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Now I'm instantly nervous about the demands of doing a weekly column.

I've had to write a column an hour after I've come back from a funeral. A deadline is a deadline, I mean, that was just what my job was.

The first day I arrived, they told me to go home and get rid of that cold.

I didn't really want deadlines and editorial work. I wanted something mechanical and eight hours a day. So I went to work, thinking it was easy - ha, ha - on the complaint desk at the circulation department.

I had slumps that lasted into the winter.

Whether my columns are worth reading isn't for me to say.

I tell you a joke to have you listen to me, and then maybe I will tell you another joke that we can laugh together and feel equal. And then I will tell you a story hopefully that will make you cry. So I think that's the way that I approach the columns, as a surviving tool in a way.

The column's worked out great for me. I've gotten a ton of ego satisfaction, had a lot of fun, won a batch of prizes and occasionally done some public good.

I was trying to work, but I noticed that people, if they had any inkling of the idea that I was sick or had MS... people shunned me. No work after that.