While studying English at UCLA I had the privilege of participating in some amazing classes that exposed me to a plethora of authors, professors, and genres. Detective Fiction was not a member of this elite group. It sounded awesome on the registrar's website- in reality, not so much. The poor professor was battling some sort of illness that induced massive amounts of cough-syrup chugging during lecture, memory loss, and just general boringness (I saw him hooked up to an IV in the hospital, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt). The syllabus was horrendous, among the worst: Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, Robbe-Grillet's The Erasers, and, the worst of the worst, Michael Connely's Trunk Music (shame on you, professor). Needless to say, between the other three lit classes I was taking, working thirty hours a week, and commuting to Brea, I didn't do much reading.
Meanwhile, I had met this insanely smart, sarcastic, opposite of frat boy guy in my discussion class- we'll call him Future Husband. At first I thought he was sort of a nonchalant bad-ass, not that it mattered, since I was unhappily unavailable. Over time, though, I realized that this guy in the leather jacket with the longish hair did all the reading and was actually pretty cool- AND he was willing to meet to review for the final. Score! It was during our epic study session that I realized TLC replayed Trading Spaces on a 3 hour loop, I got horrible cell phone reception in Riverside, and that this guy might not suck.
Fast forward a month later, I was down a high school boyfriend and up a Future Husband (no overlap, thankyouverymuch). While slightly scarring me for life (so ashamed to know who Harry Bosch is), Detective Fiction ended up being the best class ever, for obvious reasons. Fast forward even further into the future, and today I can say we've been married for two whole years now and I still have absolutely no clue what the hell The Erasers is about.
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