Just like me

I rode up to north Berkeley to try Philz coffee; he just opened a new store and has been perfecting blends for two decades. I tried the medium: still burnt and flat in my mind.

Is it strange to feel self-conscious about the fact people around me seem very much like me? Like we're all cutting ourselves into the same shapes.
People on the street are talking about Philz coffee. I'm looking for Philz coffee because I read about it online. We're ants following the good scent.
I lock up my bike: a woman my age is talking ecstatically about the creatures she saw at some aquarium. The leaf seahorse amazed her. She bought an abalone shell filled with succulents at the botanical plant sale. She speaks so rapidly it's like the words are streaming from her gut - the epicenter of culture and feeling - than processing from her brain. That's me!

In England, Russia, Switzerland, New York and San Diego, I couldn't trace the scents because they were so varied, foreign or undesirable. In Berkeley, I'm easily tracing the well-worn path. I suppose now I learn what I'm made of, in a hill of ants like me?

Choosing a career

I met Victoria at the post office on College Avenue.
She regrets going to law school. Lawyers are not nice, she said. They are forced to work long hours. She always tried to contract work part-time but firms usually pulled her in full-time.
"They want your soul," she said.
Victoria is moving to Venice Beach to get away from all the techies in Berkeley and to live near the beach. She calls them pirates.
"No one respects a person's creative efforts and investment," she said. "People pirate everything. These tech devices are wiping out the artists."
She asked for my star sign.
Libra.
A Libra needs balance.
She suggested I pursue a profession more focused on beauty and aesthetic. Perhaps become an architect.