So very Raven. But not THAT Raven.

About ten years ago I went out with a guy who had a two and a half year old daughter. He was a recovering goth and his ex-wife was still heavily into the goth thing. Their daughter's name was, of course, Raven. This was before the Raven of Nickelodeon fame. Interestingly, it was also long before Emily although Raven bore an amazing resemblance. They dressed her in striped tights and black overall shorts. I think they were going for a Wednesday Addams look. I guess she'd discovered once that those multi-colored gummy worm candies matched a particular pair of her tights and she was obsessed with wearing that one pair of tights in the way that only a preschooler can be. She would carry around a bag of gummy worms and intermittently lay one across her leg to compare the stripe pattern.

Raven has crossed my mind frequently over the last week, probably as a result of an exchange with Dutch of SweetJuniper over our admiration for weird kids. We spoke of a particular Poe poem that merits being hung over the cribs of our children the way one would hang that print of Jesus leading Hansel and Gretel across the bridge under which surely lives the troll from the three billy goats gruff. One of my childhood babysitters had that picture hanging over a crib, dontcha know. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

I'd like to tell you that Raven had a beautifully hand-illuminated copy of Poe's The Raven hanging over her bed, but that's not true. She had a little plaque her uncle had made that featured her name and a smiling infant surrounded by three huge dobermans. Not kidding, I swear to god.

My relationship with Raven's father lasted about five months, then reached that stage where there wasn't anything there but we didn't have a good excuse to break up. I finally called it off when he insulted my beloved old college ride, a Dodge Omni that now belonged to my brother. He referred to it as an "old clunker with Oklahoma plates." Bastard! That car's name was Hoop-Dee, not "Clunker." Jesus!

The thing about being involved in a relationship with someone who is a parent is that invariably you will have a relationship with the child as well, and I was sad to lose contact with Raven. I wonder what she's up to these days. She's probably hammering out book reports and geometry proofs over at Adda Clevenger. Wonder if they've read Poe's The Raven in English class. When they do, will she be smug or, like, totally humiliated? I'd really like to know.

By the way, what's hanging over Cedra's bed is a beautiful rendering of her name purchased for a mere $1 a letter from a street artist in Chinatown, along with this Yoshitomo Nara print. Not Wednesday or Emily, but you've got to see the resemblance to Cedra. We definitely recognize that attitude.