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December 15, 2025 
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On weekends, I try to go off the grid. Take this in the gentlest sense of the phrase — I don’t abandon the comforts of civilization, or forage for berries in city parks. I do leave my phone in another room, and try to let my curiosity, rather than a flurry of planned activities, carry me through. Your version of weekend relaxation may share some of these features: screen-free time, fresh air, a mandated solo date. Whatever you do, the point is that you’re not accountable to anyone (except your Wordle streak, maybe), and that there’s time to clear your mind before plugging back in.
Last Friday, at the time I’d usually be winding down, I wound up at a crossword show — actually, “The Crossword Show,” hosted by Zach Sherwin, a comedian and cruciverbalist. Panelists solve a crossword puzzle live, while Mr. Sherwin reveals how the entries are existentially connected — the puzzle theme … is us? — using dizzying amounts of clever wordplay. I know what you’re thinking, or at least what I’m thinking: That’s a strange place to be for a crossword columnist looking to unplug. On Sunday, I ended up on the grid again — at the corner of 65th Street and 5th Avenue, to be precise — to watch Natan Last, the constructor and author of a just-released book on the “past, present and future” of crosswords, build a puzzle in real time. Here, again, might be the last place you’d expect to find a puzzle pundit looking to kick back.
But come Monday, despite an entire weekend spent among black-and-white squares and the people who fill them, I felt as clearheaded as if I’d done the opposite — clearer, even. It occurred to me that the grid in the idiom (“gridiom,” thank you) might just be a concept. Or maybe it’s a spectrum; a gridient, if you will. Or that the in-grid-ients … I’m getting carried away. The point is that there’s no rulebook for rest and relaxation, and that unplugging might not look the way you expected it to. It might involve using your phone! It might involve throwing your phone into the East River, though I can’t recommend that. Put simply, the grid isn’t so black and white. It’s just a fun personal puzzle, and you should let yourself solve it in real time.
Cryptogram
