14 Across, 3 Down

Whoa absent. I feel bad because I think about posting often, but I never do anything about it. Like exercising. Or volunteering. But I thought perhaps I’d open up 2010 with a renewed dedication to rockjuice. I don’t anticipate that it will last long. Ooops. My problem is simple. I have many thoughts about many things throughout the day, but I’m not convinced that anyone wants to read about them. Plus, I’m a little unhappy with the job situation at the moment, so it seems that whenever I start a post, it takes a turn to depressing  town and I sound like I’m one unhappy camper. So, let’s talk about crossword puzzles.

I want to be better at crossword puzzles. People who do crossword puzzles are the epitome of awesome in my book. My brother-in-law is an expert crossword puzzler and while we were all home for Christmas, it became a daily task to complete the LA Times crossword as published in the Lincoln Journal Star. Of course, my brother-in-law would have already completed the online version of the puzzle, so the rest of us would toil away with a hard copy, typically taking the entire day to finish one puzzle. We became so obsessed that we rented the documentary “Word Play” about Will Shortz, the long time puzzle editor for the New York Times. Amazing. Nerds galore at a crossword convention/competition!

Of course, I’m not good enough to use anything but pencil, but one day I will graduate to permanent ink. And to celebrate, I’ll throw myself a crossword themed party. The key to crosswords is not about memorizing historical facts, but knowing how to “read” the questions. For example. If a clue is plural, your answer will be plural. If the question is abbreviated or has the word “briefly” in it, it will be abbreviated. If you have monograms, such as LBJ or JFK, your answer will be the same. And so on. So if you don’t see me posting religiously on rockjuice, it’s probably because I am training to complete one crossword puzzle…without cheating.