He returned to his townhouse and made an espresso and sipped it from a Dixie cup and dicked with his internet for a few hours: checking his stocks, reading the Asheville paper online, particularly the local kissass restaurant reviews that pissed him off, and checked his email every three or so minutes, hoping Marissa would write him and tell him that this was all a huge miscommunication: She didn't mean to fuck that Pilates instructor and fall in love with him; she meant something else!

His stocks neither rose nor fell. Marissa never emailed. He made a turkey sandwich for lunch and read the events calendar at OnMilwaukee.com and thought, sure, loads of Asheville-like existence occurred in Milwaukee: concerts, plays, lectures, poetry readings, real restaurants, and other ways to elevate the facile mind in an otherwise godless, liberal life. But the Falls -- he looked out his window at the piles of dirty snow surrounding the parking lot, at the other townhouses with their shades drawn, at a landscape that seemed to Tom closed in and needing a nap -- what would elevate the mind here?

Mid afternoon, he went to Target and pushed his cart through the house wares department and bought some Emerilware: a sauté pan, a couple of pots, a strainer, et cetera. Tom believed Emeril Lagasse signified the end of artful cooking in America. The guy put enough garlic in every recipe, and enough hot pepper, to kill the entire population of North Korea. It was possible the government planned on using Emeril in their war against everybody who didn't agree with them. North Korea? Bam! Iran? Bam! Don't want to shop at Target? Bam!

No matter. TV food was, as most entertainments had been throughout history, bullshit. You were supposed to look at it, not eat it. Tom purchased Emerilware, therefore, to prove he could accept that most aspects of the planet existed beyond his control.

These were a few uncontrollable items that crossed his mind:

1. Humans misunderstanding other humans.
2. The United States government.
3. Wisconsin in January.
4. The Falls.
5. His middle-age.
6. His marriage on the slag heap.
7. Who cared?