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ubernoxa · 4 years

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The Sip: A GNR Modern Name AU

Chapter 7: An Award Show Interview

Previous Chapters: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Taglist: @str4nge-haze

Chapter Summary: Alanah still has doubts that Duff likes her. Sandy is getting annoyed with how stupid Alanah is.

“What do you mean it only takes you a couple of minutes to get ready?” I stared at Duff in bewilderment as I continued to get ready. I had already finished my hair, and was currently attempting to do my eyeshadow,

My stomach performed backflips as his laughter filled my bathroom. I smiled as I looked at my phone. I wished we weren’t FaceTiming. I wished I was sitting on his couch next to him giggling at his stupid jokes.

It had been two weeks since he came over to the apartment and helped me cook for my livestream. The first week was filled with hopeful texts of hanging out that were quickly canceled because Axl had scheduled time for them to work on some band related stuff. The second week was mainly filled with text and late night calls with no attempt at meeting up.

I didn’t ever ask him to elaborate because he seemed rather...frustrated by it. After the second time he canceled our hangout time (or as Sandy teased, our date), he left me a couple of voicemails that consisted of him drunkly telling me about how his day was or some crazy shit him and Izzy got into. There was always an apology though, he always apologized for canceling our plans.

“I just take a quick shower and then throw on some clothing,” He casually replied. How could this not be a big deal to him.

“Hey Alanah, do you have a sec to zip up my dress?” I froze when I heard Sandy call from the other room.

“One sec, I’ll be back in a moment or two,” I said to Duff as I went to Sandy’s bedroom.

Sandy had been freaking out for the past month about this event, and the fact that it was actually happening didn’t feel real. A few months back YouTube had asked us to perform some red carpet interviews at the AMAs, and we quickly agreed. A little while later Mark, my ex boyfriend (which still feels weird to say), informed me that he was the reason we received the opportunity.

Was it because Sandy and I were borderline influencers? Nope.

Was it all our hard work, late nights, and taking multiple jobs to get the YouTube channel to where it is now? Nope.

According to him, it was because his manager was having sex with some high up at YouTube manager, and was able to pull some strings to get us the opportunity.

I never found out the real answer to if we got it because of him or not, and part of me doesn’t want to know it.

“You okay?” I turned to Sandy as she spoke.

“Yeah why? This is a huge huge opportunity for us!” I faked a smile as if I had Vaseline on my teeth.

“God, you’re a terrible actress,” I could feel Sandy’s eyes on me as I tried to avoid her gaze.

“You’re thinking about Mark?” I continued to avoid looking at her not wanting to tell her she was right.

She leaned in close and whispered, “you are so much better off without him. You two were barely even dating for crying out loud. Thanks for zipping up my dress and say goodbye to your tipsy future boyfriend. We have an awards show to get to.”

I felt a smile cross my face as I walked back to the bathroom to say goodbye before heading out.

“Hey stranger,” I giggled as I spoke into my phone hoping to pull his attention from talking to Slash who also sounded tipsy.

“Hey, what does your dress look like so I can easily find you at the after party?” My cheeks felt like fire as he spoke.

“Umm I’m not invited to the after party,” my heart was racing from embarrassment as I admitted to him I wasn’t invited. He was a rockstar and I was practically no one.

“Wanna come as my plus one?” My heart skipped a beat. We were finally going to hang out in person again.

To say he caught me off guard was an understatement. I was screaming at myself to say yes, but words couldn’t come out.

“Or...” before he could continue talking I interrupted him saying, “yeah, yes, of course! I’d love to.”

My heart melted as a smile crossed his face.

FRIENDS.

He just wants to hang out. If it was he would have called it that. Friends, remember? There is a difference between being called a plus one and a girlfriend or date for the night. Plus I don’t have any feelings for him, not a single ounce. We were just friends, plus I just had a messy breakup. I should for I on my work right now.

I heard him shush someone who was in the room with him which only made me giggle. It was cute. It was cute, not him, it.

“So that dress? What does it look like, so I can find you?” He asked again, his smile never leaving her face. He was excited which only made my stomach, once again, perform backflips.

“I’ll give you three hints, okay? It’s sparkly, long and tight,” I grinned as he I watched him jokingly put on a thinking face.

“I like the choice. Can’t wait to see you in it,” he wasn’t helping the whole friends thing with comments like that, but he was a rockstar. Aren’t all rockstars just flirty? He probably had some groupie or supermodel he was spending time with as well.

————

“Who are you looking forward to performing tonight?”

Sandy and I stood at the red carpet for the non A list celebrities interviewing an up and coming indie artist. She was sweet, and it was a lot of fun interviewing her. I was defiantly going to buy her album when I got home.

“I would have to say I’m excited to see Motley Crue perform tonight...I can’t explain it, but something about bag boys,” my interviewee giggled as Sandy sent me a teasing look.

“Yeah, we get what you mean,” Sandy then smirked while looking at the camera.

Jesus Christ, I swore that she shipped Duff and I harder than our fans after the Duff’s and my cooking video.

“Good luck tonight,” I smiled as she left heading off to get her picture taken.

“So I take it you have been reading the comments on some of our videos?” I watched as a smirk formed on her face.

“We are just friends,” I whispered back as we waited for our next interviewee.

“Honey, are you in Egypt right now?”

I turned towards Sandy in confusion as she spoke. What was she getting on about?

“Because you’re in De-Nile! Get it because denial sounds like the Nile River,” Sandy laughed as if she thought it was the funniest joke in the world. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“If Duff has said that you would have laughed,” she teased as she playfully pushed me.

“Speak of the Devil...” I looked over to see Duff and Slash at the fork in the carpet traffic. From what I gathered there were two paths. The first path was the one that the A list celebrities would take like Motley Crue, Beyoncé, Ed Shereen or even the Kardashians would walk down. Anybody who was anybody went down that path. We were standing on the second path where the minor internet stars, influencers, and smaller artists were sent.

I smiled as Duff sent me a small wave and weaved through the pack of people despite people clearly telling them to go down the other path. He looked excited to see me which didn’t help the nerves that filled me.

He looked hot. Did rockstars not need to wear a shirt under their jackets? Was that a thing?

FRIENDS, Alanah, FRIENDS.

Oh God I was staring, was it okay to stare? Were people noticing I was staring?

“Hey, ‘Lanah,” Duff smirked as he wrapped his arm around my waist.

FRIENDS

F R I E N D S.

He is just being flirty because he is tipsy.

“Hey Duff, hey Slash how’s it going,” Sandy cut in as I slowly began to panic on the inside. She could read me like a book.

“Can’t fucking complain, how about you?” Slash responded. I could barely focus as I felt Duff’s eyes undressing me as Sandy continued to interview Slash.

I wasn’t thinking when I touched his ass. I don’t know why I did it, I just did it. I looked up at Duff, worried to see a confused look on his face. I felt a smirk grow on my face as I saw Duff’s reaction. He liked it.

I was pulled from my thoughts as I felt Sandy lightly bump into me, prompting me to actually participate in the interview.

“Congrats on being nominated for two awards, favorite heavy metal artists and best heavy metal video. What do you think of your competition?” I asked earning a smile from Sandy who was growing tired of interviewing a drunk Slash who was borderline rambling. He was still a sweetheart thought.

“Well, if Axl was here he would say something cockily and condescending like...we don’t have competition. We’re in a league of our own, or we don’t pay attention to our competition,” Duff said with Slash joining him in laughter.

I sent Sandy a quick glance before Duff continued talking, “All joking aside, we are here for music, not the awards. We do what we do because we love what we do.”

“The nominations and awards are nice though,” Slash added before a security guy came by.

“Look like we’re getting kicked out, it was nice seeing you girls,” Slash commented as he watched the security guard walking directly towards them.

“I love the dress, can’t wait to rip it off you tonight,” Duff whispered in my ear sending goosebumps down my spine before his hand grazed across my ass. He sent me a smirk and followed Slash towards the security guard, so we wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Yup...just friends,” I turned to Sandy as she wore a smirk that would put Nikki Sixx’s smirk to shame.

#guns n’ roses fanfic #guns n’ roses imagine #modern day au #fanfiction #guns n’ roses fanfiction #duff mckagan fanfic #duff mckagan imagine #duff mckagan fanfiction #gnr imagine #gnr fanfiction #gnr fanfic #the sip #the sip fanfic

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hexandbalances · 5 years

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Curse Tablets 101

A brief overview of defixiones, or curse tablets, in the Greco-Roman world.

What were they used for?

Defixiones expressed a formalized wish to bring other persons or animals under the client’s power, typically against their will and without their knowledge. Most often (but not exclusively) for:

Inflicting death or harm such as illness (ex: fever, consumption, blindness, idiocy, lameness, broken limbs, loss of memory, insomnia)

Loss of consort, family, or property

Defeat in war or athletic competition

Public humiliation

Failure in business

Loss in a legal case or conviction

Denial of afterlife

Injury to race horses

Breakdown of public baths (really!)

To revenge upon an unfaithful lover or to inspire lust in a new or former lover

When (and where) were they used?

The earliest caches of defixiones where found in Attica and date from C5th to C4th BCE – though it should be noted the Egyptian Execration texts testified to an extremely similar practice from as early as C24th to C22nd BCE! The latest example yet found may have been from Cyprus from C7th CE. In between, defixiones have been found in Rome and Sicily, Egypt, Jerusalem, and several sites in Britain.

Who made them?

The individual, certainly, especially with the spread of literacy - but largely defixiones were crafted by professionals. There seems to have been something of a cottage industry for them.

Plato notes in his Laws XI (933A) that there were scribes that could be hired to prepare a katadesmos (κατάδεσμος) for a fee

The development and inheritance of formularies such as the PGM resulting in standardized tablet conventions

Caches of tablets found in places otherwise not visited or easily accessible to multiple people - such as a single grave containing multiple tablets commissioned by different clients against different targets

Some Roman tablets were even prepared with spaces left for later inscription of a target’s name, as evidenced by notably different handwriting and noticeable gap between words (Gager, p.14)

What did they contain?

Most of the Attic defixiones contained simply a target’s name. Over time verbs (intended action against the target) and the name of an assisting god or daemon were included. In some cases the text of the spell or just the target’s name were written from right to left (ex. JOHN to NHOJ).

Voces mysticae, or unintelligible words exclusively used in magic, became increasingly present, sometimes taking up to 80-90% of the tablet in later (C4th to C5th CE) Roman samples. Roman tablets in general were much more complex, often including:

Palindromes

Charaktêres - one might describe these as sigils or astrological/celestial symbols

Vowel or consonant series

Geometric shapes formed of letters

Egyptian elements

Names ending in -êl and -ôth built on Jewish conventions

What were they made of?

In general, the medium appears largely driven by availability and economy:

Ostraca (broken shards of pottery)

Wax

Papyrus

Limestone

Gemstones, particularly when fashioned as an amulet

Most often thin sheets of metal; in particular lead or a lead alloy such as pewter

Why lead?

Cheap

Widely available (PGM VII 397 even recommends “borrowing” lead from public plumbing pipes)

Easy to make in sheet form

Was already in use as a writing medium

Over time the properties of lead became viewed as appropriate for the use. For example, “just as this lead is cold and useless, so let them (my enemies) be cold and useless.” (DTA nos 105-7)

What tools were used?

Preferably a bronze stylus (according to PGM VII lines 396ff) but ostensibly any tool used for scratching the inscription was sufficient.

Separate items were often attached, in particular dolls, hair, and nails.

Dolls

Often made of lead, mud, or wax

Depicted with hands bound behind their backs and/or deliberately disfigured

Often inscribed with the target’s name

Used in love/sex magic, to assault enemies, or in one instance, to hinder a charioteer and his horses who were specifically named.

Hair (and/or Clothing)

Sometimes referred to as ousia (“stuff”) in several surviving love spells.

Nails

Nearly all defixiones were rolled or folded but several were also pierced with one or more nails. The purpose of this is somewhat debated. It may have been used as a method of sealing the spell like one seals an envelope. To follow this analogy, some defixiones even bore a sort of “supernatural address” on an exposed outer sheet.

Given that the tablets were deposited where no human would have access to them it seems privacy would not be the primary concern. It’s more likely the nails were used in a supernatural compliment to their literal function: to fasten, “tie” down, to bind.

Where were they deposited?

Thrown into rivers, sea, wells, bath houses, or streams

Buried in coffins or graves, particularly belonging to the prematurely dead

In the home of the intended target, usually under the floor

Under stadium floors or at the gates of race courses

Sanctuaries of cthonic dieties, including crossroads

Final Note

Please let me know if there is a particular aspect you would like to read more about. I’m contemplating 102 & 201 posts in the near future to address the motivations, counter binding and protection, and practical application - please let me know if this interests you.

In the meantime I’ll leave this clip from HBO’s ROME. While not terribly historically accurate (there’s only so much you can do in two seasons), the show was marvelously authentic in their world building.

youtube

Resources

Dufault, O. (2017). Who Wrote Greek Curse Tablets? Prophets and Profits, Ed. Richard Evans (London: Routledge).

Gager, John G, ed. (1992), Curse tablets and binding spells from the ancient world, New York: Oxford University Press.

Ogden, Daniel (2002), Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: a Source Book, New York: Oxford University Press.

Tomlin, Roger (2005), Curse Tablets of Roman Britain, et al, Oxford, ENG, UK: Oxford University.

Society, H. (2015, September 19). Roman Curse Tablets. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/video/642/

www.abc.net.au, 2008. Sex curse found at ancient Cyprus site. [Online] Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-07-12/sex-curse-found-at-ancient-cyprus-site/438076

#hex positive #hex #curse #defixiones #curse tablets #katadesmoi #katadesmos #black magic #love magic #hekate #hecate #cthonic #kthonios #occulture #hekatean witchcraft #hekatean witch #hellenic witch #greek magic #roman magic

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beautifulhigh · 7 years

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I think, sometimes, it is just a matter of actually accepting what is being shown on screen. There hasn't been a single hint that what we are seeing isn't what we are meant to believe. Nothing. Nada. No nudges; no winks to the audience. Every single alt theory is based on the shakiest spec. And that is absolutely fine - each to their own - and whatever you need to make it through this nightmare of a SL. But ED aren't known for playing the long game and sometimes denial really is just a river.

There hasn’t been a single hint that what we are seeing isn’t what we are meant to believe.

You mean like that time when we were meant to believe that Pete had actually killed Ross? You mean like that time when we were meant to believe that Ashley was fine, albeit with a new diagnosis of epilepsy? Where were the nods and the winks at that point? Where were the nudges? When everyone tweeted their fond wishes to Mike Parr? When he changed his Twitter bio and talks about auditions? When LITERALLY NOTHING was said about Ashley until the rewind episode?

Soaps are very good at playing their cards close to their chest when they want to - different scenario but Holly’s death proved this. If they didn’t want us to know, if they wanted us to buy into the narrative that it’s Robert’s but leaving the door open to prove that it’s not later? Then they wouldn’t put in hints and clues and nudges and winks.

Sometimes denial is a river. Sometimes it’s not. All I want is some proof that this is what she says it is. There’s far too much doubt around this storyline and if they are honestly, 100% going down the “it’s Robert’s” path then why have those gaps? Why put that doubt out there?

Half the reason these theories exist is because there is room for them to exist. If Vic had bought the Clearblue pregnancy tests which tell you how pregnant you are, and we had seen the 3-4 weeks? We’d have a little more evidence that it’s Robert’s. If we had ONE scene with a medical professional talking dates, we’d have more evidence that it’s Robert’s I totally accept that Bex thinks it is (or at least did, I’m wondering what info may have been passed on behind the scenes tonight) because she had unprotected sex with him and protected sex with Ross, but that’s still not 100% proof.

I mean EastEnders had a storyline where Laura had a one night stand with Garry Hobbs, unprotected, and fell pregnant. She came to think it was his due to Ian’s recent vasectomy only they’d slept together in the “danger” period post snip and yup - it was Ian’s.

Either they are planning something or it’s shoddy storytelling, I just want to know which and that’s not tin hatting or flying off to Egypt. That’s just me, a soap watcher of almost 30 years, knowing the game a little too well to buy in this early.

But ED aren’t known for playing the long game

It’s been two months. This isn’t a long game, this is a storyline.

#ememrdale #robron #robert sugden #aaron dingle #rebecca white #baby on board #Anonymous #emmerdale #otp : rely on me #jen and her broken boys #more parallels than a grid #plotdale #robron spoilers #second generation plot device #robroff #trashing the Mill

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hudsonespie · 4 years

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Op-Ed: Water Scarcity Brings New Political Tensions

[By Connor Dilleen]

The link between climate change and human security has been on the global security radar for decades. Researchers have long understood how and why the earth’s climate is changing and what these changes mean for human and environmental systems. But the tenor of analysis of the implications of climate change has intensified in recent years as the scale of change and the enormity of the challenges facing humanity become clear.

The most critical element of the human security dimension of climate change is water security. As noted in the World Bank’s 2016 report on global water:

"The impacts of climate change will be channeled primarily through the water cycle … Water-related climate risks cascade through food, energy, urban, and environmental systems. Growing populations, rising incomes, and expanding cities will converge upon a world where the demand for water rises exponentially, while supply becomes more erratic and uncertain."

This assessment is particularly troubling because the amount of available fresh water per capita has already declined by more than half since 1960, and demand for fresh water is expected to exceed supply by around 40 percent by 2030.

New research indicating that 80 percent of high-altitude snow and ice will be gone by 2100 if the world continues along its current path, affecting 1.9 billion people and half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, suggests that the global problem of water scarcity is rapidly becoming more acute. This research identified the transboundary Indus River basin—which serves densely populated and heavily irrigated regions of China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan—as one of the most vulnerable systems.

For India and Pakistan—nuclear-weapon states already at odds over a number of issues—the significance of this could be devastating. Since 1960, tensions between the two countries over water have been managed through the Indus Waters Treaty, which has been assessed as the most successful water-sharing mechanism of recent times.

The problem is that the Indus Waters Treaty—and other treaties like it—are under pressure from the forces of climate change and population growth and from regressive policy approaches to water security. The commitment of states party to these treaties is wavering as they increasingly act unilaterally to protect declining water resources.

For India, climate change means that the question of water security is becoming an existential one. The figures are staggering: 330 million people—a quarter of the country’s population—are already affected by severe drought conditions. Analysis from 2018 predicted that Delhi along with 20 other major cities would run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting access for 100 million people. By 2030 the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply. India’s population is predicted to surpass China’s by 2030 before hitting a peak of around 1.68 billion by the middle of the century, further straining available water supplies.

Pakistan also faces a dire future of overpopulation combined with severe water scarcity. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources predicts that Pakistan could face absolute water scarcity by 2025. Pakistan’s population has increased more than six-fold since 1951, and will increase further from around 208 million in 2017 to over 400 million by 2050.

These pressures are now manifest in several ways. Both Delhi and Islamabad are focusing on either finding unilateral solutions to their impending water crises, deflecting blame for gross mismanagement of water resources, or seeking to weaponise water resources in their conflicts with their neighbours. India has already raised the stakes by threatening to cut off the flow of water in the Indus River basin to Pakistan in response to terrorist attacks conducted by Pakistan-based militants.

Worryingly, the case of Pakistan, India and the failing Indus Waters Treaty is just one example of how the intersection of worsening water scarcity—driven by climate change, overtaxed groundwater supplies and growing populations—and politics is pushing countries to the brink of conflict over water.

Globally, tension over shared water resources is increasingly featuring in communal and interstate relations: China, India and Bangladesh are locked in a dispute over the Brahmaputra; China is also at odds with its southern neighbours over the Mekong Delta; dam-building on the Nile by Ethiopia has created a risk of war with Egypt; and Turkey, Syria and Iraq are increasingly at odds over the Tigris–Euphrates.

A key problem is that, while about 60 percent of global fresh water is supplied by the transboundary river basins, only around 40 percent of these basins are governed by a framework for dispute resolution. Climate change, combined with asymmetrical population growth, is further undermining the likelihood that signatories to water treaties will continue to be bound by them.

As the World Bank report notes:

"If current water management policies persist, and climate models prove correct, water scarcity will proliferate to regions where it currently does not exist, and will greatly worsen in regions where water is already scarce.’ But the problems facing the world’s freshwater supplies are also being exacerbated by politicking and denial by countries that are either withdrawing from global climate accords or fudging their commitment to those agreements."

The increasingly fractured global polity, where the global rules-based order is being challenged by countries pursuing zero-sum goals, Hunger Games–style policymaking across a range of economic, environmental and strategic issues will likely limit progress on water security. It will limit the space for cooperative management of shared water resources at a time when water scarcity is becoming more prevalent; it will reduce the prospects for countries to take meaningful and concerted action to restrain the anthropogenic causes of global warming; and it will fuel tensions between states.

One only has to examine the situation in India and Pakistan, and in the Middle East and the Nile Delta, to predict how these tensions will play out in the many countries challenged by worsening water scarcity.

Connor Dilleen has worked for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Office of National Assessments. He currently works for Australia’s privacy regulator. This article represents the author’s personal views and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian government.

This article appears courtesty of ASPI's The Strategist blog, and it may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/op-ed-water-scarcity-brings-new-political-tensions via http://www.rssmix.com/

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coldasice33 · 7 years

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Denial is not a river in Egypt…. it definitely was my state of mind for a long while…

Lets go back to the beginning…

It all started with a relatively easy pregnancy. 41 weeks of waddling. 13 hours 35 minutes of labor. I had a beautiful baby boy. His first word was Dada of course. He was a crawling mad man by 5 months. He could not be stopped. His first tooth came in when he was 4 months. He walked a few days after his first birthday. He danced to Yo Gabba Gabba doing the wiggle wiggle and singing along. He grew and thrived. And one day he stopped singing. His vocabulary regressed. I couldn’t understand him anymore and all those little quirks like lining up his toys and covering his ears when the loud cars passed by started to worry me. I have some videos of the Kid of Facebook from when he was 1.5 years old and singing and dancing. I love watching the videos because my baby boy was just a handsome little one. The videos can also make me cry because I have proof that my child could speak when he was a baby. And something happened. I don’t know what it was. I wish I did know.

I had my mother in my ear a lot about JELS. She works in a day school with children in need of special education services. She really annoyed me a lot with her trying to label my child. I ignored her. Would keep my distance from her when she would start with me. I was in heavy denial. I talked to JELS Daddy in April of 2010 and shared my concerns and i went straight to my mother’s supervisor and asked for her to schedule an evaluation for my son. Ms. Fredrick and Ms. Goodwin were the best educators i had in my corner. They held my hand and got me through the evaluation process. I still call Ms. Goodwin when i am having an issue with the Dept of Ed. The Kid has been out of her school since 2012 but she still helps me out when i feel like I’m going crazy. Funny thing in all of this it wasn’t until Jamesy’s Turning 5 IEP Meeting when the Doctor that did the Psych evaluation from the DoE told me his classification was Autism. That poor lady got screamed at so badly by a lot of people including myself. I was always so focused on his goals I did not concern myself with a classification . Jamesy is more than just a label. He is an intelligent, train obsessed, tech savvy, werewolf like child who has parents that will help him in every way possible and make sure he never uses Autism as an excuse to not have dreams or succeed, try something new even when it is hard to understand. We’re working hard and we can see the progress through the struggle. He makes our lives very interesting. I am forever grateful that I was chosen to be his Mommy.

Thank you for reading about it Journey to the Spectrum. Until next time….

JELS Mommy

Our Journey to the Spectrum… Part 2 Denial is not a river in Egypt.... it definitely was my state of mind for a long while...

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