Two weeks of pretty much continuous day-job work and night-job writing (both of which I was actually getting paid for, as a nice change of pace) came to a close Friday with a good word from the production company that was paying for the writing, and I got home from work to find waiting for me, surprise of surprises, the new Bruce Springsteen album, four days before it's due to be released.
And as I walked to the corner store through the Los Angeles twilight, with the lights of nearby downtown reflecting off the haze like a Michael Mann setting, I was nearly overcome by the sudden feeling that I was approaching something great; that the writing I'd been doing for over eight years was finally bringing me somewhere, and that that somewhere was far closer than it had ever appeared before.
I went home, ate some pizza, drank some wine, read a good book, and listened to Bruce, and all felt right with the world.