My girlfriend has an insane love of maps. She has a

Chicago neighborhood directory

, one for the suburbs, one for Indianapolis, one for Milwaukee, another for Boston, London, Dublin, and a couple of world maps she hangs up on her bedroom walls. If you ever ask her for directions, she’ll grab a napkin and a pen and sketch out most of the neighborhood for you. She’ll even draw out all the intersections and mark all the local landmarks. One really detailed map she made up even contained certain street lights, a train station, a couple of bus stops, bars, shops, restaurants, and even a fire house. This map took up 5 different napkins and the guy who had asked where the theater was lost interest long before she was even halfway done. I once asked her why she didn’t just draw maps for her enjoyment, but she said she didn’t need them. Why would she want a map when she already knew where everything was? But that doesn’t stop her from detailed directions even when she has nothing to draw with and sometimes telling local trivia. I think her true vocation should have been a mapmaker, but these aren’t the days of yore anymore when that would have been a more important decision.