So I officially live in Toronto now! I have the lease sucking my soul out through my wallet every month to prove it, even! And I have my teeny-but-adorable apartment, and a boy living in it who remembers to put the toilet seat down and does dishes voluntarily. I am back in a program I am at least 95% sure I enjoy, and there is a bowl on my dining table that is full of fresh apples and tomatoes and red peppers. Oh my.
It's an interesting thing, living in this city that I have chosen to make my home. There is (or, at least, I have found there to be) a sort of interesting reverse snobbery going on here. Living in small town Alberta during the summer, I made sure to tell people that, oh, no, don't live here! Live in Toronto, thank you! Ever so much cooler than you could ever hope to be, Okotokians! (It really is a very nice part of the world, as long as you don't interact with too many people in cowboy hats, I don't want you to get the wrong idea there). But now that I am back in Toronto, it seems that part of belonging here is making sure you do not participate in certain events that would seem to define a lot of Toronto's appeal. Maybe this is just me, but I swear it's a real and true thing!
Take, for example, the Toronto International Film Festival. I refuse to call it TIFF, because I do not like to equate in my mind a major Canadian event with anyone who would carry pom-poms.
You will note that I did indeed call it a major Canadian event, because that is what it is. For the duration of the festival, Toronto premieres some very exciting movies, and plays host to some very important people. But I feel, somehow, and get the impression from others I've talked to, that the festival is to be treated as nothing more than a method of crowding up the sidewalks. To actually be one of the people who stands on either side of the velvet rope, waiting for the stars to come through, puts you immediately in the bracket of "tourist", and is to be avoided at all costs. (I think that if you simply go to the movie, and pretend not to notice your favourite star, this is still okay?).
I remember the first time I heard about the festival. I was getting my hair cut, and the stylist was telling me about her daughter, who lived in Toronto, and attended some of the films. This girl called her mother and said something along the lines of, "Mom! O-M-G you have to watch the coverage of the festival, I was standing literally two feet away from Elijah Wood!!!!!" So, of course, the mother did, and she saw her daughter looking as bored and disdainful and snobby as it was possible to look while surrounded by screaming teeny boppers. Apparently, the daughter said that of course she had to look as if she didn't care, because to actually show any interest in this very famous person would make her, in some way, less cool.
And I have found myself feeling the same sort of way. Although, to be fair, with it being the first full week of classes, there's little enough sidewalk room as it is, and some of these people are wearing scrunchies whilst hoping to catch a glimpse of Megan Fox. This is the fear. I do not want to appear to have any interest in Megan Fox. But maybe next year I will drag my tired ass out of off this couch and saunter on down to my campus in time to determine for myself whether George Clooney is aging as well as everyone keeps telling me he is.