SU249 - Who I Am Not
who i am not
I am not a pensioner in the UK who took a tour of the Oxford Castle & Prison a week ago. But his email is very similar and sometimes he signs up for things with mine by accident.
I did not make a $1k donation to the Carter/Mondale Presidential Committee in 1979. But the John Paul Spain who did seemed pretty interesting and I wouldn’t have minded knowing him.
I did not, along with a horribly misspelled version of my fiancée, intend to open a restaurant called Boomerangs Cafe in St. Petersburgh Florida for which we sought and were granted permission, at a planning commission meeting at 2 PM on Tuesday March 6, 1993, to serve beer and alcohol. I can find no record of Boomerangs Cafe ever existing and the address is now the location of something called Two Buks Saloon. It looks really depressing. Cecylia was also the registered agent of a company called “Spain, Inc.” that was dissolved in 1994 - obviously under pressure from johnspainco as I would have been 13 and reaching puberty’s apex then.
I am not the managing director of an urban planning and development firm that was acquired in September 2023 by an even bigger building consultancy and half the reason I turned off Google News alerts for “John Spain.”
I am not another urban planning consultant in Louisiana who keeps advocating for passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and whom represents the other half of why I turned off Google Alerts.
I did not give a presentation on growing winter hardy cacti at a meeting of the Connecticut Cactus & Succulent Society sometime between 2006 and 2022.
I am also not this guy ranting about leftists on Twitter that I’m not even going to bother to screenshot.
intermezzo
I wonder if anyone has ever told these John Spains that they have a great name. This isn’t me having pride or anything - I get told this often and I never know how to reply. It’s just something I have, or I guess was given, some 43 years ago.
who i am
An inveterate tinkerer whose curiosity leads him to fall into rabbit holes more or less constantly.
A caring friend and partner.
A completely normal guy who likes to dress up as a wizard named Gordolf and yell at newborns.
A curmudgeonly piece of shit whose grumpiness usually doesn’t last long and/or is aimed at people who deserve it like Alex.
Someone who is constantly torn between showing off how weird he is/can be online and hiding, often behind elaborately ersatz ruses like a fake corporation that’s not much of a shield considering it’s just his name.
Someone who is not sure what to think about arriving at a relatively good place in his life right as America seems about to burn down.
a grounding quote from Liz Cook
Perhaps it is gauche of me to write about candies when there are Horrors. But they are there, outside my window, whether I acknowledge them or not. Little wolverines with their bloody faces pressed against the glass.
You do not need me to tell you about the wolverines. You see them, too! And while they chew their way through the dog door, maybe you would like to hear about the NBA’s Paul Newman and the gummies that made me laugh out loud.
closing thought
“I’m John Spain, rah rah rah” - Collin Worth
Sincerely,
John Spain
Rah Rah Rah
JohnSpainCo - PO Box 150272 Brooklyn NY 11215