Whenever I walk past Bryant Park and see the speed chess players contemplating their next moves, it occurs to me that I should be good at chess. I don’t really know why I should, except that it just sort of seems like the kind of thing at which I’d excel.

In reality, however, I am a terrible, terrible chess player. Atrociously bad. Perhaps due to an early lack of practice – through my entire childhood, I played less than five games. But, a few years back, thinking it might still not be too late, I even downloaded a chess game for my then Palm smartphone. And after a month or so of practice, I was just as pathetic, the computer opponent continuing to easily manhandle me at even the easiest level.

Still, last night, watching the documentary Wordplay, it similarly occurred to me that I should probably be good at crossword puzzles. On this one, I even had justification: I like wordplay. I know a lot of words and stupid facts. And I secretly like puzzles, despite rarely having the patience to figure out more involved ones.

But, like with chess, and perhaps due to that very lack of patience, I’d actually never before completed a crossword puzzle – not even a Monday USA Today. So, this afternoon, with documentary-driven determination, I pulled up an online crossword collection, and set off on a Monday New York Times.

And while, admittedly, it took me nearly twenty minutes, I got the damn thing done, and done right. With a little practice, I’m fairly sure I could even work my way through later, harder days of the week.

But, of course, if it turns out I can’t, I’m not overly concerned. As I did with chess, I’ll simply declare it a pursuit for pasty losers, and claim I never really wanted to be any good at it in the first place.