• Anaimd | Dreamstime

Every evening, at some point between dinner and bedtime, I hear the happy little tune that indicates successful completion of the New York Times crossword puzzle. It's not coming from my computer; I'm usually working. The jingle of congratulations is for my partner, Tim Ashe, who starts the word game on his laptop sometime after it's published online the night before it appears in print — 6 p.m. on Saturday; 10 p.m. the rest of the week.

It takes Tim between five and 45 minutes to solve the weekday Times puzzles, which get increasingly difficult as the week progresses. For the Sunday puzzle, he spends about an hour filling in the empty squares, while I quietly seethe.

I find his talent maddening because I, a longtime professional wordsmith, don't share it. Seven Days has published a syndicated crossword in the newspaper since 1998. Tim and I used to do it together, and that was fun, if not totally equitable.

But somehow, in the intervening two decades, he's become a crossword whiz. He doesn't need me, even for the French and Italian clues — my specialty. He's made it very clear: He'd rather solve crosswords solo. As a result, I stopped doing the one in Seven Days and have successfully avoided a second puzzle we added last year: a digital crossword with clues that relate to local news, written by our own proofreader Angela Simpson. Sorry, Angela!

In Tim's defense, I am not a great crossword companion. Perhaps because I've been an editor for so many years, always trying to choose the right word, I just can't see other, more playful options. People say I'm "literal," and I don't think it's a compliment. When I look at a bunch of letters hangman-style, I often can't recognize the word being spelled.

There are worse shortcomings, I suppose, but over Thanksgiving, I asked Tim to coach me, clue by clue, through a Times crossword he'd already finished. He reset one so I could do it over online while he watched and answered my questions: What does it mean if there are quotation marks in the prompt? How about question marks? Italics? Caps? Abbreviations? Words like "say," "perhaps," etc.?

How can a clue like "OPTO-" possibly yield the answer "eyeopening"? Tim patiently walked me through the riddles and, when I was totally stuck, gave me hints. One of the most humiliating guessing games was "'Star' follower, in Hollywood." Answer: "Wars." I mean, WTF? Also helpful: If I asked him, Tim would let me know when I got a word right.

Working my way through the puzzle, I felt a full range of emotions, from frustration and rage reminiscent of childhood tantrums to grown-up exhilaration. On the plus side: The crossword craft did seem like something I could learn — a different way of looking at and conjuring words. We did it again the next day, Friday, when the puzzle was even more difficult. If I'd known Dwight Eisenhower was a Kansan, it would have helped. At least I had "Viggo" Mortensen.

Coincidentally, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the "Morning" email newsletter from the Times was titled "A Crossword Anniversary." David Leonhardt's intro was a Q&A with Will Shortz, who has been editing puzzles at the Times for 30 years. Ayesha Rascoe recently had Shortz on NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday," too.

"He is one of only four Crossword editors since 1942, when the paper began publishing puzzles as a way to offer relief to readers overwhelmed by war news," Leonhardt wrote of Shortz. The paper's Sunday editor at the time, two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, offered this explanation to publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger: "It is possible there will now be bleak blackout hours — or if not that then certainly a need for relaxation of some kind or other."

Needless to say, it was a brilliant business decision. These habit-forming puzzles still provide a welcome distraction. In this crazy world, which is still generating plenty of bad news, doing a crossword gives the illusion of having some control.

We could all use more of that.

P.S. As a result of a few questionable clues readers found in recent print crossword puzzles, Seven Days is on the lookout for a new supplier. Please send any suggestions to [email protected].