Catherine Gigante-Brown

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.

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

"Sometimes David wore his hair spiked like a cockscomb. Others, he wore it feathery like a baby chick. He wore his Mohawk to summer camp (exchanging encouraging head chucks with another older camper who sported one, too) and even to Vacation Bible School—no judgment there."

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

" Sure enough, the doorbell rang one early June day and there she was: curvy, seductive body, smooth black skin, bright blue eyes."

A new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on mammograms ensures more women will die of breast cancer.

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

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

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