Let's talk Larry

Erm, excuse the absense. I was on a much-needed spring break sanity vacay. That is, the kidlet was on spring break and Elmo was not living up to his babysitting bargain. Plus, I was waiting around to find out who Danielynn's daddy is.

OK, waiting around may not be accurate. I wasn't waiting around in the stalking the grocery aisles for the newest edition of Us Weekly waiting or even the flipping past ET to Access waiting. But I admit I had a moment or four when I thought, "Where the hell are those DNA results anyway?"

And now they are back. Not exactly CSI-time warp speed but in time for the 5 o'clock news nonetheless.

Larry's the proud papa and Other-Howard Stern will fade into the background, wiping his brow in relief.

Other than some super-tight forehead lifting, it seems to me that Larry Birkhead's pretty genuine. At least in the snapshots we've seen painstakingly played over and over and over on (was this necessary?) ET's coverage of Anna Nicole's funeral and elsewhere I'm slightly ashamed I visited (but only slightly).  He seems to have clear concern about his daughter's well-being and he seems to still be very much in love with the woman I cringe to hear constantly referred to as "the former topless dancer."

After all, how many men have cartoony Anna Nicole's splayed across their sacrums? OK, maybe a lot. But you can betchyerass Other-Howard doesn't have one.

Now that this piece of the puzzle's been fitted, the inevitable custody games will begin.

Clearly, the fate of a baby girl is no laughing matter. She's lost a lot already, much more than the possibility of all that money and contrived legacy left behind by her mother will ever remedy.

But seriously, the characters here are just as caricatured as Baby Daddy's tat. You can bet that the players will be a weepy Big Lar and
Anna Nicole's mama Virgie Arthur, likely wearing yet another mother-of-the-bride dress in court.

Just as Virgie's sheer sleeves won't necessarily make her a bad caregiver for Danielynn, Big Lar's poppy pink tie against a stately suit won't make him a family court dream either. Still, the lovelorn Larry will probably go home with Danielynn in arms, with some kind of cash settlement or at least agreement for the star child to grace rural Kentucky (or wherever) on spring vacations of her own.

Sure, there's a sadness to this story. And there's some head-shaking stupidity. Part of that I accept for myself, for being so sucked in and so involved in a web of nothing.

Yet, here I am glad that Other-Howard is going home to all his fake prescriptions and unmet deals with shady docs while Big Lar's getting ready to cuddle his girl. Tears falling from his sparkly blue eyes and slightly-shifted hairline trembling.