After months of exhausting negotiations, life and I have an agreement in principle and just need to work out the language and a few of the details. I'm confident we can have something on paper within a few days. I've missed half the season, obviously, but I've been working out privately and I'm hoping to be in game shape for the stretch run and the playoffs, assuming we get that far. I'd like to thank former president Jimmy Carter for getting us back to the bargaining table and helping to broker the deal. Life and I were really butting heads on bennies and some of the so-called "secondary" issues (fear of death, arbitrary cruelties, senseless violence and primitive hostilities, the black pit of incurable loneliness, penis length) to the point where it was becoming rancorous and counterproductive. Mr. Carter generously offered to step in and smooth things over, immediately lowering tension levels. I was surprised and delighted to hear Mr. Carter say that the reason he got involved was that life needed my participation to be considered a legitimate enterprise, that it was demoralizing for everybody not to have me in the game. You can imagine how that made me feel. Jimmy Carter!