25 things you didn’t know about me (and probably don’t care to either)

1. I do not miss blogging as much as I thought I would. When I first stopped blogging regularly, I would sometimes find myself composing posts in my head while something worth writing was happening, but not anymore. 
2. But I miss my blog friends a lot. We’ve all more or less stopped blogging and it’s just not the same. I knew this could happen, of course, but I made the rookie mistake of thinking we were going to be different. 
3. I really wish I hadn’t stopped studying French.
4. I am crazy superstitious. I don’t cross the road immediately if a black cat crosses it, I spit three times if someone jinxes something – I am obsessed with jinxes – and I don’t drive over nimbu-mirchi on roads.
5. I cannot get off Twitter because of work, but I think Twitter influencers are pretentious and insufferable. No one talks like that in real life.
6. The basics of Bengali that I learned trying to impress my boyfriend at 18 come in handy now that 75% of my team is Bengali. 
7. I don’t know how to achieve this – given my profession – but I really want to delete Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from my phone. 
8. My family got our first dog when I was 6, and the second when I was 12. Both of them died of natural causes after several years with us, and now I cannot even imagine getting another one for the fear of going through that all over again.
9. I am one of those people who think therapy is magical and everyone should go to a therapist, but I’ve tried it twice – once at 16 and again at 26 – and I hated it both times. It did nothing for me. 
10. I regret not getting a masters in psychology. 
11. My best friend is still my best friend, but we barely talk.
12. I have been very lucky with my friendships – I got great friends out of school, college, and my first and second jobs, so now I’m worried that my quota of making new friends is full and I won’t be able to make any going forward. 
13. I have a crush on Cole Sprouse but it makes me feel weird because he’s two years younger. 
14. I do not like Goa trips. 
15. I have smoked up four times in my life and I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would.
16. I still hate the taste of alcohol and cigarettes. 
17. I used to be very worried about burning bridges (I still am), but this quote makes me feel much better – “May the bridges I burn light the way.”
18. I also love the malaphor “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
19. I love books about sibling relationships. My favourites are both by Jandy Nelson – The Sky is Everywhere and I’ll Give You the Sun.
20. When I found out that Gillian Flynn wasn’t working on anything after Gone Girl, I promised myself I wouldn’t read her first – Sharp Objects – till she announces a new book. I am saving it for my rock bottom. 
21. I really, really hate Chinese food. And all my friends love it.
22. I am always surprised by how homesick I get even today, though it’s been seven years since I first moved out. 
23. This year marks a decade since I finished school and that makes me feel super fucking old. 
24. My family is from UP, but I grew up in Rajasthan. I am constantly surrounded by people who are so proud of their heritage and so entrenched in their culture, and I feel like I have no sense of it, despite being from two states that have so much of it. 
25. I am not a fan of dessert.