Hard truths are learned in awkward, acne-scarred bunches when you’re 13 years old, but perhaps the nastiest cruel-world realization is this one: Jugglers never get the girl. Oh, sure, maybe jugglers get other jugglers—a shallow dating pool there, to say the least. But as far as scoring points with the cutest girl in school, no way. Keeping three multicolored rings in the air is no match for such equally airtastic feats as heaving the pigskin into the end zone or dunking a ball at the buzzer. Rolls of toilet paper, chunks of Swiss cheese, misshapen produce: I juggled ’em all in my younger years. And although I did win the occasional chuckle for my vaudevillian antics, when it came to playing three-minutes-in-the-closet with a junior cheerleader, well, let’s just say I was locked out and searching desperately for more Charmin. The tears of a clown, indeed. So show some compassion today at the “10th Annual Congress of Jugglers.” There will be a public show this evening at 7 p.m. at the University of Maryland’s Reckord Armory, University Boulevard and Adelphi Road, College Park. Free. (301) 419-9584. (Sean Daly)