My cold lasted another week, so forget about literary reticence. Let the gross descriptions fly: Snot spewed out of my nose like raw scrambled eggs, only darker, more translucent, and graced by tiny bloblets of blood.

My lungs hacked up a hocker so gray it could have come out of an old coal miner. When I wasn’t wiping smears of sputum off my hands, sheets and nearby skin mags, I contemplated my recent poor behavior. Dan was right: I’d become "an old-fashioned asshole." Dan was nothing but affectionate with me, even after I spat goose-shit-green mucous onto his pillow while he slept. He deserved better from me. So did my friends.

When I stopped being viral, I invited Craig and Kyle to dinner. Surprisingly, Craig didn’t hang up on me when I called. "I’m sorry..." I began. He cut me off: "Listen, dollface – I’ll forgive you anything as long as you keep your tongue off my boyfriend." "Right-O!" I sang out, anxiety turning me strangely into Terry-Thomas in some British war comedy. "How about dinner here on Saturday? It’s Chicken Cacciatore and an after-dinner drink that doesn’t suck." All was well.

Dinner was a disaster. Dan was late, so I had to wield the vacuum cleaner and a can of Pledge and set the table while trying to make what turned out to be an absurdly complicated "hunter’s style" chicken with only half the ingredients the recipe called for. (I hadn’t bothered with a shopping list. "Calling Dr. Freud! STAT!") The result was a greasy, taste-free horror – no wild mushrooms, no fresh sage or thyme, clumpy years-old garlic salt instead of garlic... . "Hunter’s style?" What were they hunting – something out of Oliver Twist?

Having tasted the cacciatore, I downed some Tormore Single Malt and became morose. But when Dan waltzed in mere minutes before Craig and Kyle were supposed to show up, my irrepressible life force returned. I became hostile. Craig and Kyle thus entered during the second act of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with me playing both George and Martha. I behaved terribly; Dan was rightly embarrassed. I might have summoned enough dignity not to spend the whole evening staring at the gap between Kyle’s bottom shirt button and his belt, a space out of which a perfect tuft of soft hair emerged. Craig noticed, much to his glee and my continuing disgrace.

But dessert was fabulous! The White Russian is one of my favorite cream-based cocktails because of its subtlety, simplicity and relative lack of sweetness. It’s got a little Kahlua for a café au lait effect, vodka for some kick and thick, chilled heavy cream for the mouth-to-belly bliss that only cold dairy fat can provide. Still, two rounds of White Russians wasn’t enough to make up for hurling lettuce fragments and bacon chunks in Craig’s face after discovering that puppy Kyle had been gobbled up by Jabba the Hut.

Am I still bitter? You bet your elephantine ass I am.

The White Russian

Put some ice in a shaker and add all the ingredients; put the cap on and swirl it around a bit rather than shake it. (After all, you’re not trying to make liquor butter.) Pour through strainer into a good-looking glass and serve.

News of my breakdown spread like an aging star’s belly; soon unflattering photos of me in Star would be on the horizon. I knew I’d become a public whack-job when some naked guy I didn’t know approached me in the gym locker room: "Hey, man – I’ve been through it. The guy who stole my dreamboy wasn’t obese – he just stank like a train station tearoom. But it turned Jeremy on. I didn’t. Solidarnosc, bud!" Then he strolled off to the steam room.

Who was this guy? Had somebody put my crackup on Reuters? I leapt back into therapy. Gary was always sympathetic – I’d seen him when my mother was dying – but he was no cheerleader. When he thought I was nutty he told me so, once even using that exact word. "So tell me," Gary said as he leaned back in his chair. And I did. Gary’s face remained placid. "Does this remind you of anything?" "Yup," I replied. "My dick, my mother and my bank account."

"What does the money represent to you?" Gary asked earnestly. "It ‘represents’ another transfer of wealth from me to you," I snarled. "Help me get over this now or I walk." Gary looked stunned for a moment, regained his composure and softly said, "That’s such a cruddy thing to say that I think you’re genuinely terrified." I burst into tears.

"Look," Gary said. "We’ve all made fools of ourselves at one time or another. This is your time. Wallow in it. When you’re really sick of yourself, we’ll talk about why you’re acting this way."

"Gary, please! I’m already sick of myself."

"If you were, you’d stop being so nutty."

"That word again!" I shouted. "Even you hate me."

Silence ensued for seven minutes. Only when he said, "Time’s up," did either of us move.

I thought constantly about my – what? – hysteria? One thing was certain: I was, in Dan’s immortal phrase, "an old-fashioned asshole." OK, I indulged in a hell-as-comedy routine – the Three Dog Night variation, "I’m just an old-fashioned asshole/one I’m sure that frightens you and me" – but twice a week, with great effort, I told Gary some of the secret shames I’d withheld from him earlier.

Five weeks later, with Gary’s help, I worked up the nerve to call Craig. I heard Kyle in the background cleaning up after dinner – probably rigatoni stuffed with lard and covered in a cream-based triple-fat-cheese sauce for Craig, a hard-boiled egg for Kyle – and once again Craig was forgiving. "Sweetness," he said, "We all know you’re a mess. You’ve been a mess for years. It’s not news. I’m Tubby the Whale, and you’re Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit. It’s who we are. Embrace it! You and Dan come over to my place in an hour. I’ll make some cocktails."

"What?" I asked skeptically.

"Control freak," Craig announced. Then he hung up on me.

Rum to taste – I like dark rum to go with the dark cola. Craig used some store brand; use what you like.

Coca-Cola (in a nod to Kyle, used Coke Zero; I suppressed an instinctive "yeccchhhh" and downed it with humility.

Pour rum into a tall, ice-filled glass. Add Coke slowly and stir gently; don’t kill the fizz. Then stay up all night from the caffeine, get fat from the sugar, stop worrying and live for the moment.