Because women are fucking awesome…

Kathy Griffin: A powerhouse of real womanhood. And so fucking funny! Check out her official website and if you catch her TV show, Kathy Griffin: Life on the D List…well, you’ll fall in love.

Katharine Graham: When I read Ms. Graham’s autobiography, Personal History, I literally could not put it down. I don’t own a copy any more, because I had to share her story and the book has been passed from one woman to another since I "played it forward." A true princess who became the queen of an empire, quite simply.

Maureen Dowd: An Amazon review says that "If metaphors were cigarettes," Miss Dowd "would be a chain smoker." And it’s true. Her bi-weekly column for the New York Times is one of the highlights of my reading life. I am reading both of her books, Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk and Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide and you should too!

Aretha Franklin: Now that’s a Domina! Her official website.

Dorothy Day: Despite my oft-repeated manifesto that I love God, but abhor religion, all things catholic are dear to my heart, comfort me, connect me…as it is the religion of my childhood. Dorothy Day (read her biography) and the life she lived fuels my fantasies to escape the constructs of my life, move to the inner-city and minister to the sick, feed the hungry, give to the needy. But I don’t have the guts.   At least not yet  Oh, and she smoked like a fiend!  A very cool Catholic chic, indeed.