good it is for our brains!)

Thank you for this terrific way of forgetting the present moment while trying to remember everything else one has ever ever learned.

BTW, who was that shipyard worker fired in 1976?