Catherine Gigante-Brown

Like if she steals from you — cash or a boyfriend. Or does something illegal she wants you to be a part of — or lie about. I draw the line at felonies (sometimes even misdemeanors) and you probably should, too.

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

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

If the odds of getting cancer are like Powerball, why couldn't I be a scratch-off millionaire?

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

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

Even though there’s no shortage of condoms in the Netherlands, it’s easier if you have your own birth control. Even if your trip isn’t a booty call, you never know! And if desire hits, you’ll be ready with your favorite type of BC and brand.

Candida Royalle pretty much invented couples erotica. She made it socially-acceptable. Respectable. The women in her films looked like real women and had real, comfortable female bodies. And her movies actually had stories. Good stories. She hired her friends—adult legends like Annie Sprinkle, Veronicas Hart and Vera, and Gloria Leonard — to create Femme films too.

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

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.