5 YEARS!

ITS been 5 long tough years but i made it.  I can't believe its been that long. I've been through a lot in those 5 years and i'm still going through it, 5 years sober and I'm still homeless even though i have a place to lay my head at night, i don't have a lease. I failed my compass test again this morning even after spending a whole month studying, it hurts.  I thought i had it licked but i missed the cut-off score by 6 points.  I'll just have to try again.  I'm reading a great book now about highly successful people who repeatedly failed. I had jury duty this week and at first i hated the idea because i was in the middle of studying for the compass and this shit pops up!  wow! so i go to court hoping I'm not picked out of 50 people, you know what happened? i got picked.  I should have lied like some of the other people and said that i couldn't be impartial to a guy being accused of burglary.  the guy sitting next to me told the judge that he couldn't be fair to a man who is representing himself.  this was a 25 year old black man being accused of burglary, assault, domestic violence, and doing harm to a child i forget the official charge.  anyway i was picked and the trial began, the prosecution talked and talked about the victim and finally got set to bring her out, were all sitting there waiting to see her, 9 whites and 3 blacks including myself.  Out comes this blue-eyed blond!  WOW! I almost fell outta my seat and i could tell the whites on the jury damned near had a heart-attack, were talking about conservative suburban upper- middle class whites, the guy next to me is the C.E.O. of a very big company. it was unbelievable, just amazing,  well it turns out and this guy some how got it in that she was arrested in LAS VEGAS for prostitution, he met her at CHEETAHS. during brief moments of the trial the young man actually was doing O.K. but he needed an attorney badly.  I suspect he fired his attorney because he insisted he plea bargain. I don't blame  the guy because he had a good case.  another juror and i  finally folded our hands and agreed to the burglary charge but we all agreed he was not guilty on the other charges. more on this later, gotta go!