On walking into a sticky beer bar (or indoor playground)

It’s my favorite Anthony Bourdain quote:

I remember sitting across from [Anthony Bourdain] at the table at this sort of sticky beer bar and him saying to me, “Helen, it makes a difference if you walk in the door saying, ‘I’m going to love it here,’ or you walk in the door saying, ‘This place is going to suck.'”

Helen Rosner

Bourdain’s advice is useful any time I’m tempted to listen instead to John Mullaney, whose quip about “cancelling plans [being] like heroin” became an early-pandemic rallying cry—when turning up my nose at people going to sticky beer bars seemed to carry moral weight.

With the emergency phase of the pandemic long gone, Mullaney’s mantra has remained, requiring a Bourdain override. There’s a food slant here, of course—it’s Anthony Bourdain!—but the open-mindedness applies beyond sticky beer bars. To, say, the chaos of an indoor playground (or any playground, for that matter). Your mindset matters!