Most all New York City psychotherapists go on vacation during the month of August – and the city's temperament instantly changes. Tourists who come to the city from the last week of July through the first week of August often remark that halfway through their stay the place suddenly gets a little crazier – or at least more neurotic:

The ladies who lunch on Park Avenue eat even less and drink even more. The cigar-chomping titans of Wall Street start chomping harder. The cab drivers from Tajikistan start driving erratically. The beggars in the chorus of Les Miz get even needier. And the songwriters on Tin Pan Alley start writing lyrics so profane, they'd make a young Kitty Carlisle turn beet red.

Two and a half years ago I began seeing Dr. Saguaro (the code name I've given my shrink). My closest friends were palpably relieved when I told them: I would finally stop dumping my problems on them, they thought.

Fat chance. All this meant was that I would tell them in excruciating detail about my sessions with Dr. Saguaro.

"What do you think it means that Dr. Saguaro asked me about the first time I [blanked] in the [blank]?" I'd ask my three or four closest friends. Therapy for my therapy.

Considering that my bills from Dr. Saguaro approach the cost of reconstruction in Iraq, it seemed important to make the most of the sessions and rehash them with the people who know me most. Perhaps they would ask questions – or have feedback – that I could bring into my next 45-minute session. (That's 45, Dr. Saguaro, not 43!)