Six Months since I moved to the Desert

It has now been nearly six months since I moved to Arivaca. For most of that time I have been confined to the 20 square acres of Serenity Ranch. Granted I did have a one week furlough to go to London in November, but other than that the furthest I have ventured is Tucson to the north and Nogales to the south. Ironically, most of Nogales and the part I visited is in Mexico yet it is actually much easier to cross the border than to fight Tucson traffic.

During my time here I have written one journal article, rewritten one book chapter and written four encyclopedia articles. All of these pieces will see publication in the next two years. I have also transmitted knowledge in my capacity as a guru to a couple of graduate students. Finally, I wasted an almost equal amount of time applying for jobs reserved for carbon copies of Angela Davis. In total this work averages out to a little less than an hour a day I think. Tenured professors generally write alot less than a published piece a month on average. So I think they probably only work an average of 15 minutes a day in addition to the six hours a week spent in class. At anyrate in addition to the unpaid work enumerated above I have spent the last six months reading, meditating, bonding with the dog and blogging. Most of my reading has been on the history of Arizona. Recently, however, I have taken an interest in Mexican history. My reading habits are largely determined by what is available at the Arivaca library.

In the next six months I hope to figure out a way to generate income. Although Serenity Ranch is beautiful it is also limited. I would like to be able to see some more of the world and talk to somebody other than my uncle. Much of my time on Meditation Rock is spent trying to figure out how I can earn enough to live off with a Ph.D. in history. So far I have not come up with much. My only other goals in the next six months are to continue to lose weight and to finish the book manuscript I am working on. Both of these are pretty
easy to do in Arivaca.