walk away from your problems

My wife and I begin each morning with coffee and Connections, the New York Times word grouping game. Then, at the gym, I work my way through the Midi, the Mini, Wordle, and Strands. Much easier on the brain than doomscrolling.Lately, however, I’ve developed a new interest in Spelling Bee, a particularly maddening puzzle with one of the weirdest and most confounding word lists of any similar game I’ve played. Each one looks like this:The goal is to spell as many words as possible. The only rule is that each word must include the center letter: FALL, but not TALL. And, ideally, you achieve the pangram by using all the letters at once: FAINTLY. Unlike Andy Samberg, I don’t have the patience to max out at “Queen Bee” status every single day. But I regularly achieve the Genius level now, all because of a new approach I’ve taken to the challenge: Instead of bulldozing my way through the obvious words and then giving up in frustration, I poke and prod at Spelling Bee gently, putting it down…