Maps: Finding Our Place in the World

For my birthday, Bossyboots gave me a really thoughtful present...  He found this great map book, full of photos of all sorts of maps from all over the world - all eras, all sorts, all cultures.  Some are rudimentary maps, some are insanely creative, some were dry, others wildly colorful.  The book also explains how maps have shaped the world over time.  I loved it!  I will definitely be drawing lots of inspiration from this book for my own maps.  Take a look at just a few of my favorites from my birfday book:

I just adore the way this seventeenth-century English map was drawn down a wrapping ribbon...

And this is a map from Sandro Botticelli, 1490, of the many circles of Hell (The Inferno is one of my very favorite books, ahem, literature - whatever - it's awesome.)

I love the color of the title facing on this French map of wind currents in the Indian Ocean.

I am fascinated with this map of the geographic distribution of PLANTS (of all things.)  Beautiful, isn't it?

I love books.  I love maps.  I love maps of books.  This is a gorgeous map of the journey of the Pequod from Moby Dick (1956, Everett Henry)

This is a sixteenth-century map of (at the time) the known world:

This is a map of a fantasy Fairyland... (Bernard Sleigh, 1920?)

I just find this map of Italy by William Harvey (1869) hilarious.  Extremely literal, but I love it.

! And I LOVE this... a map of London created on a woman's glove for the Great Exhibition (George Shove, 1851)

What inspires you?

I Still Don't Know What Love Is

It's just a song lyric, calm down!  A song lyric from a really great Ray LaMontagne song actually... which I heard in PERSON when I went to his concert last week. 

I KNOW- I about died from anticipation in the weeks prior.

My friends Colo and K-Spice, knowing my love for The Ray, had two extra tickets and asked me if I wanted to go with them.  Well duh!  It took me about 5 seconds to say yespleaseandthankyousomuchforthinkingofme.

(sigh)

To say the least, I was really excited.  I know it makes me a super dorky, likely annoying fan, but I do love his music a whole lot.  I asked Bossyboots if he wanted to go, which he did, but somehow he had never heard of Ray LaMontagne...  He asked Colo if he should know who this raspy, plaid-wearing dude was.

In the words of Colo... "Yes, Bossyboots, you should definitely know who this guy is."

FAIL!  We forgave him though.

Colo and I both had the day off and started our night off on a girl-date at Mercat, which is this great tapas place downtown.

Isn't it perty?

We enjoyed strawberry/grapefruit and basil/cucumber cocktails...

...and tiny potatoes (as I liked to call them - I'm sure they have some other fancy-ass proper name.)

My friends Mr. and Mrs. Quiche (of whom I snagged no pictures!), K-Spice, and Bossyboots met us at Mercat for but a brief few moments before we headed over to Chicago's Auditorium Theater (which is frakking gorgeous.)

Whoops, here's a legit photo of Colo and K (aren't they pretty?):

And - just to prove I was really there - from the other side:

We waited.

And waited a little more.

Until Ray time.

I spent about half of the concert trying not to get all emotional.  I was successful but JEEZ he makes it tough.  He sang "You Are the Best Thing" as he originally wrote it, which was much different than the version we all heard on his published record.  I have to say, the concert version feels a lot more connected.  We had a great night.

The Fountain of Youth: a Floridian Map

When Amanda and Jayson contacted me about creating a small map to use as an insert for their wedding invitations, I took it as a personal challenge... to create a map that complimented the style of their invites while retaining the style they hired me for!  I was really pleased with the results...

My inner nerd loves history, and who can't get into a location that plays home to the Fountain of Youth!  I really enjoyed working a map with such a rich cultural history... and you know I love me a wily sea monster!

 

And, of course, a map's no good unless you know how to get THERE from HERE!  We made this bugger double-sided...  I really love the way the florals turned out...

Many congratulations Amanda and Jayson!  If I knew how to say that in Castillan...  I would!  In the meantime, my well wishes will just have to be in English.  XOXO - Penny

My Favorite Weeknight Treat...

(sigh) I'm happy.  :)

Confessions of a Recovering Type-A Personality

If I had to, I would officially classify myself as a Type-A personality.  I plan, schedule, and I have Excel charts for days.  I like to make decisions and goals for my life, and then work to achieve them... in a decidedly organized and obsessive way.  I've been this way since I was a little kid and forced my brothers and sisters to act in plays that I wrote, directed, costumed, and tyranized all by myself - because I was an uber-annoying older sister.

You wouldn't think this is a problem.  I pay my bills on time, I can be counted on to be on time, I usually am a lady that gets things done.

However, in college I realized the problem with this scenario.  I was studying Production Management, which involved stage managing theatre on a grand scale.  I asked my senior stage manager for advice on how I could improve my skillz.  He gave me some of the best advice I've ever received:

"You are very organized and on top of things, but when you broadcast that, it makes everybody very nervous and stressed - don't let everybody know you are running through all the details and specifics in your head.  Loosen up, sister." (paraphrased!)

This is so true.  I love me a Type-A... we email you back right away, we get things done, but... we can also be - shall we say - super-frakking ANNOYING!  We are the ones that want to buy tickets six months in advance (when it's unnecessary,) we take initiative when it's not our place to do so, we make the simplest tasks SO overorganized instead of pleasurably organic, we label the life out of you.  This is why Type-A's often characterize themselves as "anal retentive."

I prefer "precise."  :)

To me, the key to navigating life as a Type-A is to... be Type-A without announcing your Type-A status to the world.  Don't Google Doc if you don't need to, don't label when you should be just enjoying those items you are labeling, don't stress everybody around you out.  Life is firstly to be enjoyed - inputting the details into Excel charts comes secondarily.

I have been working on being not so obviously Type-A since college, and I still don't have it figured out, but hopefully I don't stress my friends out as much as I used to!  I keep my Excel charts a closely guarded secret, right next to my illicit drugs (calm down, mom.  I'm kidding.)

Are you Type-A?  Do you find it a blessing or a curse?  Please submit your comment in a series of bullet points.  We all know you want to.  (Secretly, I want you to, too.)