Catherine Gigante-Brown

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

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

Alas, I am the lone female in a house full of men. Only two men, but they take up a lot of space.

I dreaded putting him back on Concerta in the fall but I knew I had to. Or did I?

Mindel and Maria were young teenagers when the horrors occurred—but they remembered the tiniest details with crystal-clear intensity.

When David was about 12, he told me that he wanted to take the train to school alone. My gut reaction was, “No way in hell!” I mean, we live in a safe neighborhood and all, but David has ADHD and was easily distracted. What if he missed his stop? What if someone messed with him?

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

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

I fumbled with my lace bra, hoping my silicone form wouldn't fall out from the left cup. I wasn't exactly ready . . . yet I was.