WORDS WITH FRIENDS

My New Year’s resolution is to learn how to play Angry Birds.

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But an essay in the New York Times suggests that daydreaming increases creativity. Daydreaming requires time, time I dump into playing Words With Friends.

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Words With Friends, though, is more than just words. It’s confirmation that my sister, my nieces, my colleague, my daughters and the guy whose name I got from the hardware store to hang my daughter’s curtains are out there, connected to me. I also play Words With Friends with a friend.

Playing WWF helps make me patient in checkout lines and waiting rooms. Deep in the night before going to sleep, I go into such hyper-focus that I wouldn’t notice if a squirrel were in the house, especially if I were struggling–as I am now–to find a 7-letter word with the letters R-T-S-A-Blank-S-D-P that does not end in S.

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This is not conducive to sleep.

My fellow Life Goes Strong blogger Irene Levine (Don’t you love names that rhyme? I had a history teacher named Mr. Prusan and the boy who sat next to me fantasized I would marry Mr. P and become Susan Prusan) . . . Irene, whom I’ve never met, wrote about her addiction to Words With Friends. So I commented “Irene, I want to play with you. I’m on my way to addiction . . . .”

We started playing and because she wrote about getting up in the night and checking her games. I worried I would do that too; a worrywart worries about catching other people’s worries.

Irene wrote another post, about a couple meeting on Words With Friends and getting married; she mentioned me in that post, pointing out, “You can learn a lot about someone’s character from playing together. You get a glimpse of their intellect, reliability, tenacity, sociability — and sleeping habits. Susan, like me, is a night owl.”

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Maybe if I spent less time playing Words With Friends I would have daydreamed my way into enough creativity to say something similarly insightful.

In yet another article, Irene wrote how a stranger playing Words With Friends and chatting with her opponent saved the life of a man halfway around the world.

It made me want to play with a stranger, so I signed up for a random opponent. I got username zyngawf_23083873. We just started our game, but I sent a message to say “Hi zyng. Where r u from?” I’m hoping for a story to emerge from our relationship and if it does I’ll definitely let you know.

Meanwhile, I’m rethinking my New Year’s resolution. I still want to learn Angry Birds but I resolve to play it only after I daydream.

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What is your New Year’s Resolution? And what have you learned about people by playing Words With Friends? Saved any lives? Met any spouses?

See my recent Home Goes Strong articles:

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