My father was my inspiration for the whole crossword thing, I think. I don’t know when I started doing crossword puzzles, but word puzzles of any sort always get my attention. I don’t comprehend HOW the contestants on “Wheel of Fortune” have to buy three vowels in a row to get the answer (saw that last night whilst awaiting Jeopardy!) but I think it began with My Weekly Reader, if in fact they had words. I remember an elementary school assignment about homynyms and was so proud that I got “kernel” and “colonel”.

My dad did the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle . In ink. He also did any puns/anagrams puzzles offered. In ink too. He owned lovely thin-leaded mechanical pencils. He was an engineer, but he used a pen on the Times puzzle. I did too but mainly because I could never find a pencil. I’m not sure I ever owned one after elementary school. And I found that the slight sheen of the paper the NYT uses sometimes makes pencil markings difficult to read. Mostly, though, it was snobbism.

For one year when I was in college, my dorm subscribed to the Sunday NY Times. It was left in our living room for any and all to read. On Sunday, I used to grab the magazine and hustle over to the library which had the closest photocopier. It’s just the height of awful to get to the puzzle page and find that someone already started it. It’s just not done. I don’t necessarily feel that way about the really easy puzzles I find, say, in the airplane magazines, but maybe I do. A little. Sort of. It’s harder to find a copier up there though.

The first time I finished the Sunday Times puzzle I think I might have been in college. Maybe later. And the second I put it down, I called my dad. I was so thrilled. I was so proud. It didn’t happen again for a while, then it did. Oh WOW.

I’m not a very competitive person. I do have pride and want to do the absolute best I can at anything I do (I have a huge problem with doing things unless I can be sure I’ll do them well. The experiments are usually hidden so you’ll never know.) but while in college, I played cards for all four years with my best friend Edie. Edie would get furious (at herself) for losing a hand. Me? Feh. Big deal.

I play Scrabble for the love of the game and of words and love when other players do well. Ditto “Trivial Pursuit”. I’m very proud that I passed the “Jeopardy!” contestant test, but I was never called to be on the show. The games I play on computer or in books are solo games and puzzles. I don’t check my scores against others. I do it for the fun of it. So you’ll never, for example, see me at a crossword competition – unlike my friend Chris Aldrich whom you can see in the movie “Wordplay”.

I’ve started doing “hidden object” puzzles and games. I love those and other puzzles, especially on line and on the computer. I HATE sudoku and never play number games – they don’t do it for me. In fact I’m surprised that sudoku is being marketed to the likes of me. I guess I assumed that word puzzle people and number puzzle people are different breeds.

The Sunday Times puzzle has gotten easier for me in recent years. Some of that might be that I’ve gotten smarter, but much of it has to do with the switch of editors to Will Shortz who ushered in a new kind of puzzle. Oh thank the gods. The past editors, and don’t get me wrong, Maleska and Weng (impressed? I know the names of the past NYT puzzle editors. Don’t ask. I have no idea why EITHER.) offered great challenges but they relied often on esoteric words. Ask anyone who’s done crosswords for over 10 or 15 years and we’ll offer up many many words we only ever use in this setting. There are actors probably more famous than their careers warrant because their names fit well into crossword grids. There are cities I am so very tired of seeing because they have lots of vowels and the puzzle folks need vowels. But even more, those African birds, and Central American rivers, relatively obscure words brought in solely to fit the puzzle were a tad annoying. And Shortz doesn’t do that. He’s brought in far more current references and pop culture. That’s not to say it’s easy. It’s still a major challenge, but he gets to these standard clues in different ways.

A while back I got a book in the bookswap on line which was a collection of NYT Saturday puzzles. I’d never done those since I never saw or subscribed to anything but the Sunday paper. I wasn’t even waware until relatively recently that the puzzles got more difficult as the week progressed. Makes sense but it was nothing I’d ever known – why would I? So I’ve got these Saturday puzzles.

Effective January 1, the “Seattle Times” began running the daily NYT puzzle. So over the past few days, I’ve seen what it’s all about as it moves inexorably to the Big Deal Sunday Puzzle. I’ve discovered something interesting and unexpected. And it’s this:

Smaller puzzles are more difficult.

I’m having far more trouble with the Friday/Saturday crosswords than I normally have doing the Sunday puzzle. I know there’s a logic here – fewer clues give you less of a chance to learn/discern the theme of the puzzle. I get this. Now. I was taken a bit by surprise figuring I could complete the puzzles from Monday through Thursday without a second’s hesitation and then Friday and Saturday would be a challenge but not in any way difficult. Sur-PRISE!

So do you puzzle? Do you prefer word or number or does it not matter to you? Have you gotten hooked on sudoku or on photo challenges (if you don’t know them, they are photographs with slightly manipulated images – thank you Photoshop) that have anywhere from 5 to 15 differences. Some obvious – that red flower is now yellow, to less obvious – that flower has 12 petals now, not 13. And the computer hidden object games are taking up hours of my time.

And I still don’t have a pencil.