So, I thought I might try to tell the work story and see what you guys thought.
This is the philosophy book project. Last Friday (not this past Friday, but the week before), I was working to meet a deadline. As usual, the author interrupted me with a request to read two passages. The first one was some text where I had asked him to add concrete examples. I was working deeply on this other chapter, and I probably would have done the same thing regardless: I forgot that he hates comments, and I commented that one of the examples seemed pretty light-hearted for the book and that he might want to tweak it a bit, and gave a suggestion. For the other passage, he didn't say where it went, and I asked. He seemed shocked that I would ask.
In response to the passage I commented on, he sent me two emails. The first was reminding me that he hated comments. The second was an email that had "No more comments" written about twenty or so times. He might have sent me a third email on the same topic. I was fairly offended, but I decided to treat it like a fart.
So, I met all my deadlines for this week's work. My ability to meet deadlines was in question. During the day, I interacted with another person he brought onto the project. That person copied both of us on an email. I had been asked not to send any more emails, and he held me responsible for the other person's email. I decided to just ignore being chastised for what someone else did.
Then, on Friday night I received an email that accused me of being unprofessional because of the way I edited a passage and the footnote that went with it. The passage was said to be a "mess" along with the footnote. I use track changes, so I did not understand why he didn't just reject the change and move on. He said that my unprofessional handling of the footnote and passage made him think he needed to hire another person to handle the bibliography.
I decided to withdraw from the project, wrote him that I thought that was the appropriate response to events as they were unfolding, and the next day (yesterday), he accepted my resignation.
But I feel wretched. I usually feel a bit down after a project ends because I miss it. But I feel pretty torn up about this. I feel like he made stuff up because he was just unhappy with my work--he doesn't like to think about queries. In fact, he called some of my comments ridiculous. Only the week before he was praising me for being smart and a star editor. The whipping around by 180 degrees doesn't feel very good either.
I know he didn't like the process. I just can't understand why he overshared about his private life until we became friends, and then instead of just saying that he thought he needed to change how he finished the project and concluded our contract, he had to force me to quit. During the week, I even told him that the kill fee was no longer in effect because we had completed 2/3 of the contract. I thought he would then feel more comfortable about canceling.
Now, of course, I need to scramble to find another project. I had been doing that anyhow in planning for the end of this one.
Anyhow, I'm feeling emotionally wrenched. Sigh. I should try harder to not feel so badly about these things because I know it is not all my fault.
about works stuff that went very wrong. It sucks when that kind of thing happens. I hope that your soul soothing me time has its desired effect. 
Glad today went smoothly.