When a trip begins with your backpack falling under a streetcar, you should seriously reconsider your options.
Note 1: my backpack and its contents suffered no damage. Also, it wasn't my fault.
Note 2: I was honoured and overjoyed for having been invited by a friend to her birthday party. Ripeto: ero onorata e strafelice di essere stata invitata al compleanno di un'amica. (fico il blog biligue! mi piace di più così.)
Note 3: I was PMSing like no tomorrow.
I spent the 2 days previous to the trip in a state of terror. Now I can tell why. If there's a positive meaning to the awful way I feel, it's that I'm getting to understand better what happens inside of me.
But it's like self-vivisection.
Briefly: The party was crowded and I had another case of my acute sociophobia, which made me feel like all of my friends' quips (objectively debatable, such as the rape ones) were a personal slur to me. I didn't react too badly, except at the end when I yelled "F*ck George Lucas, GRRM and JK Rowling" and the host invited me to be quiet for the sake of the neighbours, and I replied "That's OK, they need to know too!"
Note 4: I was sober, despite strenuous efforts to get drunk.
From all this, I drew 2 conclusions.
1. The change in my friends' lifestyle, and the non-change in mine, and the subsequent loss, led me to a condition of actual mourning (= lutto). As with any mourning, it takes time to overcome it. It takes tears and sadness and maybe a change of scene (going back to my folks) but it's natural. So I shouldn't be shocked or ashamed by it.
2. The change in my friends' lifestyle made me feel more different and wrong than ever. Being different means being wrong, and deserving of elimination, because when I was a baby my mommy needed help too, but the times were not right (they are not right yet), so she threw all her frustrations on me.
Thus, when people make jokes in bad taste but in good spirit, I can't tell the difference. They are all directed towards my elimination because I am different and wrong.
I hope it's clear that it's all in my mind, and that understanding is a BIG step towards healing. But for now, it's painful, like the blending of mourning and my own impending elimination. I hope this explains the way I felt on Sat evening.
Then there's another can of worms when I wonder why people should NATURALLY act sexist, homophobic, intolerant, sociopathic (different from sociophobic - at least we sociophobics stay in our corner and hurt nobody) and this behaviour be considered normal, while we who resent it are told to grow a thicker skin.
But I bought the Beatles mug and pillow and an Old Glory shawl, so I'm happy. In your face.