The Festival of Nations was mostly four days of sitting around for me, tooling leather bookmarks and wrist bands and occasionally selling someone a book. Nevertheless, I came out of it exhausted. The reasons, I think, are two.

One, it was an overdose of humanity for an introvert. Attendance was smaller this year than last (a mixture of the bad economy and the first nice weather in weeks, we think), but even so there were times when the crowds were insane, the babble overwhelming. Especially when kids were blowing those little ceramic bird whistles they sell, which emit a piercing warble.

I know multicultural festivals are supposed to bring us together and remind us how much we all have in common, but I’m not convinced the final result isn’t to remind us how different we all are, and to make us wonder how we’re ever going to get along with people who dress like that. (But that might just have been my mood.)

A young boy in our group reported speaking to one of the vendors, who was selling a marionette he designed himself. When told people were complaining that his puppet fell apart after two days, he replied that that was indeed a product failure. “It’s supposed to fall apart in one day.”

I hope, for all our sakes, that the bird whistles also fall apart after a day. Otherwise I suspect there will be an uptick in child abuse by parents all around the metropolitan area.

The other reason I was exhausted, it turns out, was that I’m anemic again. I had some tests done, and found out today (to my great relief) that I don’t have celiac disease, and so will not have to give up all breads and grain products. But I’m now scheduled to go in tomorrow for the Test That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Which means I’ll be doing things tonight no guy as tired as I am should have to do. Tomorrow I’ll be flying on Valium (which I like to think of as my reward for getting through tonight), but I’ll post something—possibly something coherent—if I can.