Today I feel like I'm trailing stuffing as I go, like the fur cover is torn and worn through in spots, so the fluff inside just dribbles out in a continuous stream of little bits. I know what's triggering it, but that doesn't seem to ease the feeling.

For one thing, I'm in a crappy sleep cycle. Those come & go, and this one is understandably linked to travel plans (leading to anticipation and a generalized are-we-there-yet syndrome) and possibly injudicious drinking.

I've also been, um, discussing with the once-wife via email. I called her on her recent tendency to refer to me by the nickname my friends use, and that opened up all kinds of old discussions. Except they're completely updated with a New and Improved Understanding that conveniently ignores a lot of what happened in the past so as to minimize it and make me seem like a shallow cad for bailing over such minor and short-term issues. It's bullshit, and if she's doing it just to cushion her feelings in the matter, that doesn't make it any less bullshit. The revisionist re-imagining of our past was one of the things that drove me nuts -- nothing could ever be resolved because it would be conveniently reinterpreted first. But I don't feel right just snorting and blowing her off; I want to hear her out -- still care for her that much -- and I want the reality to be acknowledged or at least presented. But every response just sinks me deeper into the rhetoric.

Other stuff is involved, tearing at my confidence, or at least my sense that things are ordered in some sane way, albeit not the way I want them ordered. I can give up the second, or a good part of it, if the first is in place. But not so much, afaict. I'm gaining not a lot of ground by venting here, but it's here to vent. I think I'ma go ride the bike, tired or not, and see if that'll clear some of the funky air. Maybe the fluff I'll trail in the process was gunk I didn't need anyway. Yeah, I believe that. Sure.