How do I prepare for my fieldwork: a year in Distinguished University Professor Lynn Margulis’ laboratory? I’ve read Laboratory Life (1986), but I don’t want to be an anthropologist of science. I’m not sure what I have in mind, but something more like Mackenzie and Murphie’s “engagement.” I have a passport and map to get through New England, an old undergraduate microbiology textbook, running shoes, a recent book on earth systems science, diapers for my son and pull-ups for my daughter, a new laptop, a camera, my family, a book contract, emails of unfinished business, a bicycle… Somehow this doesn’t seem enough.