Crossword Love

Some call it love. Some call it an obsession. I call it an absolute necessity.

The crossword puzzle is an indulgence I get -- no, have -- to partake in every morning, thanks to the year long subscription to The Oregonian that my parents so lovingly got me for Christmas. Everyday I plan out at least 30 minutes of coffee and crossword time....so yes, during the week when I'm waking up at 4 and 4:30 in the morning to run before work, I'm also figuring in a solid crossword and coffee session.

I know, I know, I already hear people gawking that I wake up THAT early JUST to do the crossword.

But I can't help it.

I've tried -- like today, when I simply woke up, laced up my Nikes with my building key tucked tightly in the tongue and headed out my building door into the early morning darkness without caffeine running through my blood and crossword clues running through my head. It was a good run -- heck, it was a great one (10 miles before 6:15? Yeah, it was real good). But here I sit, with nothing to do at work (Literally nothing. It's been like this for three days now and my writing fingers are itching with idleness), feeling slightly amiss because I have yet to complete any crossword puzzles.

In fact, my little Oregonian is still wrapped in its blue plastic sheath, begging me to read it and not succumb to the diabolic lure of Internet news. I actually think I can hear it sighing, holding back weepy tears from my desk drawer...

"Read me." "Open me." "Do me." "Finish me."

Hmmm. Somehow that turned slightly pornographic.

[Insert commercial break]

My love for the crossword puzzle grew, thanks in large part to the boring classes I had during my college years at the University of Portland.

IMPORTANT CLARIFYING NOTE: Not ONCE did I EVER EVER EVER pull out a crossword puzzle during an English class.

That being said...

Had I never been forced to take Biblical Traditions from a professor who adamantly called me Annie the entire semester (But then mysteriously called me Amie a year and a half later on a random campus pass-by), I probably never would have learned to fold the newspaper just perfectly to cleverly camouflage it amidst my notebooks. Were it not for freshmen level communication studies classes I took as a fifth year, I wouldn't have learned the codes of the crossword (For example: Abbreviations in a clue means an abbreviated answer. And, not Or, adds an "S" to a name. You get the idea).

Nor would I have learned that an "aerie" is an eagle's nest, that Ella Fitzgerald is a jazz legend, that Erma Bombeck is absolutely awesome (Okay the crossword didn't teach me that but her constant appearance in the grid piqued my interest to put my Google skills to work) or that Nikola Tesla was a rival inventor of Thomas Edison.

I don't think I would have learned any of that in my theology or communication studies classes either.

I guess I like the crossword so much for the simple reason that it gives me something to do. It's a time-wasting past time that's actually productive -- I'm learning (as aforementioned factoids clearly prove evident), working my brain and, on the glorious occasion that I fully finish a puzzle, experiencing a glorious rush of accomplishment and pride.

It's dorky, I know. An obsession, of course. But few things are as satisfying as unsheathing the newspaper, flipping through to the crossword puzzle and burying myself in the black and white boxes while I wake up over a hot cup of steaming coffee.