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T H E N E R V O U S R A C KThe Nervous Rack: My Life in SCRABBLE®CrazyBy Daiva MarkelisDaiva Markelis is a professor of English at Eastern Illinois University andthe author of White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life. Sheand her husband, expert Marty Gabriel, both play tournament SCRABBLE._________________________________________________________________________(1/23/13) I’ve been thinking of ways to drive my husband crazy. Not the I’ve decided it’s time we hada threesome, so I’m bringing home a cheerleader from school-crazy, but the I need some newcreative ways to bother my husband-crazy.Equilibrium is important in a marriage. If a husband drives a wife more nuts than she does him, orvice-versa, imbalance of the marriage chakras occurs. Imbalance leads to tension, tension toarguments, and before you know it the police are at your door, summoned by angry neighbors.Lately my husband has been a tiny bit annoying. Oh, he was mostly great during my birthday lastweek, lavishing me with a fabulous pair of new boots. I picked out the boots, of course; I don’t trustmen with the really important decisions in my life. When a huge box arrived from Zappos (if youdon’t know about Zappos and their great selection and wonderful return policy, you must go to http://www.zappos.com/ right now), I thanked Marty profusely.“What for?” he asked.“This very thoughtful gift.”“What gift?”“These one hundred and forty-nine dollar boots.”“One hundred and forty-nine dollar boots? That’s outrageous. I’ve never heard of such a thing,” hespewed.“I know. What a great price! They were originally over two hundred bucks.”Marty settled down eventually, and we went out for a nice steak dinner. But during dinner, Martycraftily shifted the conversation to his upcoming birthday at the end of February and how he wasthinking of having a SCRABBLE® tournament in his name and maybe sharing the glory with fellowScrabbler Sam Smith, whose birthday falls around the same time.“I could call it the S and M tournament,” he said. “For Sam and Marty.”“That’s real classy. And where would you hold this S and M SCRABBLE tournament?”“At our house. I thought maybe you could make some chili and get some cold cuts and stuff. Iwould limit the number of entrants to no more than thirty-six.”He kept talking about the logistics of the tournament—prize money, advertising, etc. when I had abrilliant idea: I would start to pepper my conversation with unacceptable SCRABBLE words—words70
T H E N E R V O U S R A C Kthat should be allowed, and that very soon (when the SCRABBLE dictionary committee comes upwith its new list in 2014) will be allowed, but that now are verboten. (By the way, verboten is anacceptable SCRABBLE word.) Marty is very sensitive to intruder words; he’s afraid they will maketheir way into his brain like worms from some science fiction movie and nestle there, perhapsmating with the acceptable words.I was about to say something like “A lot of women like to get bling for their birthdays, but I don’t needbling. I’m not a bling kind of woman” when Marty paused and looked me tenderly and said, “Let’stalk about you. It’s your birthday.”“Good timing,” I mumbled, but Marty didn’t know what I was talking about.Another annoying incident occurred on Saturday at SCRABBLE Club. We have a tradition ofcelebrating monthly birthdays; we have cake and a prize for the highest scoring word played thatday that includes the initials of the birthday person. For example, someone might submit DeMentedfor Daiva Markelis. Sometimes we have prizes for the word that best describes the personality of thebirthday girl or guy; the birthday person is the judge. I was not happy with last year’s selection;people entered words such as slut, grump, grumpy, and, inexplicably— dogears. Luckily, my friendMary Maddox submitted ritzy, which won hands down.It is Marty’s job as Mr. Director to read the words out loud slowly.He came to the word cagey and looked at me for a long time and then uttered, “Daiva is a cageyLithuanian.”“Cagey is not going to win,” I announced.“How about enabler? Daiva is an enabler to her students.”“Nope.”I was getting exasperated with his examples and thought I’d start making up words and repeatingthem over and over. Words like wordworm.“Wordworm is an acceptable word, isn’t it?” I was about to ask. “It’s kind of like wormwood, right?Wordworm, wormwood—what’s the difference?”But then Marty looked at me and uttered the word young.“My Daiva is always young,” he said and smiled and put his arm around me.All thoughts of wordworm left my being. 71
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W O R D G A M E N E W SThe Last Wor
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From the EditorF R O M T H E E D I
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A D V E R T I S E M E N TSamTimer.c
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A D V E R T I S E M E N TBROW-RAISE
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A D V E R T I S E M E N TSupport Th
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C H A N D L E RIn Division A, Jim L
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New York, NY: 4/6N E W Y O R KTwent
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B A T 2 0 1 3Mack also won the Robe
Page 19 and 20: N . E . S C H O O L S C R A B B L E
Page 21 and 22: N . E . S C H O O L S C R A B B L E
Page 23 and 24: L A S V E G A S V S . O R A N G E C
Page 25 and 26: R O C K Y M O U N T A I N R U M B L
Page 27 and 28: 2 0 1 3 N S S C2013 National School
Page 29 and 30: 2 0 1 3 N S S CCornelia Guest’s f
Page 31 and 32: Dessert & Game Fiesta2 0 1 3 N S S
Page 33 and 34: TournamentResultsAPRIL 1-30AKRON OH
Page 35 and 36: New FacesN E W F A C E SSince our l
Page 37 and 38: N E W F A C E SPHILADELPHIA PA 4/21
Page 39 and 40: E N D G A M E P U Z Z L EANSWER: Th
Page 41 and 42: Word Trivia QuizBy Siri Tillekeratn
Page 43 and 44: K N O W T H E R U L E SKnow the Rul
Page 45 and 46: S C R A B B L E I N T H E N E W S
Page 47 and 48: S C R A B B L E I N T H E N E W SWe
Page 49 and 50: S C R A B B L E I N T H E N E W STe
Page 55 and 56: S C R A B B L E S T R A T E G Y V I
Page 57 and 58: S C R A B B L E C H A M P I O N S T
Page 59 and 60: S C R A B B L E C H A M P I O N S T
Page 61 and 62: W O R D S T A RMultiple forms of th
Page 63 and 64: The WordsmithLondon (and York) call
Page 65 and 66: T H E W O R D S M I T HOn the first
Page 67 and 68: A R T O F D O W E LWoodEye TableThe
Page 69: F I L L I N T H E B L A N K SANSWER
Page 73 and 74: Word-Finder Challenge:S C R A B - D
Page 75 and 76: Club NewsEdited by Larry ShermanC L
Page 77 and 78: Nigel Richards MemesN I G E L R I C
Page 79 and 80: C O L L I N S T O U R N A M E N T S
Page 81 and 82: S C R A B B L E : T H O R E A U & T
Page 83 and 84: SCRABBLE®ResourcesThere are many s
Page 85 and 86: S C R A B B L E R E S O U R C E Sti
Page 87 and 88: Tournament CalendarT O U R N A M E
Page 89 and 90: T O U R N A M E N T C A L E N D A R
Page 97: ArchivesA R C H I V E STo download
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