I'm summarizing a report on National Health Care at work, when I ran across the following paragraph: Are you just a statistic in government health report?

Over 40 million people aged 18 to 64 had a mental disorder in the past year, and about 20 million had a serious mental disorder that substantially limited activities. In 2003, about 16 million Americans age 12 and over were heavy alcohol drinkers and about 54 million had a recent binge drinking episode. About 20 million people aged 12 and older were illicit drug users and about 71 million people reported the use of a tobacco product. The direct costs of mental disorders and substance abuse amounted to $99 billion in 1996; lost productivity and premature death accounted for an additional $75 billion.

I just found out some disturbing news about my former meditation teacher. Talk about my world being rocked. He was someone I respected and trusted for his knowledge and wisdom and his spirituality. What was even more disturbing is one of the people involved was someone I knew and that without knowing it, I was part of the drama. Not that I knew what was going on, but I was there during the events she described in her allegations. I was there, I knew the names of the people involved, and yet I was ignorant to what was really going on.

Other people I know have corroborated the allegations, people I also trust. Talk about freaky! This all happened almost 15 years ago, and I'm only finding out about it now because I just happen to google my former teacher to find out if the group had a website.

In the shower this morning, I felt such a loss of identity that for a few seconds I didn't know who I was anymore. That group and my teacher had been such a part of who I was, who I became, and who I am to a large extent today.

The only good part of the whole incident, if there is a good part, is her allegations gave me insight into incidents that I had observed and that had happened to me 15 years earlier that at the time I didn't know how to comprehend or even process. Incidents that were so baffling to me that I never told anyone about them, not even my best friends. The only people who knew about the incidents I saw that particular year were in Bali on vacation during Gulf War 1.

Talk about a part of your self dying like a snake shedding another layer of skin. And why now? Why did it have to come out now? It's not like I was looking for it, it wasn't like I thought my life was damaged greatly by what happened.

A friend said I must have been traumatized by it because I've kept it secret for 15 years. Was I? I don't know. In my mind, I don't think anyone who wasn't there in Bali, who wasn' t part of the group, who didn't understand the group dynamics I was a part of would have understood it. I barely understood it myself. I lived through it yes, but some incidents in life I think are never meant to be understood, may be are never meant to be processed. Until last night, until today.

It feels like a veil was lifted, and that maybe I'm old enough and mature enough to deal with mentally what happened. I don't know. I keep going back to something I've always thought was nice but have never ever experienced for very long; ignorance is pure bliss.

I went to Well last night at ACT.

The SF Chron had the little man jumping up in his seat and clapping, and it was a big hit off-Broadway in New York and was name of the ten best plays of 2004 by the NY Times and other publications. It's also apparently heading for Broadway sometime soon.

It was a good play, funny as heck, but in the end I left vaguely feeling unsatisfied. I kept also looking at my watch, something I almost never do in a play performance. People clapped at the end and a few people stood up, but the audience response was less than what I've seen it for other plays.

Afterwards I kept thinking, you know the play should have worked and I should have walked out feeling like it was a good play. I laughed, I was entertained, but the ending left me flat. There was no big revelation at the end, no "AHA" moment, no lifting of veil to take a peek into the universality of human behaviour, no Aristotelian cathartic moment, just a gentle, gentle let down.

"Caroline or Change" had the same effect of me, only to a lesser degree. The character Caroline's last song was heartbreaking and really, really touching, and as she sang it I knew she was knocking for a few seconds on the door of some great universal truth, but then the truth wasn't sustained and the ending was flat.

Great art takes on a wild emotional ride, and at the end you feel complete, you feel full, and there is no flatness.

And it's not that these two plays weren't good, they were, they just weren't great and great art is such a mysterious thing.

I've had the urge to shop for weeks, and I finally gave in tonight. So I'm shopaholicking at Macy's and I find two silk skirts and two silk dresses that actually fit. They were all on sale and I was expecting to spend about $175 or so.

Much to my surprise, the bill came to $98.07. And I'm like "OH MY GOD!" I'm paying under a hundred dollars for four, count them four, 100% pure silk pieces of clothing, two of which are dresses. I'm buying silk housedresses to wear to work. You just pop them over your head, throw a jacket, pearls and heels on and you're ready for work. They are so comfy too!

I just love shopaholicking. I could have bought those trendy mini tweedy/boucle skirts that everyone seems to wearing, but you really have to have the right figure to get away with all that bumpy and textured fabric on your big old rear. And right now, I feel fat and I'm sure my bum does too.