Looking back on that last post, I realize I fell into the "clash of civilizations" mode for a second. Right now (it's late right now), I'm more in the "some people are just nuts with the conclusions they draw from simple propositions" camp. That assessment cuts across cultures, across history, nationality, etc. Not quite a unified theory of "why" but it's helping me think past what I pick up from the Washington Post & the NY Times.

Anyway, what I really sat down to share this lovely morning is a piece I did as an exercise for a writing workshop I'm in. The exercise involved selecting an object, and then writing about the object in "objective" and "subjective" perspectives. Here's my subjective look at the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle:

There's only one day each week I dare to venture outside in my robe and flip-flops-- Sunday. Sunday morning, to be exact: crossword time!

Many of the people I know-- college friends, colleagues, news junkies, art aesthetes, travel-happy continent-jumpers, investment bankers, and coffee shop pundits alike-- all find a section of themself in the Times. But none of their sections is quite like mine; none quite achieves the delicate balance between the written word and empty space, like mine.

The coquettishness of its flirty clues excites my imagination and challenges me to give it what it wants: the answer it requires to be complete. There is only one answer. I must complete the grid, cross-checking clues against a world of knowledge soaked up year after year... I am a fact-sponge; a media baby; a Navy brat, a nerd-cool hybrid; a descendant of slaves with a Stanford degree; an un-televised Jeopardy champion; jack-of-all-trades and master of one: the Sunday New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

Can I love it, knowing it was created to vex me? I do! I confess, I do! I do love its symmetry, its blend of certainty and mystery. The more I hover over the Crossword, the more I understand it as a metaphor, as talisman, as amulet and symbol for life: rooted in culture(s), textured by experience, unforgiving and rewarding, with a built-in, predictable (and sometimes perfunctory) ending. It's all there in the grid.

There, each Sunday...waiting on the stoop... sheathed in diaphanous blue plastic, folded safely between other peoples' sections... my New York Times Crossword Puzzle.