And girls, they want to have fun

I'm starting to feel like I have a dual personality here. What with people I work with and everyone I meet calling me Tessa (what? yes, that is a pseudonym. Why? Oh, hell, I've been cagey about my name for a while, let's continue it) and my family and Tenaya and her friends calling me Rose, it's a little like being in my own personal tug-o-war. I'm not sure what to do about it, I prefer the Tessa version, but I don't want to make people who have known me as Rose for years and years switch now. Most of them can't, anyway. Who knows. I'll get used to it. It's also kind of a constant internal battle over changing my name or not. I mean, no, it's too much of a hassle and it's silly, and I like my full name, but boy would it make explaining things when I introduce myself easier, and would solve any 'what to put on my resume' issues.
So the people I juggle with have a message board, where they write about how the session was, what they worked on, who was there, etc. It's nice, I liked kind of getting an idea of what it was like before I got there. But now that I participate, I'm mentioned- "...juggles just like me--same concentration face clench, same refusal to take a step, a few other things. I think she's about a minute behind me but with more talent so she might have passed me by the time I finish posting this." What? Did she just say I'm a really good juggler with more talent than her? What? I mean, aside from my tendency to disbelieve compliments people give me, I don't believe this. I'm also not sure what she's saying. But I will say that before I started passing with her and some other people last thursday, I watched her pass with this other guy, and while he works with the Karamozov's, she was keeping up with him pretty well. I think if I'm about a 5 on the passing scale, she's a 7. Who knows. The sentence isn't that clear, so I'm not entirely sure what she's saying. I am glad that she seems to like me, she's a little hard to read in person.
I'm still looking for an apartment and work. Well. I'm waiting to hear from the one that I really liked, and I'm emailing all sorts of designers with my resume. I'm also emailing all sorts of admin etc stuff on craigslist that I'm not really qualified for. It's a little frustrating, but I'm okay for now.
I spent a good part of today working on my portfolio. Last night I stopped by Utrect on my way home and picked up fun art supplies. I love art stores. Anyway. Portolio work is frustrating. I always feel like I'm laying things out badly, I just can't see how to make it better. I'm not sure if the layout should reflect me, or the play. I don't have labels on things because I haven't started printing and playing with those. It's just tiring and I feel like I'm running in place. I also need to have a few things plotted, and I know where to go now, but it means going there. One of the places I think I have to put everything onto a CD, and I don't have those with me, so I'll have to buy some. And now I'm whining. It's not that big of a deal, it's just something I have a mental block in dealing with, and I need to get over it, which is always easier said than done.
I had coffee with Peter, the designer yesterday. It was good. I'm not sure quite what I expected, but we talked, and he gave me all sorts of people's names and emails addresses, and advice about how to find work. One thing he said that I was really happy to hear was to avoid electrician work. Apparently in New York if you start doing electrician stuff, it's really to get pigeonholed as that, more so than other cities. I'm glad to hear this, I was starting to worry that I was being snobby and turning down good money by choosing not to really pursue that end of the business, and now I'm reassured that I'm not, I'm just asserting that I want to be a designer and design assistant. He didn't have any work for me, unfortuately, but he had all sorts of links to maybe getting work, so we'll see how that goes.
I watched Wedding Crashers while searching through craigslist today (yay HBO on demand. Yay aunt and cousin who have such things). It was better than I expected. But I am finding that painfully awkward situations are just not really funny to me anymore. I mentioned this to Paul, to which he replied "eventually, you'll start to not care, this is good - releasing the desire to control the outcome will assure that evertyhing goes just fine" which I really have to roll my eyes at. His theory on life right now seems a touch contradictory, not totally, but it's a little wierd. You have to know what you want, focus on that, and release that wish and that energy into the world, and then just know that whatever happens, happens for the best, whether you know it or not. But if you think negatively, that will come back at you like a ton of bricks as well. He chooses to view everything this way. his car got towed the other day, and when he got back from picking it up, he told me that he wasn't angry, that he had wanted it to happen, in a way. Yeah, right. His theory is that he parked it, and then was kind of nervous about where it was, kind of worried about it the whole night, and finally checked, and it had been towed. Clearly, to his thinking, he brought this about with his worrying. It was his own fault, that was the energy he was putting forth. I kind of think that's a load of hooey, and that either he was nervous because he knew the car was in a risky place, or he was nervous because he knew it would be towed, not that it got towed because he was nervous. Who knows. He is right about other related things, and I like listening to him pontificate, so who cares.
Okay, it's late, I'm tired. I have all sorts of things I need to work on in the morning, and the week is slipping away faster than I anticipated. Last week went really slow, but all of a sudden time sped up on me.