Lara Stone Returns

I did not know that I'm in fact fiercely territorial until Lara Stone started camping in my place for two weeks now. I would not necessarily call it "living together", after all he's only staying here for a month, but it's certainly a new "arrangement", for lack of a better term, for me.

Well of course I'm thrilled he's back and we have lots of time to spend with each other. Reading the Sunday papers while having breakfast in bed; going for a swim every afternoon; endless talks... you know the drill. It's fun and I'm certainly knowing him more and more.

At the same time, I'm knowing my self more. One major discovery is, as mentioned above, I am absolutely crazy about my space, basically made up of the four corners of my tiny bedroom. Everything has to be in perfect order; and like the cosmos, it has it own laws, any diversion from which would lead to imbalance - my mind mainly.

Nobody told me my very idea of order would be rocked big time with the arrival of Lara Stone.

First came the queen bed to replace my erstwhile twin bed. Consequently. the bedside table and baskets have to be moved a foot. Then came the working desk, supplanting the small bench by the windows. The table invited laptop cables and cell phone chargers, along with an army of papers, folders, boarding passes, keys, wallets, tote bags, cameras, and whatnot, to pile on it. And then mushrooming in the cabinet are small vials of face creams, lotions, and perfumes that block my bracelets and necklaces from full view.

Don't get me started on the bathroom. Well, there are now two towels hanging from the rack, but at least they are color-coordinated. But gosh, the sink counter! Lotions are invading the "dental care zone' (we are talking about a total space of roughly three square feet). And on the "shower zone", green bottles of shampoo and conditioner disturb the all-white color scheme of my body wash and shampoo dispensers.

My bookshelf, with its books carefully arranged according to size and colors and accessorized with travel souvenirs, has sprouted books that simply just don't belong there. They have elbowed their way into the space of the Vietnamese water puppet. Now my dry gourd form Laos is pressed between a frayed notebook and a damp map of the Skytrain. The horror!!!

Did I tell you already about the dirty clothes strewn on the floor? How can that happen when there's a hamper in full view?

I'm not saying that Lara Stone is a slob. In fact, he is very obsessive in doing the laundry and he also fixes the bed every morning. And oh, he cleans the bathroom, a task I can finally relegate to someone, thank God.

What I'm whining about is how my sense of order has been disturbed lately. I'm mourning how I lost the total control of my space. Fortunately, Lara Stone has positively responded, albeit slowly, to being trained at arranging bottles of moisturizers from the smallest to the largest, or that books of the same color stand together.