Catherine Gigante-Brown

The Ultimate Counter Culture Diva

Alexa is like a nosy neighbor: She’s always listening. That’s how she can respond when you ask her to do something. So, when you’re getting busy on the kitchen counter — Alexa’s listening. When you’re telling Capital One the last four digits of your SSN — Alexa’s listening. And who knows who else is.

You realize pretty soon that everything other than cancer — i.e. missing a train, being late to your dentist appointment — is no biggie compared to the suck factor of chemo.

Were you going to run into that cute guy John Williams on the way home? Would you see Anne Marie by the lockers and sort out what to do for the weekend? It was hit-or-miss, and that was the beauty of it. The breath-holding chance of it all. Now, our kids’ friends are as close as a keyboard stroke away. It’s too easy.

I was 21 –– a Catholic, heterosexual college student, living at home in Brooklyn and still trying to discover who I was. At the crossroads of her life, Lorde knew exactly who she was. She was waging a war against cancer and sharing an old house in Staten Island with her kids and partner. But maybe we weren’t so different after all.

To the tattoo artist, I was a flesh canvas that she could transform into something beautiful.

The overinflated American work ethic is slowly killing us. It’s constantly pushing us to do more — put in longer hours, check business emails on personal time, take calls from our bosses when we’re chilling in Cancun.

Food can be more than nourishing; it can be healing.

TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) has been around for at least five centuries –– there’s got to be something to it.

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.