CROSSWORD #365: Pressing the Flesh

CROSSWORD SOLVER PUZZLE:
[ PRESSING THE FLESH] 
PROGRAM: [Crossword Solver]

PROGRAM: [Java]

PRINTOUT PUZZLE: [ PRESSING THE FLESH]

PROGRAM: [Adobe Acrobat]

ACROSS LITE PUZZLE: [ PRESSING THE FLESH] 
PROGRAM: [Across Lite]

You can learn a lot by doing the New York Times crossword every day. For starters: the discography of Brian Eno. But there’s more to it than just that. Namely: stick-to-it-iveness.

When you start off doing crosswords, usually on a Monday, they’re daunting, nigh-impossible looking. Yet, with a little bit of patience, trusting your first instincts, perhaps putting the puzzle down and coming back to it later, maybe even the odd Googling, you should be able to string together a series of answers and slowly put the big picture together. You might not get the whole thing, but chances are you’ll grok at least something.

Then Tuesday comes, and virtually everything you thought you knew about crosswords has now been thrown out the window. Certain tricks that you learned yesterday, the ones you thought you could rely on forever, are now rendered moot. Or, if they are, in fact, used in this new puzzle, you see no easy way to access them. So it’s back to Googling. Maybe even a little random guessing (some lucky, others woefully off). Definitely taking your sweet time to solve this one, with many, many breaks in between. And after a while, maybe the puzzle is half complete. And though you feel somewhat dejected that you can’t do it all, you consider it a small victory. You feel you’re gaining a sense of “understanding,” both of yourself and the puzzling world in general.

And on Wednesday, you realize that the puzzle is even more ruthless. Fewer toeholds, lesser obvious points to start, more demanding cluing. You start to question if you speak the language that the puzzle is written in. You even ask if were cut out for solving puzzles in the first place. But, after rolling up your sleeves, you dig deep and try to whittle away whatever you can. Google remains your best friend. Longer breaks in between solving times means, hopefully, some subconscious comprehension of the puzzle at hand. At the end of the day, you have less filled in than you have ever filled in, yet. And you feel like shit, because you know tomorrow will be harder than today. And the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Yet, you’re hooked. If you can make it to the next Monday, somehow, suddenly the puzzle seems “easier.” You say to yourself, “maybe I can do these things after all.” Oh, to be sure, in this second week, you’re not going to get much further than you were last week, but perhaps you’re Googling less, and are a little more confident in some answers. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll get one more answer each day than you got in that first week. But it’s still seems like an impossible challenge.

Dear reader, if you haven’t yet caught on that I’ve found a direct correlation to the steady, daily, slowly-ramping-up challenges of solving the New York Times crossword, and that of the daily challenges of raising my newborn daughter, well, now you do. The two are practically similar. Yes, even right down to Brian Eno. You see Tabitha loves “Here Comes The Warm Jets,” or at least I think she does (she didn’t scream when I played it for her). But I digress: it seems like every day I start off confident with my abilities, but there’s almost always one thing Tabitha does that makes me question my skills. Much like the harder end-of-the-week puzzles when I first started out. Yet, I’m hooked. I need that daily fix. And the daily challenge.

Share the puzzle. New one on Monday.