I look up just in time to see the neighbor’s dogs defecate. I don’t know what our home must look like from other people’s basement windows. But I can see the squirrels run through the channel in the top of our fence, the fence built in the “neighbor-friendly” style of offset planks, the style where you can see something of the other side only when you look sideways, not straight on.

I shove chewy protein bars, packed with whey powder, into the band of my underpants because the comfortable pants I wear around the house have no pockets. I do and don’t need pockets around my own home, but I do need snacks. In this stage of life, I know what whey powder is.

I’m a laboratory Caitie in an experiment of my own life. I am the rat and the lab coat.

When I have more button-clicky work to do, as I call it, I find my brain likes noise but nothing too novel. I put the TV I took to college in the office, and I play the Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs a friend got us from our wedding registry.

When I look up from my keyboard, I’m watching Joyce the mom, not Buffy. I Google the actresses to see whose age I’m closer to these days. I’m watching Joyce’s face soften with concern when Buffy is upset, but she says nothing. Her job is to be with her child, for whatever is happening. The viewer knows it’s all she can do, but maybe all parents know that it’s all they can do too.

Vampires can’t enter the home without being invited in. They could, conceivably, pull someone inside out an open window, but if we don’t lean too far out, maybe we’ll be okay. If I keep my energy up, maybe I’ll be okay.

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