"I've always been intrigued by the letter Q."

I recently had the pleasure of watching two fascinating documentaries about word obsession.

Word Play made me want to do a New York Times crossword puzzle - even though they are incredibly difficult (even the Monday ones, to my wee little brain) and even though the puzzle creators apparently like to fuck with you - simply because Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart do them.

Word Wars made me want to play Scrabble, even though the movie only featured regular people and not Adam Horovitz (an avid Scrabbler).

The films highlighted several puzzlers and Scrabblers, and I could see how some people might find these folks... er... weird, to say the least. Their brains think in ways I cannot even begin to imagine, and they spend HOURS every day doing this stuff.

I didn't find them weird, but I did wonder about their mental stability at certain points, due in large part to nervous tics and Maalox-guzzling and things like that. My viewpoint changed completely when a former national champion of the annual crossword puzzle competition described how one of her boyfriends used to give her a hard time about doing crossword puzzles, and she finally retorted, "yeah, well what have you ever been the national champion at?"

Right on, sister. Wordies unite!