Caesar Augustus does not care about what the little gray bubble with the ellipses does to my anxiety. It rises, floats away, reappears, and then it’s gone again. This is how he treats me—left on read by the first emperor. I’m so sorry that I brought up my mother doing the manic thing she does where she wants to be really involved and is making a ton of plans and I’m just waiting for the crash and feeling terrible for not matching her enthusiasm and thinking I’ll regret pushing back or getting angry at her when she’s dead.

I listened to him go on and on about his lost legions. I sent lol and crying laughing emojis for his story about the two ravens he met after Actium and said it reminded me of a show I used to watch on the Disney Channel. I sent a gif of Raven-Symoné chewing gum, he sent a single question mark, I said it’s from the show, and he sent a thumbs up, which is pretty high and mighty considering his story wasn’t that great, either. One bird said “Greetings to Caesar!” and the other, “Greetings to Antony!” Big fucking deal.

Oh, that was so nice of him to not murder a man who taught a couple of birds to speak to whoever might be emperor. That’s really kind of you, Auggie, or Octavian, or whatever his name is now. When he changed it from Gaius Octavius, I said, ok Prince and he said no, Caesar, and I said I’m not calling you that. He isn’t actually Julius Caesar’s son and he made up the name Augustus.

Look, I’m sorry. No seriously, I am. I just don’t know what to say to her. It’s not fair that no matter what she does or how many times she does it, I’m the bad guy if I bring it up or call it out. I’m sorry about the legions. That really sucks. And 20,000 sesterces is pretty solid to give to a guy for a talking bird. The deadnaming thing really wasn’t cool, either. He can be whoever he wants to be and I’ll support him. I just wish he would fucking text me back.