The XX Factor: What women really think.

Ciao for Now

So does that gal attempting to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder remind anyone else of the young woman at Yale who was supposedly documenting her multiple self-induced miscarriages as a senior art project a while back? Not that I have any trouble believing that lots of people would cash that check. Yet something about the whole enterprise seems fishy to me. And I dunno about those "housewives'' either; are they for real or just hideously conforming to expectations? (I wouldn't know, of course. Not because my tastes are so refined but on the contrary because I have to either limit my intake of trash TV or else become one of those people whose life revolves around it. Which I realized years ago when while crossing the street on the Upper East Side, I ran into actress Ruth Warrick, who for years played Phoebe Wallingford on All My Children, and absent-mindedly greeted her—"Hey, Phoebs''—like I thought I was in Pine Valley. Halooo, she called back.) So there it was, my last digression on this blog—but only, of course, because it's also my last post. Honestly, if I have ever had more fun in print than here on XX Factor, it was so long ago that I don't remember. So I'm going to be your biggest fan over at AOL News, where as of next week I'll be writing a column and helping to launch their forthcoming political Web site, PoliticsDaily.com. (My first story—on Hillary's confirmation hearing, as if you had to ask—went up yesterday, and oh, those commenters are way scarier than you guys. My favorite outraged observation: "Hey, this is nothing but your opinion!" Tuh-rue.) So knock 'em dead with Double X, as I'm sure you will, and thanks so much for the great conversations, XX!