Nervous Laughter in the Offing - just gabbing today, nervously.

There is this great feeling when things finally go right in your life.

Looking back over this long slog to this point, I'm laughing a lot right now. You see, the last half-dozen or so interviews, when asked about a five year plan, I tell them the only one I can make right now is to get published in five years, as I'm just a homeless guy. Published for money, that is. It warned them all that while I had a bet with myself that I'd not mind losing, that writing would send money my way before a job might, but would love losing that bet. They all laughed.

I'm waiting right now, thinking, gee, I get to have that special root beer float at the Baskin-Robbins or Hire's Big H, maybe.

So, I wait, hoping to win the bet, yet praying I lose it. The next few weeks will tell me how that bet comes out. I might have to revise that five year plan, updating for a slightly more ambitious goal. Be nice, fun even, if I do. Starting to think it can happen. And if it does, plan on rolling out that e-book of my poems, when I get a moment to take a few breaths, and maybe add a dollar figure on poetry collection money to it.

So, if I look nervous the next little while, as I hold my cardboard sign the rare times I have to, cut me some slack. I'm just getting used to the idea of maybe having money earned, rather than resorting to the charity of others for my coffee and tobacco funds. And, maybe, down the road, a dash of other needed things, while laughing as I walk about, over a bet I made in jest, to lighten a moment around a question I've always hated.