Note from the Editors…

Yes, we are late.

Of course, we don't have a good excuse.

Endayta, we are shamed.

And no, we are not lazy, unmotivated so-and-sos. (At least not every day. Well, not every single day.)

First we take a two month vacation, then we are late getting this issue out… next thing you know, we will be charging you to read these pages and … waaaait a second… wait a darnity darn second… now there's a not so wacky idea.

OK. Fine. Your defiant "Ere baki! Yemanachiu defar mooTiwoCH!" is coming in loud and deaf-iningly clear. Everybody knows that we don't posses the requisite wonay to ever ask anyone to pay to read our chikonet. But we are giving serious consideration to those who want to pay us not to litter the Information Super-Highway with our brand of lithe humor.

As we turn the massive wheel of the SELEDA Excuse Vault to brandish new and highly yemayemesil stories to exculpate our tardiness, we realize, enday! YabeTew yefenda! Why burden our readers with imponderous excuses, when the truth would undoubtedly vindicate us? So, here goes…

We're late getting out the October issue because our cherished SELEDA "I am not a Demagogue!" Chieftain had to miss a crucial editorial meeting. Details are sketchy, but the unseemly CHm-CHm'ta being that said CEO was ... 'involuntarily detained' at Bole Airport by burly security forces. Something to do with purportedly trying to sneak onto a red-eye flight to DC after skipping out on an exorbitant bill incurred at a New Year's bash at a swanky hotel.

We here at SELEDA headquarters stand by our word that we, er, never got the 'many, very many' S.O.S telegrams sent by our fearless leader frantically demanding a wire transfer from the SELEDA coffers. We would never dream of letting our supranormal tyrant, we mean, benevolent leader languish in a dank prison cell for such a minor offense. Hmm. A dark, dank, damp, rat-infested, haunted jail cell…

Ahem! Excuse us. Where were we?

Ostensibly, this left our CEO to God-awful devices to try to scrounge up the necessary moolah, and, according to reliable sources, was spotted singing "Abebaye Hoye" door-to-door in order to defray the cost of a week's worth of unbridled hedonism in Addis. (That's a heck lot o' "EnquTaTash, enkuwan dehna meTash" verses, according to the SELEDA comptroller, who's remaining shush about the 7,120.30 Birr 'Personal Services' invoice. We're not allowed to ask anymore questions, and, frankly, we really don't want to know anymore.)

In between bailing out our Chief and trying to spend more time with our still reluctant family members, well, time flew by. All of a sudden, it was October already… and, well, we're scared to open the SELEDA mail. It will never happen again, especially now that any Addis Ababa hotel worth its salt has effectively banned anyone invoking the SELEDA name to mooch off free drinks and 'personal services'.

But onto qum neger. So, what's new at SELEDA?

While we admit that the SELEDA wheels have been slow to turn this month, we are in the throes of ye-dess dess as welcome two new editors to the fold--a couple of no-nonsense, "we-are-purging-this-'zine-of-its-werobelanet" type editors-- who we hope will bring back that lovin' feeling to the SELEDA gentry. We are growing, here at SELEDA, and are inching ever so slowly towards realizing the Greater SELEDA Empire dream.

Well, what's not new is that we have no progress to report on (at least in our minds) the highly anticipated new SELEDA forum we gingerly mentioned last month. The huddling-in-the-corner-and-self-important-sotto voce-discussions on this issue continue at editorial meetings as we try to flesh out the concept. Until we come up with something more concrete, however, we'd be happy to share with you home remedies for knife wounds inflicted by discontented fellow editors. (That is, right after we finish filling out the necessary police forms and testifying in small claims court.) We thank all of you who inquired about the Mother of all Forums, and while we are at it, will thank you for not holding us to promises of a follow up next month.

Since we had some down time while waiting for our boss to storm back into the SELEDA trenches all bitter and neCH-na-CHa, we were able to mull over some new ideas, which had miraculously began to pulsate into our anemic minds. New this month will be the metamorphosis of the current be- jimla Life Diaries to the CHiriCHaro Life Diaries…a convoluted way of saying that LDs will be posted up in once-a-week increments to give it an intriguing twist. Hey, who are we kidding--- we are control freaks and we want you to keep coming back to the SELEDA pages. Ufoye! So, keep coming back to see where our diarists take you.

In "Opinionated Editors" we indelicately inaugurate an occasional feature where SELEDA editors will try to… well, we don't know… ramble? pontificate? …on various subjects. This feature, of course, being the result of the woz -and sometimes lab ader editors winning a class action suit against upper management, whom they have accused of being "ye-naTeTu literary tyrants possessing adhari-ish editorial policies." Vive a-la ekulinet!

On a more positive note, SELEDA number crunchers giddily report that our readership is growing by leaps and bounds. Last month alone we had close to 5,000 hits, which leads us to think that there might be entirely too many of you out there with too much time on your hands. We are, of course, delighted. And as the odious jerba medeleq-ing has us all gobaTa, we will take into consideration that a good percentage of that number must be the same three 'Y2K generation' sharpies, who click the counter forward every time they bounce back to SELEDA from Dictionary.com. Still, not bad for an idea conceptualized during incoherent times and chaotic thought processes. (Not that we will try to convince you that these days are any different.)

We would like to thank all of our October contributors who stifled their 'ye manachichu qebrraroch' instincts to work diligently against impossible deadlines set by very qebrraroch editors. We thank you for rallying around us at the last minute. It gives us hope that there are real people who care about SELEDA besides those of us who are sticking around only until the SELEDA Beanie Babies concept takes off, and then it's Langano, here we come!

On a serious note, a disturbing phenomenon is seeping into the SELEDA medrek, where people are actually volunteering to write for SELEDA without us resorting to the three S's: Seeking, Selamta nesto menetrek, and Seif yezo masferrarat. While we are, we think, happy about this progress, (a sure sign we have struck a cord somewhere) we can't help but get teary-eyed at the thought of having to retire our trusted seif. But that's all deranged qibTet. We welcome writers with open arms. Now, that is progress… pay no attention to all those restraining orders against us.

We promise not to be tardy in November, and hope you enjoy the October issue. As always, we love hearing from you. Drop us a line at editors@seleda.com.

-The Humble Editors-