Zeno's Bar & Grill

What's a six letter word spelled A??IC? that describes my new state of mind ever since seeing the movie "Wordplay" on the plane back from London? The word is addict and the drug of choice is crosswords.

The movie is about both Will Shortz, the New York Times crossword editor, and crossword puzzles in general, which sounds stultifying, but was actually so intriguing that I have to confess I watched parts of it twice. Um, yeah. Seriously, though, I had Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp on the other channel, but the crossword people kept sucking me in.

Anyway, so now I find myself trying to match the feats of Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart, who looked oh-so-studly as they solved puzzles on camera. So far, I've successfully completed the Tuesday puzzle once, and come pretty close on a bunch of Mondays and Wednesdays (they get harder as the week progresses; I think I got about four clues on the Sunday puzzle before I gave up last weekend). I doubt I'll ever solve them in mere minutes like the braniacs who win Shortz's annual crossword competition, though.

--M?L?ANIE