Catherine Gigante-Brown

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

Although I tried to convince myself that I wasn't racist, if the truth were told, I didn't like Muslims. Especially after 9/11.

After I got over the initial devastation, I pulled myself up by my big-girl panties and got on with it. Chemo was no picnic—but it was do-able.

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

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

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

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.

I sat obediently in her chair atop four ancient copies of the Yellow Pages. Crossing my fingers, I prayed Catholic schoolgirl prayers.

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.

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