In Bed With Lord Byron

just insane.
    As I made my boss a cup of coffee, I wondered if, like Eskimos and their huge range of words for snow, someone ought to invent a new language for people working in offices
defining 100 words for boredom.
    Borecoffedom
– for the boredom of making your boss a coffee.
    Or
borfiredom
– for the boredom of hoping you will get fired and then panicking when you nearly do and then feeling disappointed when you don’t.
    BorewhatthefuckamIdoingheredom
– for what the fuck am I doing here?
    Here is a brief history of my life, with key dates highlighted:
    19 November 1960: My mother meets my father at a Beach Boys concert; my dad gives up his wild ways and gets a job in computing; ten years later my sister is born.
    3 January 1976: I am born in hospital after an easy labour. My mum and dad have a big fight over my name. Dad wants to call me Lucinda; Mum likes Pam, so they end up with
a compromise.
    19 September 1980: I begin school. My dad is promoted to manager at work. The teachers say I am intelligent for my age, which Dad declares is due to my genes. Mum gets
excited and tries to buy me a place in Mensa in advance.
    3 January 1989: I turn thirteen and for my birthday am given a copy of
Wuthering Heights.
I fall in love with Heathcliff and his ruthless masculinity. Hence, when
Jason across the road gives my friend a note for me saying
Would you like to (a) arm wrestle with me (b) kiss me (c) watch
The Simpsons
with me (d) spit at me
, I tick the last
one.
    3 January 1991: I turn fifteen and discover Lord Byron. When my friends ask me if I feel left out because I haven’t even kissed a boy yet, I declare that I prefer
to fantasise about Byron than put up with spotty schoolboys.
    17 January 1992: At a school disco I finally cave in and dance with a spotty schoolboy called Dave. I endure my first kiss. I decide I prefer reading about good kissing
to suffering real-life bad ones.
    21 January 1992: I hold a sleepover at my house and my oh-so-knowledgeable friend Val, the only non-virgin among us, shows us how to give a blow job using a Flake. But
when I test this out in the back of a car with Dave, the screams can be heard for three miles. How am I supposed to know you’re not meant to bite down hard? Back home, I take solace in Byron
and decide I never want to lose my virginity, ever.
    18 August 1994: I get three A’s at A level in English, Latin and Economics (funnily enough, history was never my subject).
    20 September 1994: I go to York University to study English. To my surprise, I get a nice boyfriend. I lose my virginity to him. Then I get bored and we break up.
    2 July 1996: My dad has a mid-life crisis and announces that he is leaving my mother for a woman half his age. My mum is 75 per cent devastated, 25 per cent relieved.
    14 September 1996: Infuriated by my dad’s betrayal, I lap up
The Female Eunuch
and become inspired by a bunch of feminists who, declaring that all language
is masculine and all writing involves the rape of the male Muses, produce a book consisting of sixty blank pages, though when I try this with my essays, my tutor is unimpressed. I begin dating a
guy called Ralph. He is good-natured and laughs at my feminist rants.
    24 December 1996: Dad tries to move back in with Mum, repenting his mistake. After telling my mum never to take him back, I see the sadness in his eyes and wish she
would. But it’s not a question of forgiveness; she says simply: ‘I’m enjoying myself. I don’t have to iron shirts or cook meals any more. I’m happy being on my
own.’ They begin divorce proceedings.
    18 July 1997: I graduate with a first-class degree. All my friends have careers, have direction, but I don’t know what I want to do. Ralph asks me to move in with
him. I do. Then he proposes. And I can’t say yes. I can’t say yes because somehow it all feels a bit too . . .
perfect.
Ralph is nice, his flat is nice, I am nice. We’ll
die of boredom by the end of the honeymoon.
    19 September 1997: I leave Ralph. I feel terrible to have broken his heart, but I know I need to
live
before I settle down. So I go off travelling.
    16 August 2001: After four years of wandering the globe, I realise I need a job. So I get a job I am deeply overqualified for, reasoning that I can do it whilst working
out what I really want out of life. I am the PA to a scientist called Dr Kay Merrick. She is a lunatic.
    15 April 2003: I have reached a point of such deep loathing for my job that on