Melissa Batchelor Warnke is a journalist and critic living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Town & Country, San Francisco Magazine, Pacific Standard, U.S. News & World Report, VICE, The Daily Beast, The Verge, The Rumpus, Refinery29, InStyle, Girlboss, The Lily, and The Hairpin (RIP). She is a contributing opinion writer for the Los Angeles Times.
Three summers ago, I did nothing but drive around Middlebury, Vermont, blasting Lana Del Rey and chain-smoking cigarettes. It was—and I will be dramatic, because that is how it felt—an…