Catherine Gigante-Brown

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions wasn't your typical cutesie baby fare. It was raw, real—and unabashedly funny.

Food can be more than nourishing; it can be healing.