Zones

In general, I consider myself to be pretty neat. I like organization, color coordination, and cleanliness. I have a deep and abiding love for highlighters, binder clips, labels, and pretty file folders. Preston, however, is not particularly neat. He certainly isn't a slob, but I'm pretty sure that if we weren't living together, he would live in squalor, or at least squalor-lite (Preston, feel free to rebuff). ANYWAYS. Where I like to have A PLAN and ORDER, Preston likes to have, you know, a general idea of how everything might, potentially, maybe, go. This personality difference is nowhere more evident than at our desks.

I am a firm believer that everyone, no matter where or with whom they are living, should have a space that is their own - be it a room, a closet, a corner in the den, or a shelf in the study. For Preston and me, it made sense that these neutral spaces should be our desks. When we moved in together three years ago, we both brought desks with us and, aside from bedside tables (which possess a similar neutrality), these desks represented the only spaces that weren't shared. And for the last three years, our desks have been our own private spaces - except for when company comes, it does not matter how they look. Usually Preston's desk looks like this:

And the great thing is, I don't even notice it. I'm pretty OCD about cleaning, and while I am constantly straightening up our apartment, picking up old water glasses, fluffing pillows, and scooping up tufts of dog hair, I don't even notice Preston's desk. I'd hazard a guess that it looks like the above photo 95% of the time, but you know what? It doesn't matter! Because it's not my problem!

My desk looks like this most of the time:

I like it neat, and tend to make sure it's clean before I go to bed every night. HOWEVER. Although my desk might be neater than Preston's, I've found that I, too, need my freebie space. Enter: the basket on the windowsill where I can put all of my unfolded clothes. Otherwise known as THE GREATEST IDEA EVER (ten points for me). Next to dusting, putting away clothes is absolutely my least favorite house chore of all time. Seriously. My idea of hell is dusting and folding clothes I didn't want to wear the day before. Shudder.

Particularly during the school year (when I'm dressing like A Real Person, as opposed to the summer, when I usually don't change after I exercise in the morning. You're welcome!), I tend to try on outfits and then, if I don't like them, hurl them into The Pile. The Pile grows and grows until it threatens to topple over and fall into the dog's water bowl below - I don't have a picture of it, but you must trust me...at its worst, it rivals Preston's desk in terms of looking like an atomic bomb recently exploded in it. Once The Pile reaches a precarious height, I gracefully crush it down and continue to ignore it for a few days before finally - at long last - I deal with it, and end up putting about half of it away and half of it into the dirty clothes pile (and yes! This is gross of me).

Although I'm pretty sure Preston would never mention the mammoth size of The Pile to me (because he is the sane to my crazy), the wonderful thing about it is that, even if he wanted to, HE CAN'T. Because it's my zone! It's a Switzerland of the apartment, and I don't know what I'd do without it. Probably have a really messy desk. Or be cranky. One of the two.

So what about you all? Are we the only ones with 'zones'? Or do you too have places where you/your partner or roommate has free reign? And if so, what are they?