Eldritch Mlems

The sound of Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” and the stomping of boots on hardwood echoed against the neon-bathed walls of O’Donnell’s in Lockhart’s town square. This Pride of Caldwell County dance night was one of eight events that the organization hosted over the last week of June, and with the bar packed from end to end with line dancers, onlookers singing along, and laughter, there was no shortage of celebration in this small Texas town.

Nestled in the heart of Central Texas, Caldwell County is better known as the barbecue capital of the state. But over the past few years, it’s also become home to a growing and visible LGBTQ+ community, a transformation sparked, in part, by a conversation among friends in 2021.

That year, a group gathered in Lockhart Arts and Craft, a bar just around the corner from O’Donnell’s, and laid the foundation for what would become Pride of Caldwell County, a grassroots nonprofit organization committed to building LGBTQ+ community and visibility in the region.

“Even just a few years earlier, there was so much more hesitation about starting something like this,” said Haley Fort, one of Pride of Caldwell County’s board members. “Pride did not have the same presence back then and we didn’t have stickers showing safe spaces or anything.”

Bandit having a cool down on the tile and looking like a large version of the puma logo.

It started with a dream: The Old Dykes Home.

Envisioned during beach trips with friends nearly 30 years ago, this is how Pat McAulay first thought of the concept that would become Village Hearth, the first LGBTQ cohousing community in the nation for people 55 and over.

“Any older lesbian you speak to has this dream of living together or living in close proximity and taking care of one another,” McAulay said. “Because people from our generation… come out of the closet and then have to go back in, in old age. That was the biggest fear, the treatment you’d get in a nursing home or some sort of a facility. And so that's where the idea came from: You take care of your own, as long as you can.”

In 2015, McAulay and her wife Margaret Roesch began seriously developing plans for Village Hearth, a sprawling fifteen-acre property in Durham, North Carolina, where lush gardens and 28 accessible, pastel cottages are now home to more than three dozen older LGBTQ adults and allies, some of whom The Flytrap met during a recent visit. Gathered in Village Hearth’s common house for coffee and cake, residents shared their many reasons for choosing cohousing, the challenges of close quarters and cooperative self-governance, and the model that Village Hearth can provide to other queer and trans people who want to support each other through the aging process.

“This isn’t for everyone,” McAulay laughed. “You have to be able to really listen. It can’t just be, ‘I’ve got this great idea to fix this problem and I’m going to do it.’ You have to be able to listen to everyone’s input, and adjust—it’s the only way to live in cohousing and it’s best for creating community.”

https://mastodon.world/@oldrawgabbit/114852250460625001

He was kicking in his sleep. Then he woke up 😪😪😪

Gussy just looking extra slay. Mama does love brushing him.

Yes its that age all opinion questions. So the rules are you can use anything from the latest stuff but only class and race. no archetypes or legendary artifacts or such. Surprisingly my answer is the same despite all the updates. elf - druid. Elf because your generally good looking and you live long and you are still pretty common and don't have to worry to much about some sort of outcast type of position. Then druid because the primal list is so useful and broad. You got healing and combat and a decent amount of buff/debuff. It mainly loses on telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation along with undead and illusions. Then leaf druids start with a familiar which is way useful and goodberry which is a great focus spell giving both tons of healing and sustenance usefulness supplementing something the primal group gives you plenty of so it just becomes not a concern now. Then pick up wildshape and that is just tons of utility. Top it off that if you can get far enough in your class that you can stop aging.