I have this obsession. Every time H.E. and I go out to lunch, we get the L.A. Times, and I turn to a section, to a number puzzle called Sudoku.

I’ve been playing Sudoku for a long while now, and I usually solve it pretty quickly—whether they rate it Gentle or Diabolical and so long as I’m not distracted by TV or conversation. It’s actually not that hard, and I’m insanely addicted to it. Apparently, though, I’m not alone. I recently read an article—in either Newsweek or Time, I can’t remember which—about its rising popularity. Sudoku is taking the world by storm.

“Wow,” H.E. said when he read the article. “You really are a bedwetter!”

That’s just his way of joking—he always calls me a bedwetter when it turns out that something I like becomes a popular trend.

When he says that, I always bellow, “That’s bellwether, damn it!”

“That’s what I said!”

So anyway … I’m a total Sudokulist, and I’m writing about it tonight because for the first time in my life I was NOT able to solve the day’s puzzle. As I write this, the puzzle is in my room, half written in. I usually solve it in less than half an hour, and I use a pen all the way through it. Today, only some numbers are written in pen, just the ones I’m sure of, and the blank squares have pencilled in numbers—at least two or three in each square.

It’s driving me insane. I was depressed the entire day because I couldn’t figure out how to fill in the rest of the squares. H.E. was so worried about my state of mind, he took me on a surprise trip to the bookstore and bought me some books.

All in vain.

I could not be consoled, and here I now sit, at my computer, obsessing about it and hoping I don’t forget to get the paper tomorrow so I can see the solution. I probably won’t even look at the complete solution—just one of the numbers I need to complete the puzzle on my own. I’ll feel like I cheated either way, but at least I’ll be out of my misery. The frustration is such that I’m almost convinced H.E. was right and that Sudoku is seppuku spelled backwards.

Damn you, Sudoku! I’ll never play you again!

Except—ooooh! I finally took a look at the site, and I think they have a helper feature on there….

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