addiction

Mine is Sunday NY Times crossword puzzles. Not that it's a secret.

I finish at least two a day, and sometimes four. When hobbitt's away (as he is now) that number can grow quite a bit.

Right now there's a 500-puzzle book in the living room, and a 200-puzzle book in the bedroom. There are at least three more waiting in the wings. Can't have too many. Definitely cannot run out. That would be bad.

Exercising my brain is important, though for a while now I've been thinking that I need something a bit more challenging. This is not to say that the NY Times Sunday puzzles aren't challenging...but since I've been tearing through them for the past several years, I have come to understand the cadence and the editing and the nuances, and that gives me an advantage over someone doing them just one day a week.

There's a tactile pleasure, too. The pencil must be deadly sharp. To that end the electric sharpener on my desk gets a workout just about every day. Number 2 pencils are deliciously soft, and make a nice mark, but they're not so good at staying sharp. And the pencil must be sharp.

Is this what it means to develop eccentricities?