Scrabblemania

Jenny and I have become newly obsessed with Scrabble: the board game under the coffee table in every American living room. Jenny's always been a fan but I've joined the ranks only recently. Not that I was unfamiliar with the game. I think I just avoided it in the past because I was really terrible at it and didn't enjoy getting destroyed by my mom's MLS friends (that's Masters of Library Science not Major League Soccer).

Stephen Fatsis's remarkable book Word Freak changed my perspective. I can no longer read the New Yorker without noting words like penumbra, a 7 to make 8 bingo as well as a three letter vowel dump containing the decent scoring letters p, m, and b.

I also own Mike Baron's definitive Word Book for Game Players with complete lists of acceptable 2,3,4.....letter words which I scan like a cryptologist until my head spins.

All this aside, my progress as a player is slow. Though my word knowledge and anagram skills are increasing, I still have a pathetic lack of spatial vision in my board strategy. I no longer find myself in frequent jams without playing options but consistent high-scoring plays are thus-far elusive.

It's an addicting diversion. I hope to elevate my game and then slow down the studying before I become as strange as the expert players profiled in Fatsis's book. My wife has her doubts.