My former student--my girl Josnubia--had her baby today! Baby Jiovanni was born at 11:14 am today after a loooooong labor & hours of pushing, but he was 7 lbs 10 oz of cuteness. I hightailed it to the hospital as soon as he emerged and got to hold him just hours out of the oven! Here is mama (in an amazingly good mood and looking great!) and baby:
Josnubia & Baby Jiovanni
I was so enamored with him . . . it has been exactly five years and two months since I've gotten to hold a baby on the day he was born. They are so TEENY and new and amazing--it's impossible for me to conceive of the miraculous bizarre wonder that is birth. You have sex, a human starts growing in your stomach, and then you push it out your vagina. WHAT?!?!? And it's what I want to do more than anything in the world. :)
Baby Jiovanni a few hours after his birth
me in my favorite pose
After a few hours at the hospital basking in babylove, I went and sat on Marisa's couch and had some solid, much-needed, healing girl time (and a little bit of chocolate). I've missed her lately and it was so good to sit down and talk about life and books and relationships. There's really nothing like the restorative love and kinship of girlfriends.
In other social news, here's an announcement: MY FRIEND GERI KIM IS FUNNY. Seriously, whoa. AND she's a great poet and has a very innovative book of poems called Povel (read a review from The Believer here). Anyway, Geri has recently started doing stand-up comedy, so my girls and I gathered in North Beach, first for a decadent dinner at Cafe Zoetrope (a Coppola restaurant, which incidentally REALLY tested my abstaining-from-alcohol-for-Lent commitment, but my will prevailed!), and then we made the one block trek to Impala to see the comedy showcase. Geri was so funny! And looked so great up there onstage. If you live in the Bay Area you should click on the link above and come to her next show.
Matt, Ji, and I went to see a movie last night. Ji convinced us to go see Dear John (against my better judgment . . . I am all for indulgent romantic comedy or even a good sappy romantic drama, but Nicholas Sparks just crosses the line for me). Ji and I got there first, bought our tickets, and waited for Matt inside, which meant that when he arrived, he walked up to the ticket counter and said:
"One for Dear John."
Hahahaha! Hoping this coming Monday defies its negative stereotype . . . xoxo