{"id":189,"date":"2014-09-12T11:27:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T15:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=189"},"modified":"2025-02-22T09:26:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:26:51","slug":"how-i-almost-met-dan-stevens-eight-times-on-a-mission-from-mar-part-ii-gaddafi-frogs-and-jungian-beetles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/how-i-almost-met-dan-stevens-eight-times-on-a-mission-from-mar-part-ii-gaddafi-frogs-and-jungian-beetles\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Essay: How I Almost Met Dan Stevens Eight Times on a Mission from MAR, Part II: Gaddafi, Frogs, and Jungian Beetles No. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Here is the second installment of Suzanne Hodsden\u2019s three-part series, \u201cHow I Almost Met Dan Stevens Eight Times on a Mission from MAR.\u201d Read the first part, \u201cThe MFA Can Kill You<\/a>,\u201d and stayed tuned for Part III, which will go live early next week. (Frog dissection images: Biodiversity<\/a> Heritage Library<\/a>)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Part II \u2013 Gaddafi, Frogs, and Jungian Beetles<\/strong>
\nBy Suzanne Hodsden<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My father started tailing me to my doctor\u2019s appointments. He just strolled in and sat down as if he also had an appointment. The first time, he ignored me entirely and picked up a three-year-old issue of Time.<\/em> When I asked what he was doing there, he lowered the magazine just far enough so he could see me, and said \u201cYour mother made me\u201d with a meaningful stare. One day you\u2019ll have been married for 39 years, it said\u2014and you\u2019ll look back on this moment and forgive me. He disappeared again behind the face of Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n

Later when I told my mother to call off my bodyguard, she insisted that she hadn\u2019t made him do anything. \u201cI simply said that if he was interested in being a good father, he should want<\/em> to go with you.\u201d There is a distinction there that only my mother can see.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou found a job yet?\u201d Gaddafi asked me.<\/p>\n

The MFA degree qualifies a girl for everything and nothing at the same time. Applying anywhere outside academia requires a bit of spin, but\u2014luckily\u2014bullshit is one of our specialties. I cast my job net wide. I applied to everything and interviewed everywhere.<\/p>\n

There was one listing for a receptionist position that specified the office\u2019s 76 houseplants. How big was this office? What kind of plants? A venus fly-trap that ate people who failed to rinse their coffee cup? Was this why there was an opening? With motivations less than pure, I applied.<\/p>\n

On the day before my first surgery, I interviewed for a retail job in an upscale sex-store. I spun a story about the need for a freer world for female sexual expression so fraught with emotion I thought the manager was going to cry. She offered me the job on the spot, but at part time and minimum wage, I declined.<\/p>\n

I changed my clothes and collapsed face first into the dirt of Lincoln Park. I laid there and wondered if I\u2019d been too hasty in turning down a paying job. Then I thought about the long forgotten formaldehyde-d frog I\u2019d dissected in 7th<\/sup> grade. My disrespectful \u201cEwwww\u201d as I tore open its poor body and laid its innards open to the wind. That poor frog had returned to seek vengeance, I was sure of it. I stayed there in the dirt until my presence started to scare the children. I thought about having my drink.<\/p>\n

During my pre-surgery interview, I\u2019d worked in a question of my own. How bad was it\u2014on a scale from one to a winter invasion of Russia\u2014to consider having a drink? The surgeon approved me for one. Just one, and no more.<\/p>\n

Picking myself up out of the dirt, I decided it was time. I didn\u2019t want company for this drink. Not at all. I couldn\u2019t endure any wet-eyelashed speeches about how I was going to be \u201cfine.\u201d I chose a bar on W. 14th<\/sup>, on my way home. It was an out of the way spot and nearly empty. Perfect. I sat down outside and tried to forget about the frog. Then I thought about the frog and drew pictures of the frog.<\/p>\n

Seconds after I ordered a Limoncello martini, I heard a British accent behind me. Surely not. No. There\u2019s more than one British person in Cleveland. No. no. no. no. no. I turned. Yes.<\/p>\n

Less than two feet from my elbow, there he was. Dan Stevens. He\u2019d had a haircut (A perm, the poor bastard.), but it was him. I looked down at myself. I was grass and sweat stained. I was on the verge of throwing up. The corner of MAR issue 34.1 poked out of my purse and mocked me.<\/p>\n

The uncharacteristic ebullience of the entire female wait staff should have tipped me off. If his effect on an ordinarily jaded Cleveland waitress can be used to measure stardom, this guy is going to be a movie star for a very long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou saw him again? By sheer freaking accident?\u201d Despite her earlier confidence, Abby was surprised too. \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

I wanted to say something, I did. I really did, but the only thing I could think of to say was this: \u201cWhat are you? The goddamn angel of death?\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

When I was wheeling my way towards surgery the next morning, the surgeon remarked on my mood, but I didn\u2019t explain it. I knew it was absurd, but I was pretty convinced. I\u2019d seen Dan Stevens twice. I was going to die.<\/p>\n

Luckily I had the presence of mind to keep it to myself. Say something like that out loud and I\u2019d be ushered into an airless room to use an alligator sock-puppet to proxy my feelings. I kept my mouth shut, laid flat and shut my eyes. The doctor and a variety of assistants put me off to sleep, and despite my very worst fears, I woke up again a few hours later.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The nurse who greeted me in the recovery room wore dancing duck scrubs and injected something wonderful in my IV that made me revise my position on pharmaceutical interventions.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never spent all night in the hospital before, and it soon became clear that I wasn\u2019t going to sleep. It\u2019s both eerie and comforting to watch the machines, the squiggles and beeps, the numerical representations of your inner workings. It distracts from whatever is going on down the hall. In my case, there was a man wailing and crying. The quiet shuffle of nurses on night watch. I got up and shut the door. The poor soul deserved some privacy, at least from me.<\/p>\n

Things had gone well for me, and I wasn\u2019t ungrateful. I passed the hours planning my life and its various contingencies. I had a novel to edit. Why hadn\u2019t I started that? All kinds of journals are open in the summer, but I hadn\u2019t sent anywhere, but then, I\u2019d had other things to worry about.<\/p>\n

Doctors had asked me about my stress levels, and I offered graduate school as an explanation. Most of them seemed dubious that a degree in creative writing was anything to get worked up over. The prevailing attitude was that I\u2019d spent a few years being frivolous and maybe I had. There\u2019s a certain amount of psychological adjustment required to pass from creative captivity back into the wild. I was beginning to see why not everyone can resist the urge to go native.<\/p>\n

The nurse came in throughout the night to check my vitals, and we made small talk. This particular nurse didn\u2019t really read books, but she watched Downton Abbey<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you know the guy who played Matthew is in Cleveland?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, shit. Really?\u201d<\/p>\n

I spent the next couple of hours researching \u201cthing theory<\/a>\u201d and Jung\u2019s ideas about synchronicity. I was beginning to feel foolish about the whole affair, applying rules of literature where they didn\u2019t belong. Spend enough time crafting fiction, one can begin to believe that life has a plot. It doesn\u2019t. There\u2019s no objective correlative to reality. Images aren\u2019t necessarily symbolic. One of the reason we love stories so much is that they apply pattern to chaos. As much as it may have seemed that my life had acquired its own Cetonia Aurata<\/em>, it hadn\u2019t. Does Dan Stevens have to happen for a reason? In short, no.<\/p>\n

Coincidence is coincidence. After all, it was only two times. That\u2019s not that weird.<\/p>\n

But then it got weird.<\/p>\n

(To Be Continued\u2026)<\/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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