It happens every year; you push through a crushing screening schedule, surviving on coffee, gossip and the occasional pastry, despairing that you’ll ever see the sun (or a decent movie) again …

… and suddenly, you get your third wind, and the four-movies-a-day schedule eases off into two or three, and you turn around and it’s Thursday and there’s a block of free time that can actually be used for something other than TIFF business.

I took a couple of shirts back to Old Navy yesterday. It was bliss.

I mean, the festival is in no ways over: Today offers still more screenings and interviews and at least one social thing, and I have to put together a wrap piece for Sympatico/MSN that’s threatening to be another monster. But even so, normal life is just around the corner.

I’ve missed that, you know?

Oh, and here are today’s Metro capsules.