03.25.08
Numbering My Words
Traveling by air is not my favorite way to get from point A to point B, never mind that it be the most efficient and sometimes, given the circumstances, the only. But I do take delight in the airline magazines stuffed into the seatback in front of me.
The articles are colorful, short, oftentimes something I would never have desired to read about except I’m stuck someplace for a period of time and I’m tired of my current book. I peruse the magazine articles, look at the flashy advertisements, figure out how to get from one place to another on the airline’s route chart, read the fine print, walk through the various airport layouts, and finally arrive where I’ve been wanting to go all along, the puzzle pages.
The American Way, magazine of American Airlines, has a page for Mensa wannabes, a Sudoku puzzle, and a challenging crossword. Yes, sir, it’s guaranteed to keep me busy for a while.
I head for the Mensa first, mainly because I want to see if I could qualify (not to worry), but also to ferret out the easy questions, answer them quickly, circle back to the harder ones, finally give up, read the answers, and have an ah-ha moment. Or two. That accomplished, I go where I’ve been headed all along, the crossword.
I skip the Sudoku. I grew up with a certain amount of arithmetical prowess; I enjoyed numbers. They weren’t mysterious to me, just matter of fact. Give me numbers, I could manipulate them to my heart’s content. I learned to take per cent by playing Monopoly. I made up my own long division problems and had my mother check the answer for me. (This was before handy-dandy pocket calculators so we could consider this a labor of love on her part.) While I handled algebra and geometry equally, calculus took its toll on me, and I found there was a darker side of my old friends and that darker side lives on in Sudoku.
Still, I did number puzzles, even while I continued with crosswords. But over time, the words have won out and I find those are the Mensa questions I can answer with barely a blink. Crossword puzzles are fun, a game to see what the author is up to, what his conceit is. If I can figure it out, reveal the trick to the puzzle, I’m a happy camper.
Am I fonder of crosswords now because I’ve dangled in the word-pot for many years? Has being a writer changed the way I look at words, at how they’re formed and how they relate to each other? I think so. Beyond the elementary level, I just get frustrated with Sudoku. Frustration has led to non-interest. But words? Words still fascinate.
Give me the Wall Street Journal’s weekly crossword or the Sunday New York Times. I smile at the thought. As to the one in the back of the American Way, I’ve just found it online.
Let the word games begin. I think I’ll consider it research.