Catherine Gigante-Brown

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.

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

All bets were off after 9/11. In a twisted way, it proved to me that worry was fruitless. No one ever saw the terrorist attacks coming.

"Bring over a meal—and leave. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, from soup to nuts. And coffee. Plenty of coffee."

I immediately developed a hot-and-heavy girlcrush on the wild, wacky, brash, candid, feminist, rubber-faced comedian—and you should too.

Re-imagining the cervix, preserving the earth, facing breast cancer a whole new way…Annie Sprinkle’s wisdom abounds. “Life is a performance art piece,” she said...

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

I’m sure you’ll find it a delicious and well-stocked place. There are just a few rules

It sounded too good to be true: comfortable, attractive bra inserts for breast cancer survivors like me. I got on the computer, checked out their website, and immediately put in for one.

Having someone steal my cancer history and co-opt it for their first-person Facebook blog is unbelievably violating. Somehow, it feels almost as invasive as my mastectomy.