it was 10pm. 9,000 people were scheduled to arrive at the airport according to uber stats.

lyft was offering $10 on any trip out of LAX so the rideshare waiting lot was full of cars, meanwhile upstairs in the horseshoe it was bumper to bumper because lots of people’s friends came to pick them up

so i had this plan to drive just outside of the lax queue by the rental car place so i could get all the scraps that weren’t coming solely from the airport, and maybe someone dropping off a car

i sat in the benz for about twenty minutes next to a couple of guys putting together their homeless tent and bedding for the night and i declined one bad offer after another. $5 to go to inglewood, $7 to go to hawthorne, $15 to go to dtla.

because it was so slow today i only wanted long trips for big money

which is why when alice’s ping came through for $45 to go to ontario i said hell yeah.

is ontario far? yes. but at that hour the eta was just over an hour. for reference, sometimes it takes me an hour to get from LAX to hollywood for $25, so… yes.

alice was peppy, sweet, borderline adorable. she flew down here from frisco to go to a rave with some of her friends who would meet her at their airbnb

why was she at the dennys? uber wanted to charge her $400 when she opened her app up in the airport. so she figured she’d walk out of the airport and past all the hotels to the dennys.

as denzel washington said in training day, [i heart you already]

alice was talkative and vulnerable and we were getting deep before i made it to the 405 via the century freeway.

i asked sheepishly, so when you say you’re going to a rave, alice, are you one of those straight edge girls who are just there for the music and the plur or are you down to lose your mind and dress up?

she giggled and admitted she is not at all straight edge.

before we made it to the 110 we agreed she should definitely move to australia to get away from all the dramas happening in her life. demanding family. weird friend group. no mans.

but then she told me about this condition she has and i was all i wish this trip would last all night

aphantasia

she said she has no inner monologue and cannot visualize.

she said: so if i say think of an apple, you can picture one, i can’t. i know it’s green or red, but i can’t see it. stupid, right?

alice, this is precisely why i drive a car in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere. tell me everything.

she said, i also can’t solve problems in my head. so if i am at work, and someone asks me something hard, i will say, let me think about that, and i will put my head down but nothing happens. i shut down. im not thinking im not feeling im nothing. like a computer that has been unplugged.

i said, alice, how can i phrase this, first of all, you’re incredible. i’m bursting with questions. in a way, my head is having a rave, normally, but now you have poured a bucket of lsd on it.

my question is, have you ever had a boyfriend?

yes.

so when you kissed him, what would go through your mind?

nothing.

do you dream?

yes but i cant see anything.

so you’ve never had a nightmare?

i’ve had nightmares.

you’re amazing.

i am happy you think that. so many people don’t take me seriously and i haven’t been able to find a therapist who can help me with issues that are unique to this condition, because only 6% of people have this.

way too quickly we got to the oddest airbnb because it was in a little suburban neighborhood with no trees because it was all new, row after row of the same looking tall narrow homes

i gave her my card and said, take me with you to australia when you go