I am bursting at the seams with pride to be among the first news outlets to report that Ellen DeGeneris and her lovely spouse Portia DeRossi  have revealed they’ve adopted a beautiful little girl!  The news of the process has been kept strictly confidential until its completion. I am proud to say that for some very special reasons, I was among the early “non-essential,” “non-family” members to hear the good news, which had been embargoed by Ellen’s PR people until late last night.

Why me? Because Ellen has asked me to sign on as their personal parenting coach, and I couldn’t be more thrilled! They could have chosen anybody — anybody actually qualified! like Penelope Leach, or Dr. Sears — but they picked me.

Evidently Ellen has been reading this blog lo these many years, watching my children and my parental prowess grow as she gnawed at her (often quivering) lower lip, wishing that she and Portia, too, had happiness like my beloved and I have had. Wondering whether, if she were so fortunate as to have the opportunity, she might be half the lesbian dad that I am.

Well now she does have that opportunity, and I’m bound and determined to help her make the most of it. Launching into parenthood when you’re a middle-aged superstar who likes to cross-dress isn’t easy. But I’ve done it, and I’m going to teach her how.

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I’d say it goes without saying, but alas, it doesn’t. Mebbe not to y’all, whom I know to be a well-informed and engaged bunch, but one still has to honk the horn.

Here’s the League of Women Voters’ polling place locator, if for some reason you or a chum over your shoulder doesn’t know where to vote locally:

For locals to me, meaning Californians, here’s the Courage Campaign’s Progressive Voter Guide, in a handy-dandy printable PDF format:

Do note, fellow Californians, that the sane vote on Prop 23 is not merely NO, but “HELL, NO!” I take this verbatim from the page from which the guide itself comes, and I couldn’t agree more.

I close with some words from my doppleganger Dr. Rachel Maddow, who said the other night on her show, “What the election comes down to is getting your tuchus off the couch.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So arise ye cynics! Arise ye malcontents! You have nothing to lose but your rationale for complaining about the wisdom and loyalty of your public servants!

And if you’ve already voted and are interested in various ongoing updates, here’s Greg Mitchell’s live blog over at The Nation.

I have nothing of interest to share about the upcoming mid-term elections, since (1) my relationship to matters political is less in the electoral and more in the cultural realms, and the best I can do is follow the former and try hard to have a positive impact on the latter; and (2) I am still at least a fortnight away from the end of a never-ending household revamp which has sucked up all my discretionary time, and therefore the very bloggy life out of me. It’s a miracle I can even find my glasses each morning.

(Utterly non-sequitorial aside: for Halloween I’m going to dress up as a contractor and scare the living shit out of the middle class home-owning grown-ups in the neighborhood by waving around a DeWalt cordless drill and threatening to encamp in their household for a few months, during which time I’ll keep telling them “It’s all going to be wrapped up soon,” and then I’ll laugh maniacally and say “Kidding! The floor guy just backed his truck up into the sheet rock guy, and they’re both tied up in small claims court! It’ll all be another three months, minimum! Bwahahaha!”)

Okay but no, still, one tries, if fitfully.  In that spirit, please note details on the following, after the jump: California Progressive Voter Guide from Courage Campaign; a Friday night march and rally in San Francisco to focus on LGBT youth suicide and homelessness, and a reminder about two critical bills needing the support of your elected representatives in Congress: Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Student Non-Discrimination Act.

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