From:        RomaneWorQ
To:            Melak?
Subject:    Enkuwan Ye Sew FiQir Ye'ennat Mot Yirressal

Melak?!!!!!!!

First of all, you are late buddy--for some weird reason--yeah, I need to get a life or even fake having one, but on Saturday after a long day at a crafts show I got home all pooped and ready to hit the sack 'till I got this nudging feeling to check my email--at 1 am---- sure enough, I was up for disappointment--- I ain't got mail--- Let's just say I went to sleep wondering why, Melak??

I was ready to send my nine page erorro to the SELEDA editors who promised me the sun and the moon plus a speedy response to my entry ...........then I saw 6 am --- I am flattered ... anjete wusT gebah.....

To the Editors--- Remind me to send Melak?e-Gebriel tliQ Tebot or Gider....leQulubi

Afain azegahegNe adele enday?..... Yehay yasTeTal--- I need tinish Katikala. Ere yedaNa yalle !!! I was hoping for some sort of lip sucking lamentation and here u are with ur self assured attitude--- I was expecting the misery loves company chum--gosh u are even worse than that perky intern .. At this point Qinat is chewing my bones out like cancer on ur comment---"my real home will always will be.....where I intend to live out my life." ......ErebakaChihu editors: remind Melak? this is supposed to be ye- b'sot adebabay -- a substitute to my bi weekly visit to the shrink..... so let's stick with the whining and get rid of this happy, happy, joy, joy tone.

Well, I am about to be one of those Abeshas who ask: "Yet'new yetemarkew? Abatih mindnnew yemiserut? Seferih yet new ? Are u related to Sahle Selassie? Mekinachiu mindenat?" to match your chipper tone..... Talk about a damper on my melancholic entry.....whatever u do, don't tell me to eat cake for my problems....Ooops there I go again. I was the one who actually said ye EEnriko cake--- surely that must have been a typo--- I meant "yene Kassa bet Tella" and "yene aduNa Tej" ...

Baygermih, my fingers were just warming up to write my version of "Ende weTach Qerech yeNa sew be New York" sort of seQoQa. I guess I need to change my tone.

Life with its twist and turns plays you like a yoyo. At one point u are one of the enlightened of your generation and then u are tossed in a pool of the appraised and u find urself to be the cream de la wheat of society---- harsh indeed. College alone diced and sliced me like a melon and shredded me into pieces. The person who was so upset to get a rejection letter from Harvard was ready to make her huge fingerprint in the public college. After all, ye-mengist timhirt bet new---and I was ready to honor the campus with my mere presence...I was ready to be the mover and shaker of the campus 'till my first day there. The campus was huge, calculus class was the equivalent of ye meskerem hulet crowd at Abiot Adebabay and the only moving and shaking I was doing for the next few years were the speedy marathon between my classes which were located in aramba'na Qobbo...My student ID was the only thing that mattered, and I realized that the individual attention promised me in the application was ye hlm injera. In fact, I was tempted so many times to transfer out to a smaller college, except my tuition was picked up by one of the Fortune 500 companies that was linked with my department. In return, I had to intern with the company for the summers, which was not bad at all --- it beat the heck out of zemed bet mehEd or the campus jobs at school, and it paid my huge shrink bill (phone calls to high school friends wherever they were).

The big blow came when I got my first C-minus on my philosophy paper. My heart simply stopped ---- surely it was a mistake--- I have seen that grade before---but not on my paper. So naturally, I went to refute my grade with the professor 'till he pulled out a sixty-page paper written by one of the purple haired, tongue pierced fellows whose odor left me nauseated. The person I thought was a pure waste of airspace/sperm proved to be tres deep; compared to his paper, my ten page paper that took me ten days to write and rewrite read like the essay of a third grader out to impress her English teacher....Qes-be-Qes my ego was deflating 'till I had to mematSen Egzitene Mariam to spare me from the humiliation......Well, I neither had the time, the ability nor the passion to crank out a sixty-page paper in jargon that was close to Latin; besides, how could I face losing my scholarship for a philosophy class? With my tail between my legs, I went to the registrar to switch to the sefiew hizeb section (better aroma) from the stinky honor classes. And that, my friend, marked the beginning of my spiral journey to life with the hafash.

The social life on campus was wild. However, I was too busy with schoolwork, and for the most part was too stuck in the dungeon of my department to be part of anything. I tried to be a good girl and never partook in any major drinking or jinjin events. I tried to be part of the AKA sorority and within a week found that I no longer enjoyed bonding with my own gender--- I guess I had 'nuff of that already. SO it was time to go check out the guys. One thing was for sure, I went boy crazzzzzzzzzzy ---to make up for lost time in that all girls' school where there was only one cute guy teacher who occasionally got love letters from the students.

My boy choices were limited to the galleee, hillbilly white dudes and the no English speaking Chinese guys --no y'ager lij in sight, but that was not about to stop me. I had crush after crush after crush ---- and crashed one too many times and along the way smashed a few hearts. K'agere kewetahuN jemro, I tell u yeQlet mhaderay tended to multiply. Good thing gorebet baQrabiyaw guddayen yemyaye alneberem inji.

Initially, I had the equal opportunity dating rule till Jimmy boy pulled out his calculator to charge me $16.77 for my share of dinner. I was like "WegideleN! Byhon byhon, cake asTeQlileh tameTaleh inji..." so I had the pleasure of dumping his cheapo $&*% on Thanksgiving Day on our way to his parents' house. He cried and I was like "minabbatu inde set yaleQaQesal" ... Little did I know that yeJimmy gff would be repaid in full. Then came the Chinese guy 'till I got dumped for lageru lij. Fine, if he wanted to play it like that.....But so far it was harmless dating which, at most, consisted of holding hands. So no major heartache yet. Then the Lebanese guy, then the guy from Azerbaijan, and of course then there were yager lijoch, who tended to cause more commotion in my life than the others......I hate the kiss and tell thing but what the heck... it is time to let the skeletons out..........

My dating life did not turn into a Jerry Springer episode 'till I started dating the Ethiopian guys. Mn abatachew... kosasoch.... Yager lij blo drQet! The thing is, even if I am dating this great non-Ethiopian guy, at the back of my mind I had this feeling that I was missing out on a lot, especially when I called my girlfriends and they talked about how great it was to hook up with them homeboys from Sainjo. I was not fortunate enough--there was only one Ethiopian guy on campus. He was slightly younger than me, and I was not about to potty train the pup...(be'sime Ab) (Rule #1, never ever date young guys and shorties). So I made occasional visits to the closest Ethiopian town during school breaks. I met all sorts of guys, all of them quite interesting. Idmay mestawet new sintun asayegne....

The first Ethiopian guy who was interested in me was this guy, a techie from Sainjo, who could not stop talking about his 4.0 in Matrick. The big turn off was the day he offered to tutor me without even asking how I was doing in school... He sure pushed the wrong button...he must have mistaken me for someone else because the last thing my ego could handle was a free lesson that I sure did not need from a guy--- yeman new! biye Tiggun asiyazkut... Besides that, he dropped occasional hints that I should be majoring in biology (that was more suitable le set lij) than a tech major. That drove me up the wall.

Homey number two was interesting enough 'till he started talking about idget behibret zemecha; he told me he did not make it to the zemecha for the apparent reason. I was like "Yeah, of course u could not possibly go," and he said he lucked out because he was at the university. BeTeQlalaw, I could see my parents' reaction if I took this guy home. Yehe bezie sybeqa, the guy was some neat freak who vacuumed his apartment like three times a day and who had annoying routines that did not complement my equally annoying li'l habits. Besides that, we were on different pages of our lives. Where I wanted to meCHess, he wanted some serious evening out where the topic covered the stock market to the latest interest rate--- a subject foreign to me at the time. So, a'and hulet iyetebabaln salle...

I met Homeslice number three--- yelibb dirQet, yelib eshoh, yanjet kancer, yewegeb wegat...beyond description. Ajere melasun alesleso anjete wusT kegeba bewuwala ajajalegne. I am one of those people who u can never lie to because I pay attention to irrelevant details. Wondemealem gar siderss, I found myself believing all his incredible stories and at times found myself telling those stories to my cousins (their reaction was " Ljetoo lie mestefaQir argobatal inji, Roman inkwan yehnene, yeznib Tengara keruQ new yemitayew)." I was on one big emotional roller-coaster. With no close girlfriend around, I would go to the young Ethiopian pup (Dani) on campus to share some of my chigir. I became ye-Dani mashofiya. Alferdebetim. Min yarg? Sew beTenaw ayijajal. I distinctly remember the day I threw up simply because because he did not call on my birthday....I can still see Dani's jaw on the floor; he thought he was seeing an episode of Melrose Place.. My own reaction gave me the chills. There were also the cluster headache days, the migraine days, the customary 3 a.m. phone calls to tell him I missed him days. (His roommate did not find it amusing) The letters were the worst--- I might as well have been hired by Hallmark because I wrote some spiffy romantic poems....

On the upside, he believed in me and spiced up my boring life. He kept me on my toes; I did not have time to wonder about life and the pursuit of happiness.... I was experiencing every emotional state that could possible be out there. And the days he called, for those brief moments he made me feel like the Queen of the Universe, and those were the highlight of the relationship. I enjoyed his Qebele jokes, his stories, even though they were a far stretch from the truth, and mostly his sensitivity. To make a long story short, after so many episodes of throwing up, shredding and unshredding pictures, one episode of heart murmur and a quick visit to the emergency room, the relationship came to a screeching halt. AneTiffe arba Qen leQso diresuN alku. Now he is a distant memory. And the irony of it all is that he became the standard, the scale to weigh all other guys, and so far he is still holding the gold medal.Mech kbr yewedelenal bileh new....

In all seriousness though, now I think I am ready to train a young pup --- someone who I can mold into my liking. I don't want a man, I want a BOY. A smart, sensitive, caring boy ende silk inCHt gitir yalale, who almost has a gayish quality without actually being one.

I almost forgot that I don't get paid by the editors for spilling my guts... the boss is breathing down my neck for something. I better go pay attention to him. Plus I am losing my focus here....

This entry was written in less than half an hour so it ain't polished like urs --- so disregard any major goofs...plus I don't write for a living unlike u Melak?iye....As I am ready to send this, I am having second thoughts, ....but I guess this will be it.

I promise u the next entry will not include an episode from the Ricki Lake show. Trust me, the few hours spent keCindy'na Amanda gar is paying off now.

S'lleyih be'inba,

Romanalem

From:        Melak?
To:            RomaneworQ
Subject:    ye arba Qen leQso

WorQι-Roman,

Minew yetegelabiTosh hono benebere! eSty nigeriN, had I sent my response at 1 a.m. instead, would you have spared me a curse? Maybe Qedime anjetish wisT bigeba noro, fantaye yih ballhone nebere … While you were casting a spell and outlawing chipperism away at Xando's at Dupont Circle, inem Antife arba Qen LeQso jemerkulish …

… 'iwnetim kibir aywedilaCHu' indalil, she loves mekeberin and she does deserve kibir in all its forms and shape. Before I had even met her, she had already awarded her gold medal - I don't know if loverboy is a homeslice; I have never met him, and his 'businesses' are his and not mine to care about. When it was 'over', she never took the gold away so he got to retain it. When she and I first attempted? to 'hook up' (for the lack of a better expression, mezgebe-Qalatey indanChi Tenkarra ayidelemina) almost a year and a half ago, it had mixed results, for a bunch of reasons. For one, the gold had not been let to collect dust. And then, there was the incident at the same Xando's at the same Dupont Circle - keza bet yebase yeteregeme bota yale aymeslegnim … Xendo na Ibab yizamedu yele? - I say we had an argument, she says we had an argument with me yelling - mechem yemayFetta CHiQiCHiQ. Anyway, it almost erased me from her good books … in the end, the adventurous streak in us came to the rescue. She left the country to bless other parts of the world with her presence, and when she got back to the US, it was my turn to bless (or condemn, depending on who you ask) another part of the world with my extended presence.

A breath taken away once remains taken away for a long time to come. In my mind, I took her with me on all my trips. Whether white-water rafting on the Zambezi or taking a cruise on the Volta, I wished she was there to share it with me. But truth be told, I conversed with my own mind and heart more than I did with her. Truth further be told, she put more effort to keep the candle burning than I did - she picked up the phone from South Africa and Israel and called. Me, I disappeared for months, resurfaced in postcards, letters and e-mails, and then disappeared again. I swung like a pendulum, escaped in the caring arms, bosoms and bliss of another, lost myself in work, and still found myself thinking of her. Maybe a breath once taken is stolen forever ….

Tewedadari yelelew foolishness had cost me dearly in that New England city two half years ago, so I set about to break down my own walls. Inew raSe, milaSen beRase kalanQolaPelaTeskut man yanQolapelaTisiliNal … I went Oprah and confessed it all. I set out to invent a new me that didn't have walls and barbed wires around my heart. When I returned, I asked to be let in, and with hesitation, I was taken in. It was simply magic for she was magic. Everything wasn't smooth, but who cares, I was loose and she poured forth warmth, joy, sensitivity, and honesty -- on a scale I couldn't even have matched. Hey, even my chronic lateness to almost every rendezvous and my once in a while over-reaction to things that don't merit such reaction were excused. She bared her heart and laid out her feelings. She said things that made me feel I was the most cared about man in the world. She had ways with words, with her smile, with the way she tilted her head, with her curly gofere that flies in two hundred directions … forget about the 'self assured attitude' and 'chipperism'. Each one of us have our own little insecurities here and there, and when I was with her, mine were almost erased. She was dead honest; when I was given the chance, it was with the understanding that no gold medal was going to be snatched away from the record holder. If there was one thing as clear as crystal, it was that. Wededkim Telahim … Just as much as I envied that, I thought it was a virtue as well. Gin yigermal Roman, Ande libatchu keQelete Qelete new … yet, she was ready to move on, to give it an honest try, and I was more than getting ready to settle for that, when …

ENTER: record holder and gold medallist in the 2000 love relay, ready for the Sydney Olympics, ready to seal his place in history. After the grand announcement, Captain Confusion was in full command, and the navigation was extremely poor. Of all the Ethiopians I have dated, she caused more emotional havoc in me than anyone of them combined, and she did it in just a month. It was a two way road, I added to her confusion too. At times I said the right things, and at times, I said the dumbest things. But I could tell where she was going. It was over before it had even started.

I liked her, to the bone. She was flaky, but it looked good on her. Put a music on, any music on, and she would start to groove, to dance, to glide … and you just wanted to stand back, smile and just watch. There is this song in Spanish she loves … she was grace. But she loved another man dearly. She loved him before, and she still loved him, to the bone. Faithful to the love, and faithful in every other single way. Nothing more, nothing less. AMAZING. I am yet to meet another person that loves like that. I hope he realizes what he means to her and that he even surpasses her expectation. She told me once, during one of my over-reaction to something trivial, even the slightest deviation from affection and gentleness meant chaos to her. I hope he gives her the happiness she deserves …

She and I, however, will never be the same. You see, she and I were friends before we tried to elevate above that. I can't go back to the before. And that was what the Xando's at a Dupont Circle on a Saturday evening/Sunday morning while you were casting spells and outlawing chipperism was all about. The "What's-up-are-we-going-to-be-friends" "why-can't-we-go-back-to-the-before" thing. Izya yetergeme bet, indegena … I just can't, and for one simple reason, I still like her, to the bone

So, pride-ayn wiCHe, kenferen iyemeTeTku, inem keSHayen anTife arba Qen LeQso teQemiCHalehu. Yebitcha leqso new -- TiQur al'lebs wey nifro alQeQil … and as a grandmother is supposed to have said to her grandson, "This too shall pass" … So, may it please Roman, chipper is not always chipper. Anyway, before I've even had the chance to lock my skeleton in a closet, you have got me exhibiting it. How did we even get here? We sure are far off from the topic of the month … maybe you should tell me indet WeTesh inde Qeresh be New York ketema … By the way, I hope you weren't a mistress to an Italian General during your boy crazzzzzzy days. Anbessaw wendimish Goradewin mezzo Zeraf indaymeTa!

By the way, could I interest you in setting up a 'movie fund' with me, where we can put money aside, invest it wisely, and have Haile Gerima adopt Inde WeTaCh QerreCh into a movie? What a book, what a story … you know, you asked me if I swung by home on my way back from West Africa, and yes I did. And interestingly enough, on a TV programme called "Meet ETV", which is a one on one interview in English with different personalities, Haile Gerima was being interviewed. And what a fantastic piece it was. What an eloquent man, and what a social critic. He was talking on the theme of projecting our history (and for that matter, world history) through our own eyes, our own understandings and not just through the lenses of Anglo and Euro-centric cameras … …. and your question about whether or not we are the lost generation made me think of him, because we are always lost in this country to the extent that we don't have our own role models, our own to look up to in our community.

Guidance in this concrete jungle is essential, but so many from our generation have come to the US only to be left alone to roam and make it on a day to day basis …. Just as many of us are blessed with strong families that are always there to lend advice and impart their wisdom, many are not as fortunate. But role models like Haile Gerima and Noa Samara and others can and are big enough for the entire community to instill inspiration for our generation … and there are so many others out there that we don't know about and have decided not to come out. I don't know what your experience is, but I have gotten to meet a number of people from the generation above us (I am talking about 40s, 50s, 60s - or is this considered two three generation above, anyway whatever) that are doing well but have adopted the attitude, "well, it is now up to you guys" …. They talk as if they are ninety years old and they can't walk or something … No, no, no. it is up to all of us. And I think the first place to start is to build a strong community. And Lord bless, I think many now have begun to realize that because you see signs here and there. Take even SELEDA. They are building a Seledawian community that can in due time be a force in the community …. You know, more than a lost generation, we are a sad generation, because we live at a time when our community is divided. And a community divided is worthless.

Yimesgenew, in 40 days, I will already be in school, shedding a different tear, the one that comes when classes whip your butt left and right. Not to mention when the stress of looking for a job mounts. As it is, I am already in the midst of a crisis … well, in fact, it is a crisis that has been on my mind for a while, and it has to do with how I want to translate my study into a career - through the private sector, foundations, aid agencies, etc … I guess I have a year to figure it out, but working for a private firm in West Africa has corrupted my heart and further dampened my belief in effective development through the aid agencies … whatever, maybe I shouldn't crowd out my tiny brain with such thoughts this early.

Ok, tolo Safilign, but take it easy on me … stylishly, tibodishiNalesh yaleshiw … of course, the shoe shine boy in me had to polish this one as well, but only once … and stop intimidating my by telling me you can write a book in half an hour.

yanChiw

On to Entry Three