{"id":165,"date":"2014-09-09T19:11:39","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T23:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=165"},"modified":"2025-02-22T09:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:27:06","slug":"how-i-almost-met-dan-stevens-eight-times-on-a-mission-from-mar-part-i-the-mfa-can-kill-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/how-i-almost-met-dan-stevens-eight-times-on-a-mission-from-mar-part-i-the-mfa-can-kill-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Essay: How I Almost Met Dan Stevens Eight Times on a Mission from MAR, Part I: The MFA Can Kill You No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cleveland\"<\/a><\/p>\n

MAR is excited to publish a three-part essay by Suzanne Hodsden, a recent graduate of Bowling Green State University’s MFA program and <\/em>MAR‘s Technical Editor. Stay tuned for additional installments. Photo: Ian Freimuth<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Part 1 \u2013 The MFA Can Kill You<\/strong>
\nBy Suzanne Hodsden<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I saw my exit and bolted. Around the doctor\u2019s legs and through the exam room door, my mother hot on my trail, hollering after me, using my full name. First, middle, and last, if you get my drift. Suzanne. Elizabeth. Hodsden.<\/p>\n

Between my feet and my freedom there was a couch, one of those overstuffed floral monstrosities and the octogenarian seated on it was sucking air through an oxygen tube. Seeing me and my speed, her eyes bulged up and she had just enough time to cover her face before I high jumped the couch and slammed against the door, knocking my breath loose.<\/p>\n

I clawed at the door handle, but mom\u2019s hand clamped down over mine and pried my fingers loose. She hauled me back, the tiny squawky flailing mess of me, to where the nurse waited with the syringe.<\/p>\n

This is how I was vaccinated for Measles, Mumps and Rubella and qualified to enter Ohio public school in 1986.<\/p>\n

Nearly three decades have passed but my attitude toward my medical care has not matured. I hardly ever see a doctor, and I don\u2019t take pills if I can help it. Instead, I favor a carefully crafted cure for sickness made out of fierce denial and medicinal whisky. It\u2019s always worked for me, and I\u2019m famous for it.<\/p>\n

So on Easter Sunday when I staggered into the living room and declared that I\u2019d like to be taken to the ER, my family lost their minds.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, the MFA can kill you. I\u2019ve done the math. Two programs in three years equals fifty-four credit hours. Roughly 225 students works out to approximately 2,812 marked essays (multiple drafts). 167 pages of critical thought, 8 short stories, 1 screenplay, 4 issues of Mid-American Review (MAR)<\/em>, two trips to AWP and a 367-page novel thesis, written-revised-defended. And the reading. I can\u2019t even begin to calculate the reading.<\/p>\n

Not everybody ends up in the hospital, but some do. I did. Intimate relationships shatter. Personal hygiene and grooming habits dissipate. I don\u2019t know how I became the kind of girl who eats Kraft dinner out of the pan with a dirty plastic fork, but I did it. It was, by far, the three most stressful years of my life. It was also three of the best. It was Dickensian.<\/p>\n

I was released from the hospital under the stern directive that I return for testing once I\u2019d graduated. After a full night of rigorous prodding, my doctors failed to make a diagnosis. They gave me a list of dietary restrictions that ruled out everything but rice and bananas and let me go. I made my decision before I hit the parking lot. If I had to spend the rest of my life eating like a toddler, I\u2019d do it. I wasn\u2019t going back.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I went back. Turns out there\u2019s only so much plain rice you can eat. And it will most likely be another three years before I can look at a banana.<\/p>\n

I submitted myself to a battery of tests so barbaric that one day they will be afforded the same esteem we reserve for bloodletting and the leech. The doctors decided that my condition was genetic but aggravated by stress and \u201clife choices.\u201d They scheduled me for surgery.<\/p>\n

\"Pencil\"<\/a>In the final weeks of the MFA, professors reiterated the importance of \u201csticking with it\u201d once we fled the nest. People who sniff at the MFA as an escape from reality aren\u2019t entirely wrong. It\u2019s easy to live a creative life when everyone around you is doing the same thing. Once we walked out and blinked up into the harsh light of the world, many\u2014we were told\u2014would cave in and become bankers. Don\u2019t be bankers. You\u2019re writers. You\u2019re storytellers. The world needs you. Keep writing.<\/p>\n

I would. Writing\u2014to me, at least\u2014is more of a condition than an aspiration. I\u2019d do it because I can\u2019t not <\/em>do it. And I\u2019d nail down a practical and livable life in the meantime. That life, I decided, would take place in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Why? Condensed version: it\u2019s cheap and I grew up there.<\/p>\n

I spent the weeks of my diagnostic adventures getting to know the city again, its twists and odd angled turns. A lot has changed, but it\u2019s still shaped like a big toilet bowl. Make enough left turns through Ohio City, Tremont, Warehouse, Downtown and you\u2019ll still end up down in the Flats, home to exotic creatures with either botox or gills and big retractable bridges that mesmerized me as a child. I could have a life here, and as soon as I\u2019d had surgery, it would start.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I was downtown taking a look at a gym when I got a phone call from the surgeon, canceling my surgery, and scheduling me for more tests. I\u2019ll confess that I didn\u2019t handle the news well. What ensued was nearly an hour of arguing with the doctor\u2019s offices and placating a mother who wondered where the hell I even was. She knew something was up because the doctor called the house first, looking for me.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll never find me, I thought viciously. I\u2019m behind Jacob\u2019s Field, but you\u2019ll never look here. My long latent six-year old emerged and snickered with glee. Circumstances have changed, baby. I\u2019m bigger. I\u2019m stronger. I have a car and a credit card. I spent my twenties being a hedonist vagabond (ESL teacher), and there were close to twenty foreign couches set and ready to receive me.<\/p>\n

My mother anticipated this line of thinking and texted: Don\u2019t you even think about going to the airport.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d catch me, even if she had to flag me as a terrorist. I started getting texts from friends asking me where I was. She\u2019s tricky like that, enlisting an army. Just as I was about to release a primal scream of rage, a car pulled up and I recognized the occupant. My synapses exploded with the following thought process:<\/p>\n

I know you. I do. Did my mother send you? Check the rolodexes. Ah ha! I have it. I do know you, but you don\u2019t know me. I don\u2019t have to say a word to you, and I won\u2019t. It\u2019s rude, of course, but I\u2019ve had a bad day. I\u2019m sick, my mom is making some serious \u00a0 threats, and I can\u2019t decide between Prague and Istanbul. I can\u2019t deal with meeting new people just now, so roll along good sir, and leave me to stew in my own bitter solipsism. Roll along! Go!<\/p>\n

Granted, I didn\u2019t say anything out loud. I just stared. And he stared back. One of us had to blink, so I walked away, but before I did, I got a look at myself in the backseat window. The look on my face could have peeled paint.<\/p>\n

This was the kill-shot to my rebel moxie. Enough was enough. I crossed the street, moxie-less, and drove home under the white flag of surrender.<\/p>\n

I called a friend. \u201cI just saw Dan Stevens.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMatthew Crawley. Do you suppose that means something? Like a sign?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Just go home, okay? Your mom is going nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut be careful driving, all right?\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Hollywood is considering Cleveland more and more for the same reasons I am, but though rumor has it that Marvel rolls through and lets loose their superheroes, I\u2019ve yet to see one.<\/p>\n

Not everyone knows who Dan Stevens is, but they know the show he\u2019s on. I\u2019ve missed a great deal of pop culture during grad school, but I\u2019d have had to be living in a nuclear bunker to miss Downton Abbey<\/em>. Who\u2019s Dan Stevens? The British actor who played Matthew Crawley, the one who died in a car crash right after his fictional wife gave birth to their fictional baby.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the pop culture reference. In other circles, namely my own small literary pool, he\u2019s the actor who judged the Booker. Editor-at-large for the lovely The Junket<\/a>\u2014an online zine edited by Cambridge grads, intent on poking each other along in their literary aspirations. He\u2019s been discussed.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t have told you what he was doing in Cleveland, but it was him. I\u2019m sure of it. My glasses need replaced, but he was less than four feet from me. If he\u2019d been closer he\u2019d have run over my shoes.<\/p>\n

This news amused Abby Cloud<\/a>. In addition to being editor-in-chief of MAR, Abby\u2019s a bit of an anglophile and can explain Cricket to an American in under ten minutes. I\u2019ve seen her do it. She told me that if I ever saw him again, I should recommend MAR<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I agreed. If I ever saw Dan Stevens again, I would give him a copy of MAR<\/em>. No problem. I agreed mostly because I thought there was no way I\u2019d ever see him again. Still, I carried a copy of MAR<\/em> in my purse, issue 34.1, as a gesture of good faith. I didn\u2019t worry much about it. I\u2019d never see him again.<\/p>\n

I was wrong.<\/p>\n

(To Be Continued)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Suzanne<\/a>Suzanne Hodsden is <\/em>Mid-American Review‘s Technical Editor.
\nHer fiction appears most recently in<\/em> Crab Orchard Review. Find
\nher on Twitter: @zannahsue<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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