I made it through the Festival of Nations, and now I remember why I usually skip it. This is the most exhausting way to spend three days just sitting around that I can think of (other than suffering through a Human Resources seminar).

Somehow it seems even more tiring than Minot’s Høstfest, though that’s longer. On the other hand, it has the advantage of being only a half hour’s drive away. But human interaction exhausts me, as I’ve whined before in this space. And the Festival of Nations is a twelve-hour day, 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., in a concrete bunker without sunlight. Like Hitler’s Last Days, with “It’s a Small World” piping in the background.

We Vikings were ensconced in our usual space, a sort of wide place in the corridor just off the vendors’ hall. Out of the way from one perspective, but a lot of traffic went by. I worked on tooling my leather trinkets—bookmarks and wrist bands—and sold a few of them, plus a moderate number of books. Nothing to write my publisher about, but enough for me to feel I hadn’t entirely wasted my time.

In the past our big earner as a club has been selling beads, as the Vikings of old did. However, it appears we’ve saturated that market at last. Instead, our new earner is letting people dress up in Viking costumes and get their pictures taken wearing helmets and holding weapons (as the Vikings of old did not). That brought in a steady stream of customers, of absolutely every race, ethnicity, and religion. Everybody wants to be a Viking. Who knew?

No fighting in that venue, which is a pity, because I could have used the exercise. I came home with a charlie horse from sitting around so much.

Everyone raves about the food at the festival, and there was some tasty stuff, but I think the food court should be called “Junk Food of the Nations.” One thing that brings us together as a common humanity, it would appear, is our shared love for deep fat frying. Fortunately it was all so expensive, I couldn’t afford to eat much.

Oh, by the way, I fell in love. Not seriously, I hasten to add, but it’s my most vivid memory of the event.

I looked up from my leather work one morning to see a family examining the mail shirt the guy next to me was working on (everybody stops for mail check). I then beheld one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever encountered in my life. I felt as if I were in an elevator, and somebody cut the cable.

That’s the end of the story, of course. The woman was way too young for me, and was accompanied by her husband and daughter as well.

It’s just that I’m intrigued by the emotional effect a face I’d never seen before had on me. Psychologists say everybody carries a template of perfect beauty in their heads, and we’re attracted to people in proportion to how closely they resemble that template. This woman scored a direct bullseye with my limbic system.

I imagine (I am, obviously, no expert) that that’s where “love at first sight” comes from. More confident guys than I, when they encounter such a face, will often pursue the woman, and may even win her. In that case they’d say (and it would be subjectively accurate for them), “I loved her from the moment I saw her.”

In fact, a purely visceral response has overlapped the beginnings of a genuine love affair. Two different things, but they feel like one.

Kind of like if I were to blame my charlie horse on the Teriyaki Chicken bowl.