Catherine Gigante-Brown

Upset you lost your keys? Try losing your breast. Pissed off about missing that train? Try missing your son’s 8th grade graduation because of a horrific infection from fluid buildup in the previously-mentioned missing breast. See what I mean? It kind of puts life into perspective.

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

A midtown Manhattan studio was recently the site of liberation-both on and offscreen-when Shenshean

I saw my present mother-in-law in a whole new light the first time she held my newborn son.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.