New York Times, Monday, March 6, 2023

I have stacks and stacks of scribbled theme ideas, the vast majority of which never become puzzles. Most of those sit around for years until for no particular reason, one of them beckons. Such was the case for my notion of "human nature."

My original thought was things like MOUTH OF THE RIVER, EYE OF THE STORM, NECK OF THE WOODS. But I couldn't get a symmetrical set that would work. So I switched gears and ended up with the shortish answers and rather unusual grid you see here.

It seems the majority of clues were my own, with some of the changes clearly meant to make them easier. Yes, it's Monday.

OMG, I was just reminded that this is my 100^th NYT crossword. That means a lot of years have flown by! I'm constructing far fewer puzzles these days, but as I've said before, it remains a great alternative to cleaning or shopping or decluttering.

This theme made a lot less sense when I confidently plunked in HUMAN GENOME.

Fun reinterpretation of NATURE, from "inherent characteristics" to "natural phenomena." It's neat that Lynn found four examples that fit the form (body part) + (natural occurrence). It's doubly neat that they're so consistent, each one overtly referencing the body part. If you'd never been to the FINGER LAKES, I bet you could guess what they (roughly) look like.

Surely there are more examples that would fit? Knee … plant? (Jill has given up taking care of plants, what with the kid knees smashing into them.)

Nose … waterfall? (See: Jake's nose since the start of the school year.)

Elbow … macaroni? (Nope, the only mac ‘n cheese my kids will eat is hardly natural and causes digestive problems.)

Butt ... (TMI.)

BUNGLER is such a fun word. It perfectly sums up my experiences as a parent. See also: TRIAL and LOUDEN.

Solid gridwork, rarely easy with a central 9. I'm not wild about all the extra black squares on the sides of the puzzle — single cheaters could have worked in the place of the triplets — but whatever gets you smooth results is ultimately fine. It would be a different story if there were already a ton of black squares elsewhere, but a total of 38 black squares syncs with most every editorial spec sheet.

I did hesitate on the ELAND crossing the OLLIE. Amusing image, an antelope attempting to leap while riding a skateboard, but perhaps cluing to a famous Ollie would have been better. Or at least, one of my favorite Ollies.

HEADy Monday theme that will hardly be the butt of jokes.