Old friends jammed into books and sleeve pockets.

I love crosswords, but that doesn’t mean I’m very good at them. I’ve got an old rip away desk calendar filled with New York Times crosswords, but when I bought the thing I never imagined that it’d be used to track my days. No, instead it was instantly repurposed into a notepad/mental distraction of sorts that sits around until I feel the need to yank off a few sheets. These modest pieces of paper are great vehicles for passing the time while suspended in pockets of transit.  Whenever I’m picking away at the various boxes of elusive configurations, I find that my brain is freed up, and I can reflect on other subjects while simultaneously resisting the urge to flip the page and look up answers that stump me.

See here’s the problem with cheating on crosswords. As soon as I turn the paper over, invariably I’m going to berate myself for giving in to a word that I surely would have come upon had I just given myself the chance. I also find that while I do my crosswords in (gasp) pen, I deliberately leave a great many squares blank. These clusters are spaces where I am fairly confident as to the answer, but still I hesitate to commit for fear of being wrong and making an utter mess of the grid.  Instead I’ll poke around the neighboring clues, seeking validation that my original word choice properly interweaves with the easier cross-streets of clues.

The one concern that I find with this strategy is that my reluctance to hazard a guess often holds up the greater progress of completing the puzzle. Sometimes the answer only becomes decipherable when you take the plunge and scratch in your shaky response. It is when this happens that you can really step back and visualize the possibilities.

Sometimes my inked word choice is still wrong, but more times than not the leap of faith, this gesture of self-confidence, yields a whole news branch of answers. Then I can succeed with rounding out my modest little airport diversion.

There are other parts of the puzzle that are a complete and utter desert; I’ve got nothing, even after poking my way around each hint for an extended period of time. Take 55 Across: 9 letters, clue is “Menace in the Mirror.” Since I’m at a loss for even the three letter down intersecting words, I start to rack my brain for unlikely solutions.

What to me would constitute a menace in the mirror? A cop? A guy in my backseat wielding a knife? Bloody Mary? My own narcissism? It is at this point I realize that I’m starting to pseudo-psychoanalyze my brainstorm session, and with that conclusion I stop putting so much critical thought into the endeavor. I leave the desert completely and bounce back to a kinda filled corner that is a little more accommodating to my ego.

Of course you can always reach for the TV Guide-esque airplane puzzle. Completed in less than a commuter flight’s time, these make you feel like a damn rocket scientist.

When the wheels of a bus, plane or train suddenly screech and announce my destination, I’ll file away a partially-completed puzzle and move my brain on to more pressing tasks. I’ll forget about the sheet of paper until some future point in time where I’ll be fishing through my travel bag come upon a work-in-progress. And maybe on this journey I’ll figure out exactly what that mirror menace really means.

I remain ever resolute in my determination to not flip the page and cheat. Instead I’ll just do my best with what my brain’s got right now, and not get so preoccupied with the act of completing the crossword. Besides, I’m doing these activities to pass the time in an enjoyable way–wouldn’t it be wholly unsatisfying to plunk in the right answers without the slightest bit of struggle? I think so, or at least that’s what I try to tell myself when mired in a crossword menace that continue to haunt me.

Thank god for stopping points, for arriving at temporary destinations. I’m ever hopeful that the next time I find myself occupying a ticketed seat, I’ll be just a tiny bit wiser. Or if not wise I hope to at least have gained a slightly different perspective that will help me while staring at spaces that really are never just black and white.