I’ve somehow fallen for a librarian.

Marian.

Well, it could be her name. There’s a small chance. And an even tinier chance that she’s thought of me.

$2.20 for a few late DVDs and a book. This happens constantly; I’m just doing my part to support the Peoria Public Library system. She wouldn’t take my money, but she did laugh at my desperate questioning and pointed me to a machine that wouldn’t smile back. I paid $5 and the hunk of steel called it even.

She’s a regular, this girl. I’m usually jamming on a keyboard, scowling. Her? An expert at shelving. A Dewey Decimal damsel.

There are days that this is all that keeps you going: straight dark hair midway down the back, a multicolor horizontally-striped shirt, brown cords, shoes and socks.

Hi, Marian.

I went and saw “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” over the weekend and wasn’t disappointed. Purposeful camera work showcasing the gaunt, shadowed faces of the spy world, top-notch acting chops by Gary Oldman et all, and a haunting musical score. Alas, it was more confusing than it should have been – as Roger Ebert explains in his review.

But something stood out in the end and made me uncomfortable (and it wasn’t the crappy seats.) In the orchestral piece playing over the ending credits, a leitmotif centers around strings marching angrily in arpeggios. Sound familiar? Maybe this will help:

Dario Marianelli – “Briony” (click for HQ)

Marianelli won an Oscar for this soundtrack to 2007’s “Atonement.” Melding the sound of clacking typewriters with astounding piano work, it certainly deserved every last accolade.

Now, back to “Tinker Tailor”:

Alberto Iglesias – “Esterhase” (click for HQ)

Any questions?

This is the very definition of a desperate email:

To my New York friends-

This is a long shot, but do any of you possess an unclaimed Columbia rain jacket? I may have left it behind during my visit. It has no name, but is gray in color and sports a hood.

In an event soon be known as the “Monday Miracle,” I received this reply from Eric just one minute later:

I HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I THOUGHT IT WAS A GIRL’S JACKET SO I WROTE ALL THE GIRLS WHO HAVE BEEN TO MY APARTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve learned a lesson here somewhere.

Dear readers, I type this with blood flowing freely onto my white keyboard. 2012 has killed, the prime suspect of introducing my right index finger to a can of BPA-free black beans. I think we can agree that this has consequences far beyond the application of Neosporin.

And so it is with the wind howling permeating my porous pre-war (alliteration!) apartment that I welcome yet another year.

But first: two parties.

First on the NYE tour was a basement party / band sendoff. The only rule stipulated by the invite? “Don’t be stupid.”

We stumbled down some stairs and into darkness. It was like some sort of psychological torture chamber: hands groping for balance, pulsing music, strange smells. I brought along my only weapon, a new Fuji X10, and it was did well as a camera but quite poorly as a defensive weapon. I was barely able to get 1/4s at 12,800 ISO in that pit. My eyes didn’t fare much better. Occasional breaks were taken top-side.

About one of the party hosts – if I was ever forced to follow just one Twitter user on a desert island, it would be Nate. After recently breaking a chair in his own home, he left it in the middle of the floor and chalked a crime scene around it. That chair soon received a mate just in time for 2012.

We threatened to leave (not because of the chair, mind you) and he broke out a harmonica. That was obviously the last straw, so it was on to the next party.

This group was decidedly better dressed than the basement crowd: not quite Great Gatsby, but a mixture of 30-something former bandmates and their now wives/girlfriends. Throw us all in a festive house generously opened to us by the Maags and it was a remarkably fine finale to the evening.

Somehow, in the midst of prepping with noisemakers and booze, we missed the actual transition to 2012.