Synonymies and Syneirities

We only have one toilet in our apartment. Andrew likes to clip his nails into it, which drives me insane. I have to constantly remind myself that my way of doing things isn't the only way of doing things, nor is it the "right" way, and, even if I think that my way is better, the fact that I clip my nails into a little pile that I put into the garbage can drives Andrew equally crazy.

Last night I was in the bathroom when Andrew announced that he was going to clip his nails.

"No, you're not," I said.

"Oh, hurry up!" he pleaded, "It's my toilet!"

"Yes, it is a toilet," I teased him. He turned red, I'm sure.

"I meant 'fingernail clipping station' but it came out as 'toilet' because they are synonymous."

Maybe in your books, Andrew, but not in mine. I suppose, though, that at 1 o'clock in the morning anything goes. Andrew and I have been staying up way too late recently. He's trying to finish a 90-odd page program for the ULA/MPLA conference. It has been a wonderful learning experience, but has been quite the workload for Andrew as he has tried to pull this off single handedly. He designed and developed the website, and now he's trying to finish the program. After that he has to do the posters and then he will be finished (we hope).

So we have both been staying up late working. He likes to ask for my opinion and insight and bounce ideas off of me. We both like designing, so it's kind of been fun...but definitely a lot of work.

We were still talking about a problematic aspect of the program when we went to bed last night and I started dreaming about how to fix it as we were falling asleep. Suddenly I was struck with inspiration, but the thrill was bittersweet. Sure, I was excited to have dreamed up the solution to our problem but I was sorely disappointed that doing so had yanked me wide awake. I had almost been asleep. Shucks.

"Andrew," I whispered. No response.

"Andrew!" I whispered again, a little louder this time, and poked him in the ribs.

"What?" he groaned.

"Hand me the paper and pen! I have an idea!"

"What paper? What pen?" he mumbled.

"The ones on your dresser..." I prompted.

He moaned--we keep a paper and pen on Andrew's dresser just in case we get any incredible ideas in the middle of the night. We've used them like three times or something. Apparently we don't get many incredible ideas in the middle of the night--and grudgingly handed me the pen and paper.

I quickly did some mock-ups, turned those into thumbnails, and then did some splash frames. It actually looked more like I drew a bunch of blobs with my eyes half closed. But Andrew was excited.

"Were you dreaming about that, too?" he asked, his annoyance at my waking him up fading in light of my brilliant idea.

We are just a syneirious couple, I suppose.