Parting Glances: 042N19 Lat./083W02Long.

Permit me just a tad of immodesty. I received this on-the-mark SPAM last Monday. It brightened my day (and half that of BTL go-to-press Tuesday).
I thought I'd share it with my equally immodest readers, of which I suspect I have more than a confectionaries sprinkling. The perceptive spammer is one Ms Rochelle Gordon.
If you happen to meet Rochelle out clubbing, give her a hug and a bottom-pinch from me and Sr. Scatterpin. (If Rochelle's straight, she's hip, and probably femme to boot.) She gushes:
"Dear Charles: I have some really great news for you. May 12, 1936, was an even better day to be born in Detroit than you could ever imagine.
"On May 12, 1936, at 042N19 latitude and 083W02 longitude a truly unique set of circumstances was put in motion that not only endowed you with a really unique combination of talents and abilities, but most importantly it bestowed upon you some incredible spiritual energy that will make it easy for you to connect with angels.
"I'm sure you realized a long, long time ago that you were special in some way, didn't you? I'm also sure you noticed that people treat you a little differently, and maybe just a little better than other people also, right?" (Come to think of it, Rochelle: No one I'd sleep with, even with your bite-of-the-apple pudendum.)
As PG column space is limited I shan't include the rest of this 20-paragraph e-mailed epistle. Its intent – in four easy installments of $14.95 – is getting me to purchase a 24-karat Gold Medallion of the Archangel Michael (presumably to replace my I-don't-care-if-it-rains-or-freezes. etc. plastic Jesus or my dashboard recalled St. Christopher medal).
I will, however – since immodesty is being outted herewith – share that I recently did have several sessions with a Past Lives Therapist to find out just why I am the way that I am and quite possibly why I'm the wonderful, over-the-hill-behind-the-bushes gay guy that I am.
It was (wouldn't you know it) beloved Sr. Serena Scatterpin who got me hooked on Past Lives Therapy. Under the expert tinkering of her own shrink, a retired Anglican rector, Dr. Brightmore Meinkampf, the good Sister discovered that she by turns of the relentless Karmic Wheel had once been Joan of Arc, Pope Pius XII, Mata Hari, Coco Channel, and Babe Ruth.
My own Past Lives Therapist (listed in the Pride Source Guide under Spiritual U-Hauling) says that according to my on-the-couch Freudian slips and verbal frocks, my X-rated dream journaling, and my previous lifetimes recall under hypnosis I was John Hancock, P.T. Barnum, or Grandma Moses (but not all three) in a previous incarnation.
I'll take that as a high compliment, even if in the Hancock case it's certainly not my fancy handwriting signature that's the giveaway. (Maybe it's the surname.) And as for Barnum, I suppose the nexus is with P. T.'s famous dictum, "There's a sucker born every minute." But facially I do fancy Grandma Moses.
But the big problem as I see it with Past Lives Therapy recall is not in finding out who you once were lifetimes ago. We all have a right to fame and fortune, real or imagined. No: It's staking out an unchallengable claim to being Joan of Arc, P. T. Barnum, or in the case of Log Cabin Republicans, Warren G. Harding or Richard Nixon.
Maybe a Past Lives Registry is something Gov. Granholm might look into. It could help big time come November. (FDR anyone?)