Miley’s Taking Fashion Tips from Taylor Momsen

This is how girlfriend went to Starbucks yesterday afternoon. And though I know I shouldn’t judge, because you should *SEE* the way that I go to Starbucks (think sweatpants, loafers, and a long-sleeved t-shirt; my long hair in a big ball of bedhead tangle and zero makeup), but this outfit reminds me much of the time that Taylor Momsen clomped around New York City last year while she was, duh, also getting coffee:

Uncanny, right? Shit’s almost the same, right down to the boots, only Miley‘s boots aren’t nearly as scary or lethal-looking as Taylor’s are. See the images in the gallery to get the full effect.

Best thing about this photo, though, is that my dad happened to stop in this morning for an early coffee while I was in the process of writing this post (he’s sixty-one years old and still runs almost every single day and drinks coffee like it’s going out of style). And as he peered over my shoulder, loudly sipping his coffee, he said, “Who’s that girl?” (referring to the photo of Miley) and I told him that it was nobody that he knew. “Billy Ray Cyrus’s daughter, Dad.” And he responded, “Well whoever she is, she looks like a bag of smashed assholes one way or the other,” and I had to laugh because for my entire life, that’s been my dad’s biggest insult for anyone. If he really wanted to be cutting and scathing, he’d say, “So-and-so looks like a bag of smashed assholes,” or “Boy, I ran into your friend [fill in the blanks] this morning at the grocery store and [she/he] looked like a bag of smashed assholes. What’s [he/she] been doing to themselves?”

I’d always wondered what that phrase meant, and if anyone anywhere else in the world had ever heard it before, but somehow I’d doubted that. I mean, a bag of assholes? Like, literal assholes, or just a bunch of shitty people all thrown together in a bag? I’d envision the bag as a brown, burlap sack – always a burlap sack – and I could picture that as clear as day. As for the whole ‘smashing’ part, I figured it was done by hammer. Or a mallet of some sort. Definitely a blunt object, but I’d always preferred the hammer bit, myself.

Last, if you’re wondering, yes, this is the kind of stuff that I pondered during my adolescence (and OK, you caught me; my adult years, too), so it’s really no wonder that I’ve ended up the way that I did.

So thanks, Dad. Thanks for making me who I am today. It’s nice to know that someone’s partially to blame at least.