• On the Map,  Travel,  Travel Time

    Travel Time: Bears En La Playa Bed & Breakfast, Chelem, Yucatan, Mexico

    Travel Time joins Q Audiobooks as a regular feature at LGBTSr, highlighting (in this case) destinations and travel suggestions for the LGBTQ traveler.

    Hat tip to reader John H. for referring this fabulous B & B.

    About Bears En La Playa

    Bears En La Playa, located in Chelem, is a small bed and breakfast right on the beach. Chelem, Yucatan is a small fishing village just outside the port town of Progreso. We are 30 minutes from Merida, a city of about 1 million people. A better description might be that we are three and a half hours from Cancun.

  • Columns,  Lee Lynch

    Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trail: A Poem and a Plant

    Photo by Sue Hardesty

    By Lee Lynch
    The Amazon Trail: A Poem and a Plant

    The day was typical for the Pacific Northwest. The brightening sky had stopped sputtering its fine dewdrops for the moment, the wind had blown itself out, and the development where I live came to life. People took advantage of the disappearing dreariness to walk their dogs, scurry to our centrally located mailboxes, or meet their step goals.

    I dropped off a copy of New York Magazine in the common room. The cover quoted Melissa Shusterman, who’s running for the Pennsylvania state legislature. “My 16-year-old turned to me after the election and he said, ‘America doesn’t want a smart, qualified woman in office.’ By Friday, I was running.”

  • Q Audiobooks

    Q Audiobooks: Charity and Sylvia, by Rachel Hope Cleves, Narrated by Kristin Kalbli

    By: Rachel Hope Cleves
    Narrated by: Kristin Kalbli
    Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
    Publisher: Audible Studios

    About Charity and Sylvia

    Conventional wisdom holds that same-sex marriage is a purely modern innovation, a concept born of an overtly modern lifestyle that was unheard of in 19th-century America. But as Rachel Hope Cleves demonstrates in this eye-opening book, same-sex marriage is hardly new. Born in 1777, Charity Bryant was raised in Massachusetts. A brilliant and strong-willed woman with a clear attraction for her own sex, Charity found herself banished from her family home at age 20. She spent the next decade of her life traveling throughout Massachusetts, working as a teacher, making intimate female friends, and becoming the subject of gossip wherever she lived.

  • Columns,  Senior Advice

    LGBT Assisted Living Communities – Finding a Gay-Friendly Facility



    This article is reprinted with permission from SeniorAdvice.com.

    By Lori Thomas, Associate Editor, SeniorAdvice

    When it is time for seniors to transition to the next phase of their lives, many older adults find this means it is also time to transition to a new living situation, or to consider an assisted living facility. While some seniors may hear the words “assisted living” and panic, an assisted living facility is much different than a nursing home. It doesn’t mean they lose their independence and it doesn’t mean that they are going to a hospital-like setting. In fact, many seniors describe it like living in college dorms, only the residents are just a little older.

  • Latest

    LGBTSr Adds a Group Page to Facebook

    LGBTSr has long had a Facebook page, currently with over 4,100 followers. It was finally time to establish a separate, supporting group page where people can post, share, discuss, and explore issues important to us. And, most importantly, to simply know we’re not alone. It’s a closed group to ensure privacy. Here’s a short announcement about it I shared this morning. You can find us and join us at LGBTSR Group.

  • Columns,  One Thing or Another Columns

    One Thing or Another: Not Worth the Weight

    It’s always One Thing or Another … a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.

    By Mark McNease

    The food magically showed up at our front door, delivered by someone who, like Santa Claus, made their rounds unseen, past apathetic doormen and suspicious neighbors with insomnia.

    My Amazing Weight Loss Journey began five years ago. With great effort and dedication, I’ve managed to shed four pounds since that first fateful calorie count. How did I achieve this feat of negligible weight loss? I never thought you’d ask.

    It all started with a now-defunct company called Lean Chefs. For a reasonable fee, they delivered a day’s worth of prepared food while we slept: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two yummy snacks. The food magically showed up at our front door, delivered by someone who, like Santa Claus, made their rounds unseen, past apathetic doormen and suspicious neighbors with insomnia. I would peer into the corridor first thing in the morning and there it was, a small black package at my feet, looking like something that might require a call to the bomb squad under normal circumstances. Inside it was the coming day’s food with an ice pack and an unspoken promise: eat these healthy provisions, and only these, and miracle weight loss will occur.

  • Columns,  Savvy Senior

    The Savvy Senior: What You Need to Know About Reverse Mortgages


    By Jim Miller

    Dear Savvy Senior,

    What can you tell me about reverse mortgages for retirees? My wife and I are contemplating getting one but want to make sure we know what we’re getting into.

    Running Short

    Dear Running,

    For retirees who own their home and want to stay living there, but could use some extra cash, a reverse mortgage is a viable financial tool, but there’s a lot to know and consider to be sure it’s a good option for you.

  • Book Reviews

    Book Review: The Language of Kindness, by Christie Watson

    By Terri Schlichenmeyer
    The Bookworm Sez

    “The Language of Kindness” by Christie Watson
    c.2018, Tim Duggan Books  $27.00 / $32.95 Canada
    336 pages

    There was a time in your life when you tried everything.

    Full-time, part-time, gig-worker, entrepreneurship, you changed jobs like most people change clothes. It’s exhausting and disheartening and author Christie Watson had the same experience: café worker, milk deliverer, video shop clerk, she tried them all but in the new book “The Language of Kindness,” she tells how she settled upon her best job of all.

  • Book Reviews

    Book Review: The Language of Kindness, by Christie Watson

    By Terri Schlichenmeyer
    The Bookworm Sez

    “The Language of Kindness” by Christie Watson
    c.2018, Tim Duggan Books  $27.00 / $32.95 Canada
    336 pages

    There was a time in your life when you tried everything.

    Full-time, part-time, gig-worker, entrepreneurship, you changed jobs like most people change clothes. It’s exhausting and disheartening and author Christie Watson had the same experience: café worker, milk deliverer, video shop clerk, she tried them all but in the new book “The Language of Kindness,” she tells how she settled upon her best job of all.

  • Latest

    May is Older Americans Month – Celebrate and Embrace!


    LGBTSr is a place “where age is embraced and life is celebrated.” That’s been our catchphrase from the beginning. So what better announcement can we make than that May is Older Americans Month. Celebrate! Embrace! Engage!

    From the Administration on Community Living:

    Every May, the Administration on Aging, part of the Administration for Community Living, leads our nation’s observance of Older American’s Month. The 2018 theme, Engage at Every Age, emphasizes that you are never too old (or young) to take part in activities that can enrich your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It also celebrates the many ways in which older adults make a difference in our communities.

  • Videos

    ‘Landline’ Documentary Tells Story of Only UK Helpline for Gay Farmers

    Landline | Trailer from Matt Houghton on Vimeo.

    From the film’s website

    Landline is a short documentary about the only helpline in the UK for gay farmers. Through a series of recorded telephone conversations and reconstructive visuals, the film uses the helpline as a lens through which to view the experiences of LGBTQ people in the British farming community.

    The film is being funded by FILM LONDON and made with PULSE FILMS and FEE FIE FOE.

  • Columns,  David Webb

    Celebrated Activist Bashed in Gay Bar During ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Era Dies Virtually Unnoticed by Media

    Crae Pridgen Jr.

    Reprinted with permission from David Webb’s Rare Reporter blog

    By David Webb

    A quarter-century ago, the nation fixated on President Bill Clinton’s proposal to enact a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for the U.S. military. The bitter controversy erupted in the national media on Jan. 30, 1993, when three Marines from Camp Lejeune and the patrons of a gay bar named Mickey Ratz in Wilmington, N.C., went to battle.

    The bar fight and the injuries sustained by one of the patrons, Crae Pridgen Jr. — who lived in Dallas for a brief time and has recently died — dominated the headlines.