come on, feel the illinoise

guys, i've only listened to about 3 tracks of the new sufjan stevens album (illinois) and i'm already completely positive that i never want to listen to anything else ever again. it is simply beautiful. and the song titles are so clever! i mean, sure, i could choose to be bitter that he wrote songs about decatur, bushnell, highland, and jacksonville but not galesburg (though he did write about carl sandburg, who as we all know was born there, and also about prairie fire, our beloved mascot) but no, i don't think i will. instead, i will just sit here and absorb this. i am a better person already.

i watched a very long engagement earlier this week, and i'd be interested in comments from any of you who've seen it. i liked it very much and thought it had moments of extreme beauty, but i think i wanted a little bit more from it and a little bit less at the same time. the cinematography was gorgeous and every scene seemed to be washed in a warm brown, but at times it seemed sort of plodding. i was extremely surprised to see jodie foster in the film, and i'm of course not fluent in french so i wouldn't know whether she sounded like a native french speaker but i thought she pulled it off quite well.

i don't know. life rolls along, i guess. this week i accidentally went on a date with a married guy - well, the date was intentional, but the married part came as a bit of a surprise. that was fun. here's a transcript of a conversation i had with my dear darling friend mikey about it:

me: so, this guy from my building asked me out, and we went to lunch on tuesday. seemed like a totally normal date until, 45 minutes into our lunch, he casually says "yeah, i love tivo. my wife got it for me for christmas last year."
mikey: well, i mean, at least he's got tivo, right?

yeah.