Living The Questions, Con't: Intention vs. Result

“The wise man lets go of all results, whether good or bad, and is focused on the action alone.  Yoga is skill in action.” ~ Bhagavad Gita

I'm still pretty pumped up from the workshop this weekend - even though I'm pretty sore I was actually planning on going to class tonight.  But...then I remembered that have to fast for 12 hours because I'm getting my cholesterol and blood sugar measured tomorrow at 7:30, and if I went to class I wouldn't be able to eat dinner until 8:30 or later.  So...the universe has spoken.  Instead I'm sitting at home writing a blog about Kant.

This was actually sort of the entry I'd been meaning to write yesterday but then I went off on a tangent about vasistasana and never returned.  I've been thinking a lot about the relationship (or not) between intention and result, and how this relates to life both on and off the mat.  This pretty much ties back to my chatturanga/cobra example from yesterday, and the relationship of the inner alignment to the outer form.

Whenever I think about intention vs. result I think about a thought experiment my professor ran by us while we were studying Kant.  Yep...Kantian philosophy.  Letting the freak flag fly today.  And as long as we're at it, senior year three of my friends and I organized a game of what was essentially Philosophy Taboo.  The ligntning round involved one of us reading a passage from either Edmund Burke or Thomas Paine, and you had to guess who wrote it. 

The coolest people alive, probably

I'm pretty sure the following anecdote is something Professor Langerak just pulled out of his brain for us to noodle on and not actually from Kant, but here goes:  ay a King has two servants, and he sends them both into town to look for...something very important to him.  I can't remember what it was.  Let's say his puppy ran away and they're looking for the King's lost puppy.

I'm so alone...

Servant 1 wants to do a good job, so he looks high and low for the puppy, tracking down all sorts of leads and doing some serious puppy-detective work, but try as he might he comes home at the end of the day empty-handed.  Servant 2 is a lazy bastard and doesn't really give a shit about puppies, so instead of looking he goes to the tavern for a drink.  When he leaves, he coincidentally sees the puppy sitting right outside the door!  Hooray!  Servant 2 returns home triumphantly with the puppy.

Who should be rewarded?  In my mind and in Kant's, the answer is pretty obvious - live with intention, don't worry about the result.  There are definitely arguments against this; for example, good intentions can sometimes lead to bad or harmful results and vice versa.  

I guess my counter-argument would be that the reason good intentions lead to bad results is that the situation was misunderstood or only partially understood.  If someone takes an action with the best of intentions but lacks a key piece of information, and something bad happens that was not intended, we can usually figure out what went wrong and decide to fix it in the future.  If someone does something that will result in harm, and they fully realize that something bad will happen and in fact want this to happen, that's a totally different situation.  No amount of education or evaluation will make that person change their mind.  They know, they just don't care.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine told me about a situation at her work that is a great example of this.  They had an opening for a high-ranking position within the organization, and one of the people on the search committee - we'll call them Pat - had their eye on the position.  Pat had in fact been led to believe that they were being groomed for the position and that they were basically entitled to it.  However, the procedures and ethics of the organization called for a formal search process.

The reality is, Pat was not a good fit for the position.  They had neither the expertise nor the experience - so instead of doing what was right for the organization, Pat used their position of power to manipulate the process in order to set themselves up for getting the job.  Having that job was more important to Pat than doing the right thing, either ethically or for the health of the organization. Luckily some colleagues figured out what was going on and put a stop to it - but the aftermath was almost worse because Pat felt so entitled, and ended up hurting a lot of people in their attempt to get what they wanted.

Going after form before action is like trying to build a flimsy house on a fault line - when the ground shakes, everything falls apart.

When we're misaligned in yoga, we don't necessarily hurt others but we can hurt ourselves, mentally and physically.  I am a pretty competetive person by nature, and I don't mean that in the sense that I'm always trying to be better than everyone (except in competetive charades - then I am in it to win it), but more that I have a tendency to look at myself in comparison to others and think: "Why can't I do that? What's wrong with me?"  When I first began my yoga practice in 2009, I would look at someone doing a perfect Urdhva Danuarasana and all I could see was how lame I looked in comparison.  I tried to muscle myself into poses I wasn't ready for, just because I didn't want to look like a complete loser.  In that mindset, it was hard to see the shri in someone else's practice, because they were a mirror of my own failure.

It's really easy to get injured practicing this way, and I think a lot of people probably do.  What Anusara taught me was that the building blocks of the pose are more important than the final form.  For example, in Trikonasana, keeping the front leg straight and the spine lengthened is much more important than getting your hand to the ground.  The hand will come to the ground eventually, but it should evolve organically out of proper alignment, rather than being an end in itself. 

I think this theory can be applied to just about everything in life.  If we let go of our attachment to the result - the final form - and focus on the alignment, it's much easier to find peace with where we are.  Our mistakes and shortcomings are not failings - they're just where we are on the path.  When I look at my friends who've been practicing for like, 10 years, their urdhva danuarasana looks totally different than mine.  My pose is different than theirs, and that is OK.  If I concentrate on the alignment the beauty of the full form will come eventually.  If I try to shove myself into the pose, I'll hurt myself and my practice will be set back. 

In life, we often have no control over the results of our actions - our job, our salary, our appearance, our physical condition, our relationships are often dependent on the decisions of others.  Instead of striving for a perfect result, maybe we should focus on putting 100% into our actions, and let that be a goal in itself, without expecting anything from it.  In yoga, the benefit of the pose comes from the alignment, not from the outer form.  It's great to have the outer form as a road map.  We need it, otherwise we would lose the goal of where we were trying to go.  But, we have to be OK with the fact that we might not always get there.

This can change your life...trust me.

Alright I've wasted enough of your time.  I just thought of a whole other idea I could tack on the end of this thing but I'll save it for another time.  If you started reading this blog because of adorable kitten photos and random pics of what I did over the weekend you're probably feeling pretty misled right now. Sorry for all the words!!

"Even if, by some especially unfortunate fate or by the provision of nature, this [good] will should be wholly lacking in the power to accomplish its purpose; if with the greatest effort it should yet achieve nothing, and only the good will should remain (not, to be sure, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in our power), yet it would, like a jewel, shine by its own light as something that has full value in itself."  ~ Immanuel Kant

Live the Questions

I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if their were locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way to the answer.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

You guys... I am SO fired up right now.

I am also sitting cross-legged on the couch with a bag of chips in front of me and a jar of salsa balancing on my feet.  You didn't really need to know that, but in case you were wondering I realize it's a terrible idea and that disaster is imminent.  When Ben comes home and finds salsa all over the couch, I'll blame it on the pets and only you and I will know the truth.

Anywho....  I just came home from a two-and-a-half day workshop with international yoga teacher Christina Sell.  I recently finished reading her second book, and couldn't wait to study with her in person. Every workshop I've been to has been amazing, but honestly I haven't felt this inspired since the immersion.

For those of you not familiar with Anusara yoga, Anusara is a school of tantric-based hatha yoga founded in 1997 by John Friend.  John was an Iyengar student who found that his own practice was beginning to deviate from the Iyengar philosophy, and he decided to found his own method.

In terms of metaphysical philosophy, the key differences between classical yoga (Iyengar) and tantric (Anusara) is that in the classical tradition, the physical world is inherently inferior to the spiritual world, and by practicing yoga and meditation we can glimpse the divine.  In tantra, the physical world is a manifestation of the divine, and yoga is the means by which we remember our true nature.  In terms of the physical practice, classical styles of yoga often focus more on the outer form, where as John Friend, wanted to turn the focus back on the alignment and the action behind the creation of that form.

One of my favorite examples of this is in the chatturanga to bujangasana (cobra) transition - until I took an Aunsara class, I'd always been told to keep my elbows pinned close to my body.  I started to have all sorts of problems with my shoulders and couldn't figure out why.  Turns out that in order to keep your shoulder safe, the armbone needs to stay plugged into the socket, which in the case of the shoulder is quite shallow.  When students only try to keep their elbows in, the shoulders tend to round forward and come unplugged, which can cause injury after too much repetition.  If you bring your hands and elbows a bit wider it's easier to plug your armbones in, keeping your shoulder joint safe.  It also makes it easier to bring the shoulderblades onto the back, facilitating a safer backbend.  Eventually you can bring the elbows in, but the most important thing is to keep the shoulders in alignment, whatever that looks like on the outside.  This is just one example of the much bigger picture of how Anusara is different.

Nerdyness.  I geek out over this stuff.

Anyways, last fall Anusara had a bit of what was referred to as an exodus.  To me that sounds a bit dramatic, but basically what happened was that three key members of the Anusara teaching community - Christina Sell being one of them - resigned their certifications.  Just this week Amy Ippoliti, another key member, handed hers in as well.  This had a lot of implications for them and their students, the nuances of which I won't go into here, but needless to say this wasn't taken lightly and there has been a lot of talk on the internets around what the heck was going on in Anusara yoga.  I was curious to see how her decision to split from Anusara would affect her teaching.

Oddly, the session I loved the most was the one I almost didn't sign up for - the teachers' session on sequencing.  I'm not a teacher, so I questioned whether I belonged there but I am so glad I decided to attend.  A lot of what I learned can be applied to my own practice - plus it's the kind of yoga-nerd fodder that I go crazy for.  Christina's sequencing is masterful, and she does an amazing job of breaking a pose down into its components, studying a pose's related poses and shapes, and working all of this into her sequencing in a way that is pretty genius.

Christina describes her teaching style as "making the obvious, obvious."  I'm about to do the same, so bear with me.  So...take a pose like the full form of vasistasana:

Wheeeeee!
(not a picture of me, btw)

This pose is a combination of being able to balance in vasisthasana combined with the key actions of utthita hasta padangustasana:

Hey girl, I love when you inner spiral that top leg

...and think about the shape of these poses in comparison to utthita trikonasana.  I KNOW.  I could geek out over this for hours - figuring out which poses to use in order to prepare the body for another pose, and how these are all related to each other in terms of components, shapes, and key actions is just about my cup of tea.

One of the many things that made me fall in love with yoga - and especially with anusara yoga - is how it's challenged me to live the questions and look for the beauty in everything.  I can absolutely see where a combination of these two aims would lead to a break from a school or style.  If I keep living the questions I start to wonder why I should practice only one style.  I see so many wonderful things about each, and am hesitant to say yes, we should just pick one and live (or practice) only this way.

Anusara teachers moving away from the style is really not that crazy - after all, Anusara itself was formed when John Friend felt himself moving away from his teacher.  Christina did an amazingly skillful job of paying homage to both Friend and Iyengar, while at the same time creating something that integrates on both styles and builds on them.  We have the Anusara Alignment principles, and we have the bhandas and classical form...why do we need to choose between them?  Why can't we have both?  Together they may be even stronger than they are apart.

Yoga, by its nature, almost necessitates evolution and division.  If we are to be discerning students - if we are to keep living the questions - we must challenge our teachers.  But at the same time, we are asked to look for sameness and harmony even in the most glaring contradictions and differences.  It's not easy...but it isn't really supposed to be.

ANYWAYS.  I learned a ton this weekend, and am just pumped about yoga and life in a major way.  The tapas are fully stoked.

Namaste

We're Almost Really Old

Hi friends - I know my blogging has been super inconsistent the last week or so, but I've just been really busy.  I decided to fly out to Montana at the last minute to see my grandmother over the weekend... like, ticket cost an arm and a leg, in and out of the state in less than 24 hours.  She's recovering really well, but last week was just a reminder that anything can happen, and I'm glad I went out to see her since I have no actual plans to travel to MT until August.

My trip was so short that I actually didn't bring any luggage - just the clothes I wore (jeans, t-shirt, comfy sweater) plus a giant purse with an extra t-shirt and underwear, pajama pants, toiletries, wallet, phone, and 3 books (priorities..).  Oh and I packed my lunch for the plane.  Because I'm a weirdo like that.


This is better than pretzels.




Who says girls can't travel light?

 

Ready to Rock & Roll


I'm always excited to pack my own lunches for plane travel, but for some reason when the time comes to actually eat my delicious concoction, I become overwhelmed by the irrational fear that my plane neighbors are silently judging me.  Like, who is this crazy girl that busts out a tupperware of salad on a 2 hour flight??? Um yeah.  That would be me.

This salad is called "what is sitting in my pantry" salad.  I'm actually quite proud of how this turned out considering I threw it together on the fly.  The dressing is the best part really... so good I think I want to share it.

But first... yesterday was  Ben's birthday!  He turned 29...and in about 2 weeks, I also turn 29 which means we are almost 30.  We're adults for real now.

for some reason, this doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would when I was younger.  In fact, it doesn't bother me at all.  When I was still struggling to figure my life out, I really resisted growing up because it made me feel inadequate.  How could I still be so lost when I was 23, 24, 25 years old?   And then, once I became more confident in who I was and where I was headed, that fear just went away.  I love the age that I am, and I'm pretty sure I always will, whether that age is 30, 50, or 85.

Ben's not huge on birthdays, but I thought it would be fun to have a mini celebration with some of his favorite things - pie, scotch and the Daily Show.  I picked up a frozen pie from the co-op on my way home from yoga, and as soon as I was out of the shower we sat down to pie and scotch, and watched John Stewart mercilessly mocking our political system.  It was grand.


Not homemade

 

Also not homemade



B-Day fist pound



Too much scotch for Sidney!
(...totally kidding, we are responsible pet owners...)

 Tonight is my sis's last night in town before she heads to Australia for a four-month internship, so I'll probably be hanging with her this evening.  Which reminds me I need to buy her some Reese's PB cups for the road.  Apparently these are not common down under, and who would want to go 4 months without a Reeses.  Not I.

And in other news:

RECIPE: BETTER THAN AIRPLANE FOOD SALAD

Tahini-Lime Dressing- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1 teaspoon almond butter
- 1/4-1/3 cup water (enough to make a dressing-like consistency without dampening the
   flavor too much.  Amount depends on the thickness of your tahini)
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro (or leave out if you hate cilantro)
- salt to taste

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl, stir together.  You'll have some leftover dressing so make sure to have a small jar or tupperware handy where you can store the extra.

The salad itself is open to infinite variations.  I used chickpeas, wheatberries, kale and part of an onion.  I like having a mix of beans/protien, grains and greens/veggies but you can honestly use whatever you want.  Mix all salad ingredients together to make however much you feel is reasonable for 1 serving.  Add salad dressing and toss to coat, until you feel like you have enough dressing.  Again, totally your choice.  Some people love a ton of dressing, some like just a little.  I'm probably somewhere in the middle.

Have a lovely Thursday!

Everything Old Becomes New Again

We often make the mistake of thinking that current fads are some brand new phenomenon.  Take our culture's obsession dieting and thin-ness for example.  While it's true that it is relatively recent when you consider the history of...the earth...extreme dieting is not actually as modern as many of us think.

Last week one of my colleagues came across this Wellness Timeline from the Hartman Group, and I couldn't resist sharing a few of the more entertaining nuggets.  Did you know that calorie counting goes back as far as 1917?  And that low-carb diets first appeared in 1825??? 

If you know me, you know I think fad diets are a) dangerous and b) useless and I feel like this pretty much proves my point.  If it didn't work in 1825, or again in 1863, it probably won't work now.  Wait until you see some of the crazy shit people have done in the name of 'dieting'... insanity.

1820 - Vinegar and Water diet made popular by Lord Byron
1825 - Low Carb diets first appear
1850 - Establishment of the Vegetarian Society
1853 - Potato chips are invented
1863- Banting's Low Carb diet
1887 - Ephiram Cutter publishes a book on cancer and the diet
1917 - "Calorie Counting Diet" by Lulu Hunt Peters is published
1925 - The Cigarette Diet (!!!) "Reach for a Lucky Instead!"
           ...because everyone knows that lung cancer is preferable to not losing weight...
1941 - First diet pills are marketed
1954 - The TAPE WORM diet (yes that is exactly what it sounds like)
1955 - The first McDonalds opens its doors
1961 - Weight Watchers holds its first meeting
1982 - Ketchup is declared a vegetable
1984 - 7-11 Introduces the 44-oz Super Big Gulp (ew)
2002 - Dr. Atkins "New Diet Revolution" is published
2005 - Atkins files for bankruptcy

So...that happened...

So, long story short, taking extreme measures to achieve ridiculous standards of beauty is not a new thing.  In China, women used to bind their own feet - literally breaking the bones - in order to have dainty feet.  In many countries in asia, people use creams to lighten their skin...or in more extreme cases, bleaching treatments that can permanently ruin their skin.  

You might copy Shah Rukh's skin, but he will never tell you the secrets of his hair.

I'm not sure I have a larger point here, other than that it makes me sad to realize just how far back our obsession with attaining physical perfection dates.  There's a big difference between wanting to be the best version of yourself, and wanting to be someone else.  So...yeah...really nothing other than that.  

If you remember nothing else from this blog, remember the tapeworm diet.

That is all.

Happy Monday.

Vegetable and Bean Soup

So apparently, I am a total moron.  I realized just today that the mint-flavored tea I drink constantly at work and which I totally thought was an herbal tea, is actually a black tea.  Oops.  That might explain why I sometimes have trouble getting to sleep.  No more mint tea for me.


Soup is probably OK though

 In other news, winter has finally arrived in the Twin Cities - we had our first below-zero temps, and the first snow that has actually stayed on the ground. Considering that by this time last year we'd had so much snowfall that both St. Paul and Minneapolis had already blown through their Snow Emergency budgets (and that was just the beginning...), I'll take it.

Also, I realize the title of this recipe is ridiculously boring, but the soup isn't.  It is definitely familiar and comforting, but certainly not boring.  My mom always used to make a huge batch of vegetable soup in the winter, put it on the porch to freeze (which is what you do when you live in Minnesota and your soup pot os too big to fit in the freezer) and we'd eat vegetable soup for weeks.  Now that it is ridiculously cold, I want soup constantly - an IV of soup would be lovely.  But instead I'll just use a spoon...so inefficient. 



Mama says, eat your vegetables!

 The largest pot I have is a seven-quart Staub so my batch is probably smaller than hers, and the recipe is definitely not quite the same, but the basic idea is there: warm, comforting, scads of vegetables.

RECIPE: VEGETABLE BEAN SOUP
- 1.5 cups dried cannellini beans (about 3/4 pound)
- 2 large (or 3 small) cloves garlic
- olive oil
- salt
- 1 yellow onion, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
- 4 carrots, sliced crosswise into small circles (about 1/8-1/4 inch thick)
- 2 celery stalks, sliced into crescents (same thickness as carrots)
- 1 zucchini, sliced into half circles (same thickness as carrots & celery)
- 2.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 4-5 fresh sage leaves
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
- 1/2 bunch kale, torn into smallish pieces
- 2 cups chopped cabbage
- 1 14 oz can roasted crushed tomatoes
Soak the beans overnight.  Drain the beans and put them in a large pot with enough water to cover by about 2 inches.  Add 1 tsp of salt and the garlic cloves, and cook for 1 hour on medium/low heat.  Stir occasionally.

In a large soup pot or cast-iron pot, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Add the carrots, onion and celery and sautee for about 10 minutes.  Add the zucchini, broth and herbs and bring to a simmer; then add the tomatoes (whole can, including juices), cabbage and kale.  Cover and simmer over low heat for about 25 minutes.  Add beans and their water, and cook for another 30 minutes or so (until beans are done).  Add salt to taste. 

I also topped mine with shredded parmasean and I highly recommend it.  Stay warm!

Resolution

I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions, mostly because I think they're kind of lame.  I'm more a fan of the idea that if you want to change your life, change it now - no need to put it off until Janary 1.  This year, though I did make one.  After three years without any TV at all (aside from Hulu and Netflix streaming), Ben and I decided to order cable when we moved into our new place. 

Even though our original purpose in setting up DirecTV was to make sure we could catch all the Twins games (and how fun was that this year...), we pretty quickly found ourselves turning on the TV and channel surfing whenever we were bored, just to "see what was on." Occasionally we would discover little nuggets like a documentary about Giant Squid, but more often than not we'd just watch a bazillion reruns of something we felt ambivalent about.  Well I've decided to put an end to that.  My New Years Resolution-ish thing is that when I am bored, I'll read instead of turning on the TV.

I LOVE reading - when I was in grade school I got in trouble all the time for reading during class, and my parents were scared I would get hit by a car and die because I often walked down our (busy) street with my nose in a book.

Reading doesn't just mean books - it can mean nerdy magazines, too!



I also realized recently that many of the books I count as my "favorites", I read between the ages of 16 and 20.  Considering how much I've changed in the last 8-10 years, I wondered whether I would still love these books as much now as I did then.  I resolved to re-read all of them, alternating new books with old until I had finished my all-time favorite novels and come to a conclusion as to whether they still belong on the list.  On my mental bedside table are:

- Les Miserables
- Crime and Punishment
- The entire Dealing with Dragons series
- The Poisonwood Bible
- Naked
- The Toilers of the Sea
- Treasure Island

...I'm sure I'll think of more as I continue along.  I didn't add Shalimar the Clown or any of the Harry Potter books because I've read those relatively recently.

I made it through The Toilers of the sea and Treasure Island on the honeymoon, and am in the middle of Crime and Punishment at the moment.  Verdict is...so far, I love these books even more now than I did when I was younger.  I think the perspective of age and having lived in the real world a bit gives them more depth and flavor then they had when I was in college.  Don't get me wrong, I know I'm still young - but the distance from 18 to 28 feels like a million years.


For someone who loves a good novel, I have a lot of non-fiction on my bedside table right now...



Speaking of the Toilers of the Sea, my mom suggested sending my grandma a book for Christmas, I knew right away that this was the one I wanted to send her. My grandma, for better or worse, has always taken a lot of her reading suggestions from me...and by that I mean, she looks at the cover of whatever I'm reading, goes out and buys it for herself, and then calls me a week later to tell me what a weird book it was.  But for some reason she keeps buying books I like.  I can't figure it out.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, my grandma was in a car accident.  She passed out at the wheel which, it turned out, was because her heart was not pumping enough oxygen to her brain and she needed a pacemaker.  My mom flew out to Montana to see her for Thanksgiving, and grandma cancelled her plans to fly here for Christmas because she still wasn't well enough to travel.

Since she missed seeing us at Christmas, my parents decided to fly out for a visit last weekend.  They called on Saturday evening as Ben and I were heading out to dinner, and within five seconds of talking to my grandma on the phone I could tell something wasn't right.  Even after her accident and at Christmas she'd been mentally sharp, but now she sounded like she had no idea what was going on and wasn't really processing what I was saying.  My sister noticed a big difference too, and obviously so did my parents.

My mom was getting increasingly worried so she took her to the doctor on Monday to run a bunch of tests - and they did a CAT scan too, just in case.  Good thing, because the scan came back showing two subdural hematomas.
Luckily they were able to get her into the ICU right away for emergency surgery, but we're not really sure if she'll recover to her usual level of functioning.  Maybe the bleeding was the result of her car accident, maybe not - chronic hematomas can go undetected for weeks, but she also had a CAT scan shortly after her accident that showed nothing.  So really we have no idea.

Anyway, life got busy and I kept forgetting to send her the book. I wish I had, because she could have read it easily in the three weeks since Christmas - and now she might never read it.  My mom and I used to joke about how my grandma would probably live forever.  She beat cancer twice and seemed determined to keep living if for no other reason than to give a big old middle finger to the world.  My grandma is a complicated lady but that doesn't mean I don't love her.

We think we have all this time with people and then suddenly, we realize that maybe we don't.

Quiz: Which Twin Cities grocery store should you shop at?

The other day as I was reading blogs during lunch, I was inspired by Eden's grocery-store quiz to come up with one of my own.  I realized while reading hers that many grocery-store behaviors may be regionally specific, or even specific to certain areas of town, and that my Trader Joe's shopper may be quite different from yours.  As such, this is a very Minneapolis-focused quiz.  Enjoy!

1) When do you usually do your grocery shopping?
    a. At 3pm on Saturday, or basically whenever the masses decide to venture to the store.
    b. Whenever.  I refuse to work for the man and have a non-traditional/artsy job or am
        a student, so I shop at random times.
    c. 2am on a Tuesday, cause I'm drunk and want pizza.
    d. One of two options:  1 - I don't, my nanny does that for me while I'm at work
        making 6 figures.  2 - Anytime, cause my significant other/spouse is at work making
        6 figures.

2) When I go grocery shopping, my mood is usually:
    a. I am stressed out and ready to kill some bitches.  In the parking lot, in line, in the
        frozen foods section, wherever.  If you come between me and my 10 boxes of cereal
        or the last parking spot, prepare to die.
    b. Kind of spacy.  I tend to wander aimlessly about the produce section, making sure to
        tell all the other customers that the grapes here are THE BOMB.
    c. Meh.
    d. I pretend I'm in no hurry, but really I'm pissed that you are walking so slowly. I am
        totally better than you anyways.

3) When I go to the store, I am usually wearing:
    a. Jeans and a sweater or sweatshirt
    b. Whatever the hipsters are wearing.  Most likely got it at a vintage store (or at Urban
        Outfitters, but I'll still say it's vintage if anyone asks)
    c. The same sweatpants I've been wearing all day and probably slept in last night
    d. Clothes that make me look like a hobo but actually cost $5,000.  Or hipster-ish
        clothes that an actual hipster could never afford.

4) I drive a:
    a. Modestly priced 4-door sedan or small SUV.
    b. Old beat-up VW
    c. Old beat-up anything
    d. Prius.  Or BMW.

5) In line, I:
    a. Don't care if you have to wait behind me while I make the only cashier in this line
        bag my 5,000 items.  I was here first bitch.  And now I will go home and feed my
        family of 5 and dog.
    b. Strike up a conversation about how AMAZING this local organic milk is.
    c.  Have no problem going through the self-checkout with an entire cart full of groceries,
        even if I have no clue how to use the machine.  If not using the self-checkout, I am
        probably old and will pay with a check.
    d. Talk on my cell phone.

Mostly A's - Apparently you have a massochistic streak because you love shopping at Trader Joe's!  You, brave soul, are willing to face poorly designed parking lots and murderous soccer moms just to score a good deal on some frozen Channa Masala, hummus, and $4 Chardonnay.  Good for you!  Just try not to go on a Saturday afternoon because you may not live to tell the tale.

These people have clearly learned their lesson.
source:www.pugetsoundblogs.com

Mostly B's - Congratulations, you shop at The Wedge!  You probably have a couple of tattoos, love yoga and 89.3 the current, and can mysteriously afford all kinds of organic and local produce even though you are a grad student living in a studio apartment.  And just FYI, it's OK that you shop at Urban Outfitters.  Just make sure to put on deodorant before you start trying on clothes.

Don't forget your bike!
source: www.seriouseats.com

Mostly C's - You, my friend, are a Rainbow Foods shopper.  You don't really care whether your produce is organic or your meat free range, because let's face it, you're pretty much here for the potato chips and hot pockets anyway.  You keep doing your thing, but please leave the self-checkout for those who are actually competent at using it.

"Let's try that newfangled self check out line!"
stock image...hence the large X through it

Mostly D's - You shop at Whole Foods.  During the day you make billions of dollars getting your guilty clients off by finding loopholes in the legal system, or figuring out how to deny someone insurance coverage because of a "pre-existing condition" (being left-handed is a pre-existing condition right??) but it's cool because you give a ton of money to Save the Dolphins or some shit.  You are the epitome of Minnesota Nice, and will smile benevolently at me while secretly judging me for the contents of my grocery cart as you tell me about your life-changing journey to an Ashram in India.  Don't lie to me.  It was a resort on St. Lucia but whatever.

www.justlooking.recursion.org

Obviously I am not one to judge.  I shop at the Wedge all the time and my stereotype of a Wedge shopper is pretty descriptive of me, except that a) I don't dress like a hipster or have any tattoos, and b) I am no longer a student and am drawing an actual salary that helps me to afford my organic produce.

My main experience with Rainbow Foods comes from the Lake and Emerson Rainbow.  And yes, I have been there for drunk hot pockets at 3am several times.  And I am seriously convinced that Trader Joe's (at least the ones in St. Louis Park and St. Paul) purposely design their parking lots just to mess with everyone.